Paul McCartney and John Lennon described him as the Beatles' "favorite
group," he won Grammy awards, wrote and recorded hit songs, and yet no
figure in popular music is as much of a paradox, or as underrated, as
Harry Nilsson. In this first ever full-length biography, Alyn Shipton
traces Nilsson's life from his Brooklyn childhood to his Los Angeles
adolescence and his gradual emergence as a uniquely talented
singer-songwriter. With interviews from friends, family, and associates,
and material drawn from an unfinished autobiography, Shipton probes
beneath the enigma to discover the real Harry Nilsson. A major celebrity
at a time when huge concerts and festivals were becoming the norm,
Nilsson shunned live performance. His venue was the studio, his stage
the dubbing booth, his greatest triumphs masterful examples of studio
craft.
He was a gifted composer of songs for a wide variety of performers,
including the Ronettes, the Yardbirds, and the Monkees, yet Nilsson's
own biggest hits were almost all written by other songwriters. He won
two Grammy awards, in 1969 for "Everybody's Talkin'" (the theme song for
Midnight Cowboy), and in 1972 for "Without You," had two top-10
singles, numerous album successes, and wrote a number of songs
-"Coconut" and "Jump into the Fire," to name just two--that still sound
remarkably fresh and original today. He was once described by his
producer Richard Perry as "the finest white male singer on the planet,"
but near the end of his life, Nilsson's career was marked by
voice-damaging substance abuse and the infamous deaths of both Keith
Moon and Mama Cass in his London flat. Drawing on exclusive access to
Nilsson's papers, Alyn Shipton's biography offers listeners an intimate
portrait of a man who has seemed both famous and unknowable--until now.
