Rainy Day Relaxation Road Trip. Romantic Evening Sex All Themes. Articles Features Interviews Lists. Streams Videos All Posts. My Profile. Advanced Search. Track Listing. Jesus Christ You're Tall. Harry Nilsson. It's a Jungle Out There. Down by the Sea. Kojak Columbo. Easier for Me. Turn Out the Light. Salmon Falls. Puget Sound. Sometimes the instruments are so sparse there is just one instrument playing. At other times there is a beautiful depth to the orchestration - helped, I'm sure, by the fact that each player is so closely miked.
I hadn't realised that it was not Perry Botkin but Jim Price who did that work but everything Price asks the musicians to do they do with such sensitivity it compliments Nilsson's voice every bit as well as Gordon Jenkins's work had done 2 years or so before.
Very near the end there is one very short, quiet and high violin note that always sends a shiver down my spine. It 'may' have been an accident - I sincerely hope it wasn't - but even if it were it stands as one of those 'lucky miracles' that happen in music from time to time. This song suits Harry's post throat-problems voice very well indeed. The slightly cracked and hoarse quality it had at this time does not detract from the beauty of his singing and this, rather inappropriately, wistful ballad would be an early choice if I ever put together another 'Nilsson Ballads' compilation one day.
Other reviewers have come to the same conclusion as me inasmuch as the central four songs on Duit on Mon Dei from 'Easier For Me' through to 'Puget Sound' are the strongest songs on the album. It's not hard to come to that opinion - these four songs would hold their own against most Nilsson material, especially late-era. We know that Harry had had this song in his mind for quite some time - a version was recorded during the Pussy Cats sessions and is a bonus track on the Buddha reissue.
But this version brings in Robert Greenidge and his steel pans again as well as a very large group of saxophonists and pairs of trumpet players and trombonists. Completing the eclectic group of backing musicians are a trio of guitarists, Van Dyke on piano, a harp, drums, more marimba and - as far as I can ascertain - the only instance on a Nilsson recording of a cymbalom.
This 'orchestra' was assembled by young American composer Fredric Myrow. Myrow had come to prominence in his teens when his early compositions were lauded by established musicians including Shostakovich and he had served as composer in residence for the New York Philharmonic under Leonard Bernstein.
His entry into the world of pop music came via no less a figure than Jim Morrison, with whom he began an aborted rock opera. By the time he worked with Nilsson Myrow had already written film scores for several Hollywood movies, including the sci-fi cult classic 'Soylent Green'. It is both a powerful and energetic backing and Harry sings over it with tongue-in-cheek and together is produced one of those 'happy - make you smile' records.
This has always been my favourite song on this album. Composed along with Klaus Voorman Harry wrote the words, Voorman the music it is an epic production coming in at over 4 minutes and is the highlight of Perry Botkin's work on the album. Instead the steel pans and Botkin's own orchestra layer the accompaniment.
There is barely a hint of that here or elsewhere on Duit excepting the 'party' songs yet to come. This track is the best showcase for Robert Greenidge's work on Duit. Most of us associate steel drums with bands performing at carnivals in the UK, most notably, the famous Notting Hill Carnival in London , playing rather hackneyed tunes like 'Rivers of Babylon'.
With performances like this one Greenidge lifts to the instrument to the heights of a 'solo virtuoso' calibre. Performers like Greenidge truly are the Yehudi Menhuins and Ashkenazys of their own instrument and deserve due recognition.
If Greenidge takes the plaudits alongside Harry, who gives a full-blooded and dedicated vocal performance, then well-worth a mention at least is the staggeringly intricate and beautiful piano work of Jane Getz throughout the last third of the song.
Getz was a former child prodigy in the world of jazz but she turned her back on the genre for more than twenty years, working as a session musician in LA before a triumphant return to her jazz roots in the s, fronting her own band and recording acclaimed albums. Here we have, basically, a nursery rhyme set to music - an original one at that.
Musically the song is sax-driven with the ever-present array of percussion giving another distinctly Latin feel. As if to accentuate this Harry employs one of his silly voices it comes out as an amalgam of Caribbean and the old Maurice Chevalier impression from 'The Most Beautiful World'.
