Remembering Harry Nilsson
By Steven P. Wheeler
On what would have been his 78th birthday today, June 15, I’m remembering the late great singer-songwriter Harry Nilsson. A few months before his untimely death in January of 1994, I was fortunate enough to interview this Grammy-winning musical enigma. Sadly, it was one of the final two interviews Nilsson ever did.
At the time of my meeting with him in late 1993, Harry Nilsson was known as much for his incredibly versatile and golden voice, amazing and wide-ranging songwriting talent and often confusing choice of musical directions as he was for a legendary hedonistic streak that was now finally in the rearview mirror. He may have been going through personal and health issues when we met, but his sense of humor was still fully intact.
“Harry was a big bunny… with really sharp teeth.”
Paul Williams, songwriter/friend
During my days in corporate America, I used Harry’s brilliant lyric line from “Old Dirt Road,” recorded by his longtime pal John Lennon, as my email signature: “Shoveling smoke with a pitchfork in the wind.” While the bosses may never have liked it, those who did were instantly bonded with me (and Harry).
Speaking of Lennon, The Beatles were Nilsson’s biggest fans at a time when the Fab Four were the most colossal thing on Planet Earth. And after the Beatles’ split in 1970, Nilsson and Lennon worked together creatively (on Nilsson’s 1974 Pussy Cats album) and also gained infamy during Lennon’s “lost weekend” period at the time. A wild and crazy era that culminated with the drunken duo being literally thrown out of the Troubadour in West Hollywood, which became the stuff of legends.
This Beatle connection continued through the years as Ringo Starr served as best man at Nilsson’s 1976 wedding to Una O’Keefe, who remained his wife until his death. The two had six children together to go along with a seventh child from one of Harry’s two previous marriages.
From Banker to Songwriter
Nilsson began his music career as a songwriter in the early Sixties, while still keeping his full-time job as a computer specialist for Security First National Bank in Van Nuys, California. His amazing singing voice was also starting to get noticed in the recording studio by other artists who were recording his early songwriting attempts; artists like Little Richard. He even worked with iconic producer Phil Spector at one point in 1964, co-writing some tunes.
The Fab Connection
By 1966, Nilsson released his debut album which went nowhere, but his sophomore effort Pandemonium Shadow Show at the end of 1967 caught the ear of the Fab Four and things would change forever. Nilsson’s album included two Beatle covers (“She’s Leaving Home” and “You Can’t Do That,” which became a modest first hit for him) and his self-penned “Cuddly Toy,” which was also recorded by The Monkees that same year.
Nilsson’s innovative cover of “You Can’t Do That” in 1967 includes more than a dozen lyrical snippets from other Beatle songs. One can consider it the harbinger of today’s “mash-up,” some 25 years before the term came into being.
During a press conference at the time, when asked about his favorite American artist, John Lennon said “Nilsson” and Paul McCartney agreed. This led to an avalanche of media phone calls to the little known American artist, and a trip to meet the Beatles soon followed.
It was in 1968, while Nilsson was scoring legendary director Otto Preminger’s soon-to-be celluloid flop, Skidoo. “I got a call from Derek Taylor [the Beatles’ publicist], who said that the boys wanted to know if I’d like to come down and see their sessions for the White Album,” he recalled during our conversation. “So I asked Otto for a week off and he agreed.” Harry does a humorous imitation of the German-born director, saying, ‘Yes, go see dem and ask dem to zing in my moo-vie’.”
Accordingly, Nilsson talked the director into paying for his flight to London, where he met Taylor at Apple headquarters. “Later that same afternoon, Paul McCartney called the office to say he was looking for songs for Mary Hopkins’ album,” he recalled. “So I wrote a song for her right then [‘The Puppy Song’] and Paul produced it.” Nilsson would record the song himself the following year, and his version would be used 30 years later in the opening credits of the Tom Hanks/Meg Ryan box-office hit, You’ve Got Mail.
“I went to John’s house and it was the same day that [John’s wife] Cynthia moved out and Yoko moved in. John and I stayed up all night and into the next day, just talking about life and philosophies and wives and divorce.”
(interview by Steven P. Wheeler)
But it was later in the evening on that same day which birthed a deep friendship with Lennon. “I went to John’s house and it was the same day that [John’s wife] Cynthia moved out and Yoko moved in,” he said, matter of factly. “John and I stayed up all night and into the next day, just talking about life and philosophies and wives and divorce.”
