Читать книгу The Mojo Collection - Various Mojo Magazine - Страница 138

Record label: RCA Victor

Produced: Rick Jarrard

Recorded: RCA Victor’s Music Center of the World, Los Angeles; late 1967–early 1968

Released: November 8, 1968

Chart peaks: None (UK) None (US)

Personnel: Harry Nilsson (v); Larry Knechtel (b, p); Lyle Ritz (b); Al Casey (g); Dennis Budimir (g); Michael Melvoin (harpsichord, o, p); with orchestra; George Tipton (ar)

Track listing: Good Old Desk; Don’t Leave Me; Mr Richland’s Favorite Song; Little Cowboy; Together; Everybody’s Talkin’; I Said Goodbye To Me; Little Cowboy (reprise); Mr Tinker; One; The Wailing Of The Willow; Bath

Running time: 25.15

Current CD: Camden Deluxe 74321 757422 2CD set includes Pandemonium Shadow Show and Aerial Pandemonium Ballet, the 1971 remixed compilation of the two albums.

Further listening: Nilsson said that his albums came in trilogies. Aerial Ballet could be said to be the middle of a trilogy that began with his debut, Pandemonium Shadow Show (1967), and ended with Harry (1969), both highly recommended.

Further reading: www.harrynilsson.com

Download: Not currently legally available

‘I always thought,’ mused Harry Nilsson, ‘I was a street cat who could pass for someone who went to college.’ Aerial Ballet, his second album, perfectly showcases his unique, utterly charming blend of earthiness and airiness. In an era bloated with confessional songwriters, Nilsson was a contradiction. His lyrics often seemed extraordinarily intimate, yet he bristled when fans attempted to read too much meaning into them. He was accommodating enough to explain the album’s title – Nilsson’s Aerial Ballet was a name his grandparents used for their trapeze act. However, when asked the meaning of one of his songs, he was likely to give an answer like the one he gave Hugh Hefner on TV’s Playboy After Dark. Hef had inquired as to the inspiration behind Aerial Ballet’s Good Old Desk. With a straight face, Nilsson replied that the song’s meaning was in its initials: GOD; ‘I bullshitted him,’ Harry admitted later. ‘I thought it was funny. Nobody else thought it was funny!’

Shortly before the release of Aerial Ballet, Nilsson’s career received the kind of boost most performers can only dream of. Derek Taylor, The Beatles’ close friend and former press agent, had given the group a copy of Nilsson’s first album, Pandemonium Shadow Show. At an Apple press conference, when asked to name their favourite singer, The Beatles said, ‘Nilsson’. Asked about their favourite group, they gave the same reply. Nilsson subsequently met the Fabs during a trip to England, where he played Lennon Aerial Ballet. Lennon especially liked Mr Richland’s Favorite Song (named after record promoter Tony Richland). Recalling those times with Lennon, Nilsson told Rolling Stone, ‘I really fell in love with him. I knew he was all those things you wanted somebody to be.’

Although it was largely Nilsson’s songwriting that impressed The Beatles, it was Aerial Ballet’s lone non-original that would catapult him to fame. According to legend, it was the inexhaustible Taylor who turned director John Schlesinger on to Nilsson’s version of Fred Neil’s Everybody’s Talkin’, which had an unsuccessful run as a single on Aerial Ballet’s release. When it emerged in August 1969 as a single from the film’s soundtrack, it became an international smash. Everybody’s Talkin’ won Nilsson his first Grammy: Best Contemporary Vocal Performance, Male.