Editor’s note: Arachnophonia (“Arachno” = spider / “-phonia” = sound) is a regular feature on our blog where members of the UR community can share their thoughts about resources from the Parsons Music Library‘s collection.
All links included in these posts will take you to either the library catalog record for the item(s) in question or to additional relevant information from around the web.
Today’s installment of Arachnophonia is by student manager Eli (class of 2024) and features a couple of albums by and a biography of American singer-songwriter Harry Nilsson (1941-1994). Thanks, Eli!
This Arachnophonia post is centered around Harry Nilsson, an underrated and somewhat forgotten artist, at least by younger generations. Known for his “pioneering vocal overdub…, returns to the Great American Songbook, and fusions of Caribbean sounds,” Nilsson was an international phenomenon in the early 1970s. Sometimes referred to as the “American Beatle,” Nilsson is best known today for his songs “Without You” and “Everybody’s Talkin’,” both of which have over 100 million plays on Spotify.
I find Nilsson to be somewhat of an outlier in his stardom. He achieved great success, winning Grammy awards for Best Male Pop Vocal Performance & Best Male Contemporary Vocal Performance and produced three international top 10 singles. Yet, Nilsson rarely performed live and never took regular tours. He instead remained relevant through his consistent innovation and unique role within the music industry. Music historians credit Nilsson as the inventor of the “mashup,” thanks to his 1967 cover of the Beatles’ song “You Can’t Do That,” which Nilsson overlaid with vocals from over a dozen other Beatles songs.
Nilsson existed during a transient musical space, providing a smooth link between the psychedelic music of the 60s and the classic singer-songwriter era of the 70s. Rolling Stone lists Nilsson as number 62 on the “100 Greatest Songwriters of All Time,” and The Beatles themselves once revealed that Nilsson was their favorite American artist. In a musical world so dominated by The Beatles, Nilsson managed to differentiate his sound while collaborating with the superstars. He became friends with John Lennon and Ringo Starr and became a strong gun control advocate after Lennon was assassinated in 1980. Nilsson died in 1994 from a heart attack while recording his final album Lost and Founnd, which was posthumously released in 2019.
Nilsson: The Life of a Singer-Songwriter by Alyn Shipton
My personal favorite Nilsson album is Aerial Ballet, released in 1968, while his most popular album is Nilsson Schmilsson, released in 1971. Both are available on CD at Parsons Music Library as is the leading biographical work on Nilsson, Nilsson: The Life of a Singer-Songwriter, by Alyn Shipton.