NILSSON – A LITTLE TOUCH OF SCHMILSSON IN THE NIGHT LP – Nr MINT UK

Nilsson – A Little Touch of Schmilsson In The Night
(RCA Records  1973  SF8371)
Matrix No’s: A1/B2 – UK Pressing

Gatefold Sleeve in Nr MINT condition
– some slight wear to edges

Vinyl in Nr MINT condition
(there are some light surface marks visible on the vinyl when held up to the light but they don’t affect the sound quality)

Harry Edward Nilsson III (June 15, 1941 – January 15, 1994), usually credited as Nilsson, was an American singer-songwriter who achieved the peak of his commercial success in the early 1970s. His work is characterized by pioneering vocal overdub experiments, returns to the Great American Songbook, and fusions of Caribbean sounds. A tenor with a three-and-a-half octave range, Nilsson was one of the few major pop-rock recording artists of his era to achieve significant commercial success without ever performing major public concerts or undertaking regular tours. The craft of his songs and the defiant attitude he projected remains a touchstone for later generations of indie rock musicians.

Born in Brooklyn, Nilsson moved to Los Angeles as a teenager to escape his family’s poor financial situation. While working as a computer programmer at a bank, he grew interested in musical composition and close-harmony singing, and was successful in having some of his songs recorded by various artists such as the Monkees. In 1967, he debuted on RCA Victor with the LP Pandemonium Shadow Show, followed with a variety of releases that include a collaboration with Randy Newman (Nilsson Sings Newman, 1970) and the original children’s story The Point! (1971). His most commercially successful albums, Nilsson Schmilsson (1971) and Son of Schmilsson (1972), bore the international top 10 singles “Without You” (1971) and “Coconut” (1972). His other top 10 hit, “Everybody’s Talkin'” (1968), was the theme song of the 1969 film Midnight Cowboy, that year’s Academy Award Best Picture. A version of Nilsson’s “One”, released by Three Dog Night in 1969, also reached the U.S. top 10.

During a 1968 press conference, the Beatles were asked what their favorite American group was and answered “Nilsson”. He soon formed close friendships with the band’s John Lennon and Ringo Starr. In the 1970s, Nilsson and Lennon were members of the Hollywood Vampires drinking club, embroiling themselves in a number of widely publicized, alcohol-fueled incidents. At the same time, they produced one collaborative album, Pussy Cats (1974). After 1977, Nilsson left RCA, and his record output diminished. In response to Lennon’s 1980 death by shooting, he took a hiatus from the music industry to campaign for gun control. For the rest of his life, he recorded only sporadically.

Nilsson was voted No. 62 in Rolling Stone‘s 2015 list of the “100 Greatest Songwriters of All Time”, where he was described as “a pioneer of the Los Angeles studio sound, a crucial bridge between the baroque psychedelic pop of the late Sixties and the more personal singer-songwriter era of the Seventies”. The RIAA certified Nilsson Schmilsson and Son of Schmilsson as gold records, indicating over 500,000 units sold each. His honors include Grammy Awards for two of his recordings; Best Contemporary Vocal Performance, Male in 1970 for “Everybody’s Talkin'” and Best Pop Vocal Performance, Male in 1973 for “Without You”. In 1994, Nilsson died of a heart attack while in the midst of recording new material for a since-unreleased comeback album.

A Little Touch of Schmilsson in the Night is an album of classic 20th-century standards sung by American singer Harry Nilsson. The album was arranged by Sinatra arranger Gordon Jenkins, and produced by Derek Taylor.

This album is notable in being a standards album produced decades before such works started to become popular again. Although Nilsson’s album met with only modest chart success, it is often regarded as the finest example of his virtuosic singing. The title is an allusion to Shakespeare‘s Henry V, Act 4, in which the Chorus refers to Henry’s nocturnal visit to his troops as “a little touch of Harry in the night”. The album was re-released in 1988 as A Touch More Schmilsson in the Night, containing an intro and outro (studio chatter) and six additional songs from the recording sessions.

Track listing

1. “Lazy Moon” (Bob Cole, J. Rosamond Johnson) – 3:20
2. “For Me and My Gal” (Edgar Leslie, E. Ray Goetz, George W. Meyer) – 2:47
3. “It Had to Be You” (music: Isham Jones, lyrics: Gus Kahn) – 2:45
4. “Always” (Irving Berlin) – 1:34
5. “Makin’ Whoopee” (Gus Kahn, Walter Donaldson) – 4:25
6. “You Made Me Love You” (Joseph McCarthy, James V. Monaco) – 2:32
7. “Lullaby in Ragtime” (Sylvia Fine) – 3:39
8. “I Wonder Who’s Kissing Her Now” (Joe Howard, Harold Orlob, Frank R. Adams, Will M. Hough) – 2:40
9. “What’ll I Do?” (Irving Berlin) – 2:25
10. “Nevertheless (I’m in Love with You)”(Bert Kalmar, Harry Ruby) – 2:38
11. “This Is All I Ask” (Gordon Jenkins) – 3:35
12. “As Time Goes By” (Herman Hupfeld) – 3:21