The Harry Nilsson Web Pages


Harry Nilsson News (2025-02-20)

Newly-Released Film of Harry Nilsson and Ringo Starr at the Son Of Dracula Premiere

A newly-released film shows Harry Nilsson and Ringo Starr attending the premiere of Son of Dracula.

 

Harry Nilsson and Ringo Starr at the Son Of Dracula Premiere

Harry Nilsson News (2024-12-24)

Richard Perry Has Died

Richard Perry, producer of Harry Nilsson's Nilsson Schmilsson has died. Perry died at age 82 on December 24, 2024.

 

Harry Nilsson News (2024-09-21)

Harris/Waltz Advertisement Uses "Best Friend"

On September 19, 2024, the Kamala Harris presidential campaign released a video showing clips of rival Donald Trump praising Mark Robinson a gubernatorial candidate under scrutiny for posting inflammatory comments on a pornography website. Nilsson's "Best Friend" plays throughout the short video.

 

 

 

The video was posted on X (Twitter) but later superceded by a longer TV commercial without Nilsson's song.

Harry Nilsson News (2024-09-05)


Herbie Flowers - "Jump Into the Fire" Bass Player - Has Died

Herbie Flowers died on September 5, 2024, at the age of 86. Flowers was a member of several groups including Blue Mink, T. Rex, and Sky. As a session musician, he played bass guitar, double bass, and tuba on recordings for artists including Elton John, David Bowie, Lou Reed, David Essex, Al Kooper, Bryan Ferry, Cat Stevens, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, Ringo Starr, and Harry Nilsson.

 

Flowers played bass on Nilsson's Nilsson Schmilsson album and created the famous "detuning bass" part in "Jump into the Fire."

 

Harry Nilsson News (2023-09-05)

The Dream Weaver Has Died

Gary Wright died at his home in Palos Verdes Estates, California, on September 4, 2023. Although best known for his solo hits "Dream Weaver" and "Love Is Alive" - and having been born and raised in the US - Wright first caught the attention of music fans as a member of the British band Spooky Tooth in the late 1960s. Wright left the band in early 1970 to begin a career as a solo artist and session musician.

 

In 1971 Harry Nilsson recorded "Without You" which was destined to be his biggest hit. Rick Wakeman played the piano for an early take of the song, Nilsson and his producer, Richard Perry, decided that Wakeman's track was "too busy, too complex."

 

So we replaced Rick Wakeman with Gary Wright and he began, just like you hear on the record, very simple. It was just right![1]

 

 



 

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Featured Article of the Day


When Harry Met E. J.

This article originally appeared in Everybody's Talkin'.

 

By E. J. Gold

 

My stepfather worked in the late fifties and early sixties as the marketing director at Capitol Records until he was put out to pasture on an empty desk when EMI Britain took over and installed their own people in key positions - as is the wont of all major corporations. Until that downsizing, I spent a considerable time at Capitol, meeting many industry people only incidentally, since I didn't work there.

 

My friend Sheila, who used to work at Capitol, often drove Harry around before I did, and we had at that time what amounted to an eye-contact introduction and, like Mac Rebennack who was also there at those first RCA sessions, we didn't actually connect as friends until sometime later.

 

Sometime in 1967, after I quit KNX/KNXT/Columbia, where I was on salary, and Elektra and Mercury studio vocal overdub gigs, where I wasn't, I suddenly found myself on staff at a number of teen magazines, and freelancing for Ralph and Charles at Tiger Beat/MONKEE Spectacular. I also worked for Mod Teen, of which I was editor, and five other teen-fan rags.

 

Jack Lewis and I cut some demos at Gold Star (who didn't?) in the mid-sixties, and worked clubs in the Los Angeles, California, area as a very unfunny comic team. I might have met Harry briefly at this time, but frankly would have been more attentive to Perry Botkin or George Tipton.

 

My wife Linda and I lived on the wrong end of Sunset, the Silverlake District, on Edgecliffe, and one night I got a phone call from my friend, Grelun Landon, whose wife was an ardent sci-fi fan, and Gre was aware that I'd been working as a photographer and teen fanzine writer (I can't bring myself to say 'author').

 

The upshot of the call was that I should get into a car and go directly to RCA's studios on the ground floor of the RCA Hollywood building, so I could meet and help publicize their new discovery, Harry Nilsson.

 

I duly loaded my cameras and tape recorder (early Sony) into my hand-painted NSU Spider, called my wife Linda to tell her where I'd be for the next unknown number of hours, and rattled off in the direction of Ivar and Sunset.

 

I was allowed a space in the parking structure and escorted to the studio, where Harry was talking with Rick Jarrard and my good friend, Bill Graham, Jr.. Bill was also very excited about Harry, and I knew I was in for something artistically special.

 

After a couple of years working onstage and off with the denizens of Be-Ins, Love-Ins, Freak-Outs and other bizarre mating practices, I was ripe for good music any time. (I had hung out with jazz greats in NYC and was spoiled for the AM market by the time I was a year old.

 

I auditioned "Without Her", which Harry had brought with him to RCA, according to my understanding, so that Rick could hear it with several upstairs folks (what we called Joe Reisman and associates), then Harry and I talked a bit, mostly about science fiction (he was a longtime Galaxy Magazine fan and had the wish to be a Galaxy author since he had first read it as a youngster).

 

After the excitement following the audition had died down - it took a while, believe me, because nobody in the industry had ever heard anyone quite like Harry before - several of us, Harry among them, had lunch at Martoni's, hit it off great, were great friends thereafter, and still are.

 

Welcome to the Harry Nilsson Web Pages

This site is dedicated to the music and memory of Harry Nilsson. From the late 1960s through the early '90s, Nilsson produced music that both challenged norms and celebrated the past - often within the same song.
On first listen, his early Pandemonium Shadow Show is just an appealing collection of bouncy pop songs, a product of the time when it was released. But, on closer listen songs like "1941" and "Without Her" feature poignant and wistful lyrics on top of their upbeat, pop melodies. To the listener in the late 1960s, the melodies and songs, such as “Freckles” sometimes invoked what would have seemed a nostalgic air, but they still sound fresh more than fifty years later.
Nilsson remained unconventional throughout his career. He never toured to support an album and he made few TV appearances. He released an album of songs which were all written by another songwriter. He recorded an album of standards in front of an orchestra. He followed up his best selling album and song with an album featuring a song pretty much guaranteed to surprise, if not offend, his new fans.
Harry ventured into movies and TV, creating a classic animated story (“The Point!”) and writing the music and songs for the once-panned, but now cult favorite, film Popeye starring Robin Williams.
In the last years of his life, after his friend John Lennon was shot and killed, Harry stepped back from music and, ironically perhaps, more into the public eye as the spokesperson for the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence advocating for sensible gun laws in America.
A heart attack took Harry’s life in early 1994. Yet, his memory lives on in the hearts and minds of his friends, family, and fans. And his music lives on with Sony releasing a comprehensive collection of his works on CD and his music being featured prominently in TV and movies.