The song works despite its simplicity. I always feel that these three final tracks sort of re-enact the Pussy Cats 'party album' feel. This song had been around, anyway, since the Son Of Schmilsson album sessions but had never quite been 'finished'. With Botkin at the helm, though, it has a more organized brand of aural chaos compared to the earlier attempts.
This is a song in the 'Gospel' style and the 'Zodiac Singers' lend their voices to the arrangement. Gloria Jones features as Harry's duettist on the lead vocal. Jones was the partner of English pop star Marc Bolan T Rex and mother of his child and, sadly, would a couple of years later be responsible for his death while drunk at the wheel of his car.
Bolan is widely believed to have contributed more just than his partner to Duit and is mentioned on the sleeve. As all guitars are so low in the mix throughout the album it would be almost impossible to confirm any participation, however limited it may have been. The joke in the song is the astrological nonsense, of course and a joke about 'a pair of forty-fours'.
Rather lame in truth but they sound like they were having fun! Back to that familiar Latin again for this penultimate track. It gets rather lost at the end of an album that could only have possibly started going downhill after 'Salmon Falls' this harmless ditty is harmless enough but given even the rosiest-tinted spectacles can never raise it much higher than the status of a filler.
The first was a cover of Badfinger's song "Without You" by Pete Ham and Tom Evans , featuring a highly emotional arrangement and soaring vocals to match, a performance that was rewarded with Nilsson's second Grammy Award.
The second single was "Coconut", a novelty calypso number featuring three characters the narrator, the sister, and the doctor all sung in different voices by Nilsson. The song is best remembered for its chorus lyric, "Put de lime in de coconut, and drink 'em both up. The song has since been featured in many other films and commercials. It was also used in a comedy skit on The Muppet Show, which featured Kermit the Frog in a hospital bed.
The song was also used during the end credits of Quentin Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs. The third single, "Jump into the Fire", was raucous, screaming rock and roll, including a drum solo by Derek and the Dominos' Jim Gordon and a bass detuning by Herbie Flowers. The song was famously used during the May 11, , scenes in the film Goodfellas. Nilsson followed quickly with Son of Schmilsson , released while its predecessor was still in the charts.
Besides the problem of competing with himself, Nilsson's decision to give free rein to his bawdiness and bluntness on this release alienated some of his earlier, more conservative fan base. Still, the album did well, and the single "Spaceman" was a Top 40 hit. However, the follow-up single "Remember Christmas " stalled at The maverick This disregard for commercialism in favor of artistic satisfaction showed itself in Nilsson's next release, A Little Touch of Schmilsson in the Night Performing a selection of pop standards by the likes of Irving Berlin, Kalmar and Ruby, Nilsson sang in front of an orchestra arranged and conducted by veteran Gordon Jenkins in sessions produced by Derek Taylor.
While in hindsight, the sessions showcased a talented singer in one of his best performances, this was not the sort of musical endeavor that was likely to burn up the charts in the s.
The performance has yet to be released on home video. Lennon was intent upon producing Nilsson's next album, much to Nilsson's delight. However, their time together in California became known much more for heavy drinking and drug use than it did for musical collaboration. In a widely publicized incident, they were ejected from the Troubadour nightclub in West Hollywood for drunken heckling of the Smothers Brothers.
Both men also caused property damage during binges, with Lennon trashing a bedroom in Lou Adler's house, and Nilsson throwing a bottle through a thirty-foot hotel window.
To make matters worse, Nilsson ruptured a vocal cord during the sessions for this album, but he hid the injury due to fear that Lennon would call a halt to the production. The resulting album was Pussy Cats. After the relative failure of his latest two albums, RCA Records considered dropping Nilsson's contract. In a show of friendship, Lennon accompanied Nilsson to negotiations, and both intimated to RCA that Lennon and Starr might want to sign with them, once their Apple Records contracts with EMI expired in , but wouldn't be interested if Nilsson were no longer with the label.
