First I should admit I'm not crazy about this record. It's a nice enough pop outing that will appeal to fans of Harry Nilsson's pop records (Nilsson produced most of it, sans credit, and contributed a song), but it's not the best thing I've posted. However, I did rip a copy for someone a year or so back and have kept it as my "ace in the hole" for the day I didn't have anything ready--I guess that would be today.
The music is heavy on the orchestration, with lots of strings and horns and is perhaps (this will be heresy to Harry Nilsson fans) somewhat overproduced. Marr wrote most of the material himself and his songs remind me of some of Randy Newman's less humorous efforts. Dean Torrence (of Jan and Dean) did the cover art.
Here's the tracklist:
Hallelujah
1941
I Wonder Who's Kissing Her Now?
Hello L.A., Bye Bye Birmingham
Pity the Man
We Had Something
Sarah
One Shot Lady
Raggedy Ann
Free
The music has been reposted here.
14 comments:
First Smokey & his Sister, now John Randolph Marr... You have such great taste! Been looking for those lately, THANK YOU so much!!!
What's next? Steve & Stevie (Toast; 1967)...?!! ; p
I feel I should also share some of my LPs. Are you looking for any particular titles?
S.ébastien
Hmm the link seems unreliable due to tech. problems at sendspace. Could you check it out please..?
Thanks!
Hi Sebastian,
I'd like to hear the Steve & Stevie too. Sometime soon I'll put up a want list--right now I'm having a hard time listening to all the great music being posted on blogs out there.
As for your other comment, I get a message from Sendspace that the site is experiencing technical difficulties--I'll give them a day or so to see if they fix the problem & if that doesn't happen I'll repost this on another hosting site.
Max
Thanks!
Not sure what's going on with sendspace but I now get the message that the file is gone so I'm reposting it another sharing site.
Working fine now; thanks! Feel free to post your wishlist anytime. ; p
S.
Great unknown album!
Thanks
Thanks for this one - apparently there's a Nilsson connection (beyond the cover of '1941' - arranged by George Tipton, who did such a cool job on the first few Nilsson records.
Harry Nilsson was the original producer on this album and then handed it over to Gary - is there anyway to get a copy of this record???? I was in the recording studio when this was made.
Hi Leslie,
Thanks for pointing that out--I really meant to say Harry Nilsson when I wrote Jack Nitzsche, for some reason I tend to mix them up--I'll correct the entry now. For the rest of you, Gary is Gary Osborne who is listed as producer even though I had heard that Nilsson was the real force behind the production. Are you saying that only did some of it or that he just handed the credit to Osborne? The record is hard-to-find but does come up every once in a while on ebay--that's probably your best bet for getting a copy.
Hi Max
I met Harry Nilsson in London in 1969 when I was working at his record company RCA.
Harry produced the backing tracks for 1941 and Pity The Man but although Randy Marr had a terrific voice Harry found it impossible to get vocals out of him in the studio. I happened to be visiting LA at the time and Harry asked me to have a go at producing Randy's vocals on those two tracks.
Nilsson liked the result ... and asked me to produce and mix the whole of the rest of the Album with him as Executive Producer.
I was only 20 at the time and quite inexperienced ... which probably shows, nevertheless it was a very happy 4 or 5 months.
My fee for the album was $1000 so I went home to England and waited for Nilsson's manager, Denny Bond, to send me the cheque... He never did!
A dozen or so years later on a drunken night in London I mentioned to Harry in passing that I had never been paid. He wrote me a cheque there and then.
At the time I was writing with Elton John and had just had a million seller called Little Jeannie so, not being short of money, I just pinned the cheque to the wall in my Kitchen where it stayed until it eventually expired ... now Harry too has expired.
So although you may not be mad about the album, at least I can claim that, having never been paid for my work, it was truly "a labor of love".
Cheers
Gary Osborne
i was just listening and admiring the quality production/voice/writing/that guitar player!
+ RAGGEDY ANN! veddy special
almost tim hardin meets nick drake
cornrats!! well done
Hi there
Any chance of a repost… this looks amazing
All the best
Keith
reup?
Post a Comment