A lusciously Tubey Magical Top 100 album with orchestral arrangements by the superbly talented Gordon Jenkins
One of our favorite Nilsson releases (of which there are many) – it’s The Ultimate latter-day standards album
If you could only have one album of standards from the Great American Songbook, wouldn’t it have to be this one?
“This is a must have disc pure and simple as it is the best standards album any contemporary artist has ever recorded. All the ingredients were woven together for a remarkable vision.”
After our first big shootout for this album many years ago we were so blown away by what a great copy could do that we immediately added it to our Rock & Pop Top 100 list and have never once regretted doing so. It’s the only Nilsson album to make the cut. Even more unusual, considering it was recorded in 1973, it’s actually one of the better sounding orchestra-backed male vocal albums that we know of. (more…)
One of our good customers had this to say about some Hot Stampers he purchased recently:
Hey Tom,
I was totally blown away by the Sergio Mendes & Brasil ’66 album you sent me. The lovely, sweet female vocals and the awesome percussion was to die for. For a supposed easy listening album, I was getting very excited! In fact, I cannot stop listening to it. My only complaint is it is too short in duration. When it is over, I want (need?) more! Do his other albums sound like this? If so, I will be buying more.
This is what I love about you guys, you turn me on to albums I would never have even thought to listen to. For example, on your recommendation, I ordered Harry Nillsson’s A Little Touch of Schmilsson in the Night.
This is an album I would never have given a second look at, yet, as soon as the needle hit the groove, I was floored. The vocal presence is startling. It is like Harry is in the room singing to me.
It reminds me a lot of one of my other favourites I bought from you a while back – a White Hot copy of Willie Nelson’s Stardust.
Willie, Harry and Sergio as demo discs…who would have thought!
One of our good customers had this to say about some Hot Stampers he purchased recently:
Hey Tom,
I played the A Little Touch Of Schmilsson White Hot Stamper and loved it. The strings on side one are meltingly sweet, especially on You Made Me Love You. Anytime you get a hot Nilsson stamper please keep me in mind.
Nilsson was apparently too far ahead of his time. Rod Stewart recently [2002, twenty years ago!] made an album of classic popular music that went to number one and jump-started his second career.
Harry Nilsson understands this music so much better and sings it so much better than Rod Stewart ever could that it’s hard to understand the relatively poor sales of this much superior album.
Either that or the rest of the world doesn’t appreciate Nilsson as much as I do. Probably both I guess. Too bad. This album is better than all the “also rans” albums put together. (McCartney’s Kisses on the Bottom was truly unlistenable, but what person of taste can take any of these albums seriously?)
Arrangements by Gordon Jenkins add to the sublime character of the music. Jenkins arranged many of the greatest albums of this kind ever recorded, including top titles by the likes of Louis Armstrong, Frank Sinatra, and perhaps most famously for us audiophiles, Nat King Cole (the Number One album Love Is the Thing and three others).
The original CD, by the way, is so bright and thin it will make your ears bleed. The new one may be better, but it’s doubtful. If you like Harry Nilsson and you don’t have a turntable, you are pretty much out of luck my friend.
Derek Taylor, Producer
About two years ago [circa 1971], Harry and I were talking about songs, swapping titles, and testing memories. You know that game? Who wrote ‘Miss Otis’ and what year did Al Jolson die, and what else besides ‘As Time Goes By’ did Herman Hupfeld … write? We found a lot of marvelous songs with fine words. And what melodies! ‘You Made Me Love You (I Didn’t Want To Do It),’ ‘I Wonder Who’s Kissing Her Now.’ Brilliant stuff, constructed with style and flair. One day Harry suggested ‘Why don’t we do an album of the old songs?’ and it was the best idea I’d heard since God only knows when. ‘You produce and I’ll sing,’ he said. And two years later – it’s November 1972 – he says it again, and this time it’s on.