Nilsson's voice had mostly recovered by his next release, Duit on Mon Dei , but neither it nor its follow-ups, Sandman and …That's the Way It Is both met with chart success. Finally, Nilsson recorded what he later considered to be his favorite album, 's Knnillssonn. With his voice strong again, and his songs exploring musical territory reminiscent of Harry or The Point! RCA Victor seemed to agree, and promised Nilsson a substantial marketing campaign for the album.
However, the death of Elvis Presley caused RCA Victor to ignore everything except meeting demand for Presley's back catalog, and the promised marketing push never happened. Harry Nilsson's London flat Nilsson's s London flat in the building at 12 Curzon Street on the edge of Mayfair, was a two-bedroom apartment decorated by the design company that ex-Beatle Ringo Starr and Robin Cruikshank owned at that time. Nilsson cumulatively spent several years at the flat, which was located near Apple Records, the Playboy Club, Tramps disco and the homes of friends and business associates.
Nilsson's work and interests took him to the U. During one of his absences, ex-Mamas and Papas singer Cass Elliot and a few members of her tour group stayed at the flat while she performed solo at the London Palladium, headlining with her Torch Songs and "Don't Call Me Mama Anymore. On September 7, , The Who's drummer Keith Moon returned to the same room in the flat after a night out, and died from an overdose of chlormethiazole, a prescribed anti-alcohol drug.
Nilsson, distraught over another friend's death in his flat, and little need for the property, sold it to Moon's bandmate Pete Townshend and consolidated his life in Los Angeles. He wrote a musical, Zapata, with Perry Botkin, Jr. He wrote all the songs for Robert Altman's movie-musical Popeye , the score of which met with unfavorable reviews.
Nilsson's Popeye compositions included several songs that were representative of Nilsson's accalimed "Point" era, such as "Everything is Food" and "Sweethaven". However, Nilsson increasingly began referring to himself as a "retired musician". Nilsson was profoundly affected by the murder of his close friend John Lennon on December 8, He joined the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence and overcame his preference for privacy to make appearances for gun control fundraising.
After a long hiatus from the studio, Nilsson started recording sporadically once again in the mid to late s. Most of these recordings were commissioned songs for movies or television shows. Nilsson donated his performance royalties from the song to the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence. In Nilsson set up a production company, Hawkeye, to oversee the various film, TV and multimedia projects he was involved in.
He appointed his friend, satirist and screenwriter Terry Southern as one of the principals, and they collaborated on a number of screenplays including Obits a Citizen Kane style story about a journalist investigating an obituary notice and The Telephone, a one-hander about an unhinged unemployed actor.
The Telephone was virtually the only Hawkeye project that made it to the screen. It had been written with Robin Williams in mind but he turned it down; comedian-actress Whoopi Goldberg then signed on, with Southern's friend Rip Torn directing, but the project was troubled.
Torn battled with Goldberg, who interfered in the production and constantly digressed from the script during shooting, and Torn was forced to plead with her to perform takes that stuck to the screenplay. Torn, Southern and Nilsson put together their own version of the film, which screened at the Sundance Film Festival in early , but it was overtaken by the "official" version from the studio, and this version premiered to poor reviews in late January The project reportedly had some later success when adapted as a theatre piece in Germany.
In Hawkeye collapsed and Nilsson found himself in a dire financial situation after it was discovered that his financial adviser Cindy Sims had betrayed his trust and embezzled all the funds he had earned as a recording artist.
After the murder of John Lennon, he began to appear at Beatlefest conventions to raise money for gun control and he would get on stage with the Beatlefest house band "Liverpool" to either sing some of his own songs or "Give Peace a Chance. Afterwards, an emotional Ringo Starr embraced Nilsson on stage.
Death Nilsson's health had deteriorated, and he suffered a massive heart attack in After surviving that, he began pressing his old label, RCA, to release a boxed-set retrospective of his career, and resumed recording, attempting to complete one final album. He finished the vocal tracks for the album on 15 January with producer Mark Hudson who still holds the tapes of that session, and then died that night of heart failure.
John Lennon, which opened September 15, Nilsson himself is the subject of a documentary, Who is Harry Nilsson?
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