Somehow I missed this a couple of weeks ago, but I wanted to recommend that everyone head over to The Onion when you get a momemt to read their excellent appraisal of Nilsson Sings Newman, aka "Harry Nilsson's greatest record" (which I will defend forever regardless of anyone's feelings about Nilsson Schmilsson).
Nilsson Sings Newman, released in 1970, consists of Harry Nilsson trying his hand at the Randy Newman songbook. As these songs are taken exclusively from Randy Newman's critically (if not commercially) successful early records, most of these songs are not familiar even to people familiar with Newman's work. Regardless, with Nilsson's incredible vocal range and with Newman himself playing the piano, the results are stunning-one of the greatest vocal performances you'll ever hear on a pop record and made even better because of the unimpeachable quality of Randy Newman's songwriting.
Check out Love Story (mp3) and The Beehive State (mp3) to get an example of the overall quality of this record, one that ranks with my all-time favorite albums. Also, make sure to check out For the Love of Harry, a fantastic Harry Nilsson blog that covers all things Nilsson and posts some great music on the site as well!
4 comments:
why does no one love nilsson like you do, Josh? Why?
(that comment was a combo comment: it was for the post before this one, too.)
The mind boggles, madame.
Make no mistake, though, there are many Nilsson-ites out there. They just aren't, however, big on commenting.
They'er all hanging out at For The Love Of Harry.
http://fortheloveofharry.blogspot.com/
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