Harry Nilsson - Signs (1972)

Harry Edward Nilsson III was born on 5 June 1941 in Bedford–Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, New York City, of Swedish descent through his paternal great-grandfather. By 1958, he was intrigued by emerging forms of popular music, especially rhythm and blues artists like Ray Charles, and had made early attempts at performing while he was working at the Paramount Theatre. Forming a vocal duo with his friend Jerry Smith, they sang close harmonies in the style of the Everly Brothers, with Nilsson learning to play the guitar and piano along the way. Due to his family's poor financial situation, he worked from an early age, including that job at the Paramount Theatre in Los Angeles, and when the theatre closed in 1960, he applied for a job at a bank, falsely claiming that he was a high school graduate on his application. He had an aptitude for computers, which were starting to be used at banks at the time, and later performed so well in his role that the bank retained him even after they discovered he had lied about his education. He worked on bank computers at night, and in the daytime pursued his songwriting and singing career, and in 1962 his natural talent helped him to get a job singing demos for songwriter Scott Turner, being paid five dollars for each track they recorded. In 1963, Nilsson began to have some early success as a songwriter, working with John Marascalco on a song for Little Richard, and Marascalco also financed some independent singles by Nilsson, one of which, 'Donna, I Understand', convinced Mercury Records to offer him a contract, and to release recordings by him under the name "Johnny Niles". By 1964, he was working with Phil Spector, writing three songs with him, and he also established a relationship with songwriter and publisher Perry Botkin, Jr., who began to find a market for his songs. Through his association with Botkin, Nilsson met and became friends with musician, composer and arranger George Tipton, who invested his life savings to finance the recording of his arrangements of four Nilsson songs, which they were able to sell to the Tower label, and which were subsequently included on Nilsson's debut album. Tipton went on to create the arrangements for nearly all of Nilsson's RCA recordings between 1967 and 1971, but their association ended in the 1970's when the two fell out. 

In 1966, Tower released the first singles actually credited to him by name, as well as the debut album 'Spotlight On Nilsson', but none of  these records charted or gained much critical attention, although his songs were being recorded by Glen Campbell, Fred Astaire, The Shangri-Las, The Yardbirds, and others. In 1966 Nilsson signed with RCA Victor and released the album 'Pandemonium Shadow Show' the following year, which was a critical, if not a commercial, success. Music industry insiders were impressed both with the songwriting and with his pure-toned, multi-octave vocals, and his songwriting success hit a peak when The Monkees recorded his 'Cuddly Toy'. 'Pandemonium Shadow Show' was followed in 1968 by 'Aerial Ballet', an album that included his rendition of Fred Neil's song 'Everybody's Talkin'', which was a minor US hit for him at the time of its release, but which became one of his most famous recordings when it was featured in the film 'Midnight Cowboy' the following year. 'One', from the 'Aerial Ballet' album, was covered by Three Dog Night and taken into the top 5 of the US charts, and Nilsson was commissioned at this time to write and perform the theme song for the ABC television series 'The Courtship Of Eddie's Father'. He wrote 'Best Friend', which was very popular, but he never released the song on record, although the original version of the song (titled 'Girlfriend') was recorded during the making of 'Aerial Ballet', although it didn't make the cut. His next album 'Harry' came out in 1969, being his first to hit the charts, and it also provided a Top 40 single with 'I Guess The Lord Must Be In New York City', and while the album still presented him as primarily a songwriter, his astute choice of cover material included songs such as Randy Newman's 'Simon Smith And The Amazing Dancing Bear'. In fact Nilsson was so impressed with Newman's talent that he devoted his entire next album to Newman compositions, with Newman himself playing piano behind Nilsson's multi-tracked vocals on 1970's 'Nilsson Sings Newman'. 

His next project was the animated film 'The Point!', created with animation director Fred Wolf, and broadcast on ABC television on 02 February 1971 as an "ABC Movie of the Week". His self-produced album of songs from 'The Point!' was well received, and it spawned a top 40 single with 'Me And My Arrow'. Later that year, Nilsson went to England with producer Richard Perry to record what would become the most successful album of his career, 1972's 'Nilsson Schmilsson', which yielded three stylistically different hit singles, one of which he will forever be associated with. He didn't even write 'Without You', which was a cover of a song by Badfinger, written by Pete Ham and Tom Evans, but he gave the definitive performance of the song, recorded, according to Perry, in a single take. The second single was 'Coconut', a novelty calypso number, and the final one was 'Jump Into The Fire', which was a raucous rock and roll track, including a drum solo by Derek and the Dominos' Jim Gordon and a detuned bass part by Herbie Flowers. He followed this quickly with 'Son Of Schmilsson' the same year, released while its predecessor was still in the charts, but alongside the problem of competing with himself, he was also ignoring most of Perry's production advice, and his decision to give free rein to his bawdiness and bluntness on this release alienated some of his earlier, more conservative fan base, and it was at this point that Nilsson and I parted company. I'd loved his early work, and agree that 'Nilsson Schmilsson' is a masterpiece, but I have little time for much of his work post 1973, so this collection therefore covers all the bases for me. It includes demos, b-sides and out-takes from 1968 to 1972, plus a rare Italian single which he recorded some time in 1967, when he was recording some of his songs in the language, and which was later used as the b-side to his 1972 Italian recording of 'Without You'. 

Track listing

01 As I Wander Lonely (out-take 1967)
02 Signs (demo 1967)
03 The Family (out-take 1967)
04 World (demo 1967)
05 Miss Butter's Lament (out-take 1967)
06 I'll Never Leave You ('The Point' out-take 1971)
07 She's Just Laughing At Me (out-take 1968)
08 You Are Here (out-take 1968)
09 Sister Marie (stereo version of b-side of 'One' 1968)
10 Girlfriend (demo 1968)
11 Leggenda (Italian single 1968)
12 Buy My Album (b-side of 'Down To The Valley' 1970)
13 Paradise (demo 1971)
14 Waiting (single 1970)
15 How Can I Be Sure Of You (demo 1972)
16 I Will Take You There (b-side of 'Waiting')