Fame Comes Knockin’
Mass success soon followed the Midas touch meeting with the Fabs with the release of his album, Aerial Ballet. Bolstered by the iconic hit “Everybody’s Talkin’,” which, a year later, would earn Nilsson the first of his two Grammys when the song reached dizzying heights by being featured in the classic Jon Voight/Dustin Hoffman film Midnight Cowboy.
While that song was penned by Fred Neil, another song from that same album, written by Nilsson, “One,” would became a million-selling hit for Three Dog Night. And when you’re on a roll, everything turns to gold, and anyone remembering the hit television series The Courtship of Eddie’s Father can instantly sing the theme song “Best Friend” that Nilsson wrote and sang during the making of Aerial Ballet. That famous song was strangely enough never included on a Nilsson album.
Throughout the early part of the Seventies, Nilsson’s legacy was cemented into pop music history with such iconic and varied hits as the Grammy-winning ballad “Without You,” the hilarious calypso classic “Coconut,” “Me and My Arrow,” “Jump Into the Fire,” “Spaceman” and “I Guess the Lord Must Be in New York City.”
And being the maverick that he was, all of this success was accomplished without Nilsson EVER performing a concert or going on tour. When we discussed this bizarre fact, Nilsson would only say, with a laugh, “I never did a concert, and I think I may be the first singer-songwriter to not do that,” before adding that he did join Ringo Starr onstage for one performance of “Without You” in September of 1992.
“It’s funny because Ringo and I met in our twenties, and in our thirties we talked about performing in our forties. But we didn’t actually get around to doing it until our fifties [laughs].”
(interview by Steven P. Wheeler)
Studio to the Screen
Beginning with his 1970 album The Point, which was followed by an animated film adaption written by Nilsson and airing on ABC shortly after the album’s release, the singer-songwriter dabbled with the visual arts throughout his career. He starred with Ringo in the ill-fated rock-horror-comedy Son of Dracula in 1974. In the Eighties, Nilsson formed a production company, Hawkeye, with screenwriter Terry Southern. He also wrote all the songs for the Robin Williams film Popeye, and even co-wrote the screenplay for the 1988 Whoopi Goldberg film The Telephone, which was directed by Rip Torn. However, ultimately, the success Nilsson found in music he didn’t find in film.
Final Words
At the time of our interview, Harry Nilsson was recording some demos with the help of producers Mark Hudson and Andy Cahan. In fact, it was Cahan who contacted me asking me to do an interview with Harry as a way of letting record companies know that the former star was working on new material.
The reasons for this were two-fold. Nilsson, who hadn’t released an album since 1980, would need a record deal and he also had some very bad luck in the previous two years. First, it was discovered that his longtime accountant had been embezzling from him, resulting in Nilsson having to file for bankruptcy. At the time of our interview the accountant was serving a four-year prison sentence. Then on Valentine’s Day in 1993, Nilsson suffered a major heart attack.
Despite it all, his sense of humor shone through in discussions about his flamboyant past and even when he talked about his latest material, which included a country-styled song he called, “What’s a 245-Pound Man Like Me (Doin’ On a Woman Like You).” Now that’s Harry.
His final words to me that day spoke volumes: “I need things to make me laugh these days.” Harry Nilsson passed away from heart failure on January 15, 1994.
Posthumous Releases
A year later, in 1995, the two-CD anthology Personal Best: The Harry Nilsson Anthology was released. And fifteen years after that the long-awaited and powerful documentary film Who is Harry Nilsson (And Why is Everybody Talkin’ About Him?) was finally released to theaters and DVD in 2010.
The wide-ranging cast of famous friends and associates who speak candidly about their one-of-a-kind friend in the film is staggering, from the musical world (Brian Wilson, Randy Newman, Al Kooper, Yoko Ono, Jimmy Webb and Paul Williams) to the comedy and film universe (Robin Williams, Eric Idle and Terry Gilliam). It’s a riveting warts-and-all look into the life and times of a musical genius and totally unique artist.
I’m humbled I got the chance to spend some time with Harry and I find it nice to think of Nilsson and Lennon sharing their thoughts together again. Oh to be a fly on that wall…
Since it’s the weekend, here are two of Harry’s most off-color cult favorites “You’re Breakin’ My Heart” (aka “The F#@k You Song”) and “I’d Rather Be Dead.”