After collaborating as a singer with the Velvet Underground on their first album, Nico toured with the band in Andy Warhol's Exploding Plastic Inevitable (EPI) multimedia roadshow, after which she took up residence in a New York City coffeehouse as a solo folk chanteuse, accompanied by guitarists such as Tim Hardin, Jackson Browne, and also her Velvet Underground bandmates Lou Reed, Sterling Morrison and John Cale. Some of these accompanists wrote songs for her to sing, and these formed the backbone of 'Chelsea Girl', her first solo album, released in 1967. Browne contributed 'The Fairest Of The Seasons', 'These Days', and 'Somewhere There's A Feather', while Hardin wrote 'Eulogy To Lenny Bruce', and 'Wrap Your Troubles In Dreams' was a Reed song that was part of the earliest Velvet Underground repertoire, but which didn't surface as a VU recording until it was included in the 1995 box set 'Peel Slowly And See'. 'I'll Keep It With Mine' was gifted to her by Bob Dylan, while Reed, Cale and Morrison in various combinations contributed the rest of the material. After the basic tracks were recorded, producer Tom Wilson added string and flute arrangements against the wishes of Nico, before which the musical backing was relatively simple, consisting of one or two guitars or, alternatively, a keyboard instrument, played by either Browne or her Velvet Underground colleagues, but there are no drums or bass instruments, hence the absence of Velvet's drummer Maureen Tucker.
The chamber folk feel of the music was the result of the string and flute overdubs added to the initial recordings by Wilson and arranger Larry Fallon, without involving or consulting Nico. She was dissatisfied with the finished product, particularly the addition of the flute, commenting in 1981, "I still cannot listen to it, because everything I wanted for that record, they took it away. I asked for drums, they said no. I asked for more guitars, they said no. And I asked for simplicity, and they covered it in flutes! ... They added strings and – I didn't like them, but I could live with them. But the flute! The first time I heard the album, I cried and it was all because of the flute". In retrospective 21st-century reviews, AllMusic described the album as "an unqualified masterpiece", while Trouser Press commented that the album "is sabotaged by tepid arrangements and weak production", and so in order to hear the album as Nico intended (apart from the lack of the drums that she wanted), I've removed all the strings and the flute, and boosted the organ on 'Little Sister' so that you can actually hear it without it being buried under the orchestration. In keeping with the stripped-back nature of the music, I've also stripped back the cover to just the main image.
Track listing
01 The Fairest Of The Seasons
02 These Days
03 Little Sister
04 Winter Song
05 It Was A Pleasure Then
06 Chelsea Girls
07 I'll Keep It With Mine
08 Somewhere There's A Feather
09 Wrap Your Troubles In Dreams
10 Eulogy To Lenny Bruce
Thank to 'Unknown' for this suggestion, and if anyone else can recall the phrase 'strings and horns were added against the artist's wishes' then let me know and I'll attempt to put it right.
