Nilsson's Masterpiece of Schmilsson

I will admit something to you readers.  I was seriously late to the music of Harry Nilsson's music.  I heard a few songs growing up and thought he was a novelty.  I thought he was a one hit wonder who just had good luck with a few songs that got repeated airplay. I liked them but really thought he was a comic and only once in a while struck a chord with his music.  Well readers I was wrong.  I should have gave him the chance at first listen.

I stumbled upon his music by accident on the way to work early one morning.  The radio station I listen to on certain days would open up their radio show with "Gotta Get Up." and the DJ would once in a while play "Early In The Morning" right after.  These songs were not what expected from a man who at the time had a one hit wonder or was just a passing fad.  There were many musicians that were like that and the late 1960's and 1970's had many. These songs had merit and value to them and I loved them.  I looked forward to hear the same radio show once a week to hear at least one of them. It was after all his theme song.

After the third time hearing these two songs I had to do something.  I went to the local record store and either buy the album that these were on or find a good compilation of Nilsson's music.  Maybe I had to do both because if the album had both songs. I think he was on to something and something that is just as awesome as those two songs I would hear ever week.  I thought to myself that I really missed the boat on this guy and I needed to be aware of his talent beside the hits I heard on the show and also on regular Classic Rock Radio.

When I went record shopping I realized he had so much material to choose from.  I did find Nilsson Schmilsson and sure enough it had those two songs. It had a few other songs too.  For a while I thought this was a greatest hits/best of package.  When I went to the counter and payed for it the guy at the counter told me that this was his most popular album and the album runs circles around music of that time.  Good enough for me I thought.  I had an essential album.

When I got home I went back on the internet to look for a good retrospective that will maybe want more albums of his.  In looking around I found a nice two CD retrospective of his career.  It was called Personal Best: The Harry Nilsson Anthology.  It did not cheat the tunes either.  There was fours-nine tunes on this compilation and I was happy to have s few repeats.  I went back to Nilsson Schmilsson and loved this album more and more.

So in conclusion would I recommend the Personal Best sure but Nilsson Schmilsson is the winner.  Start with that and then go to the beginning of his career and a few albums after Schmilsson to watch Harry blossom into a full fledge great songwriter.  His tunes were other worldly and just think the tunes that we all knew like "One", "Everybody's Talkin'"(He did not write that)  "Coconut" "Without You" (he made that a hit, but did not write either) and "Jump Into The Fire" plus the two I mentioned at the beginning made into his own quirky way made Nilsson something special.  Nilsson Schmilsson is really special.  It will be on repeat for a while. A side note as of recently none other then a influential Psych Rock dude named Ty Segall made available on BandCamp a small EP version called Segall Smeagol of the best Nilsson tunes. It's pretty groovy and might give people who never heard his music another ear.  Enjoy both and remember when hearing Harry how much of a great talent he was and if you look at the middle photo everyone knew him as a pretty cool dude.