Harry Nilsson

Harry Nilsson
Known simply as “Nilsson”, Harry Nilsson was a singer-songwriter of the late sixties and early seventies. He released two albums for RCA which generated little interest until “Everybody’s Talkin” was used for the movie soundtrack of “Midnight Cowboy”. Around the same period, “Three Dog Night” covered his song “One” and it became a big hit. In 1971 he released “Nilsson Schmilsson” and his version of Badfinger’s “Without You” became his first and only #1 hit. In 1972 Nilsson released “Son of Schmilsson” which yeilded “Spaceman” as a ho-hum follow-up. He hung around John Lennon after Yoko gave him the boot and the two became the notorious drunks of the L.A. Strip. Rock legend has it that one time they both entered the L.A. Troubador drunk and wearing Tampons taped on their heads. When the staff attempted to throw them out, Lennon turned to one of the waitresses and said “Do you know who I am” ? The waitress replied, “Yeah, your some asshole with a Kotex on his head”. Nilsson spent the remainder of his career in various music and film endeavors with mixed results. He was diagnosed with diabetes in the early 90’s and began battling with RCA over a Nilsson CD compilation entitled “Goldmine” which he had hoped would provide for his wife and six children. On January 15th of 1994, two days after finishing a song for the “Goldmine” compilation he suffered a second massive heart attack which proved fatal. He was 52 years old.