Speaker 1: Blood on the Tracks is a production of I Heart
Speaker 1: Radio and Double Elvis. John Lennon was a musical genius
Speaker 1: and one of the most beloved cultural figures of the
Speaker 1: twentieth century. His songs inspired dreamers to imagine, his search
Speaker 1: for the truth gave power to the people. But some
Speaker 1: thought he dreamed too much. Others thought he was too powerful.
Speaker 1: So he was followed, he was threatened, he was declared
Speaker 1: a danger to the United States, and in night he
Speaker 1: was assassinated. This is his story told by his so
Speaker 1: called friends. This is Special Agent Jim Steele with the
Speaker 1: Federal Bureau of Investigation work in case number double own
Speaker 1: mind dash zero eight dash zero four one. Case subject
Speaker 1: is Lennon, John Winston, Oh No. This information pertains to
Speaker 1: a period end in June four in view subject as
Speaker 1: Nielsen Harry Edward the third interview number one dash zero
Speaker 1: five Dash seven six one dash recall number one December.
Speaker 1: Was I about influence on John Lennon or was he
Speaker 1: a bad influence on me? Take your pick. I didn't
Speaker 1: force any foul tasting liquids down his throat. In my eyes,
Speaker 1: I was the one hanging out with them, the Beatles,
Speaker 1: And you can commit murder with that group. I thought, well,
Speaker 1: if they drink, I'll drink. And at the same time
Speaker 1: they're thinking, well, Harry is this big drinker, so we'll
Speaker 1: live like Harry. We laughed like hell all night long
Speaker 1: and not know what we were laughing about. Ringo would
Speaker 1: call me the next day and asked, can you remember
Speaker 1: one thing? One thing that we laughed about last night?
Speaker 1: It became a problem in all our lives. I think
Speaker 1: when you get to self pity and suicidal thoughts, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm no good, nobody likes me, who who? You have
Speaker 1: no friends except for the ones who are drinking with you,
Speaker 1: and you simply cannot see things for the way they
Speaker 1: truly are. I think that's when you quit. That's when
Speaker 1: you stop, look back, take stock, and realize that you've
Speaker 1: left all this blood on the tracks. Chapter five, John
Speaker 1: Lennon and Harry Nilson. I'll admit it. I wasn't the
Speaker 1: best influence on John Lennon. Influence on John Lennon. I'm
Speaker 1: not about to take responsibility for all the crazy shit
Speaker 1: he did in nine four, but you know I didn't
Speaker 1: exactly help the situations. When you spent the night drinking
Speaker 1: your weight and Brandy Alexander's There's really nothing you can
Speaker 1: do to help any situation, not a thing me. I
Speaker 1: didn't know it at the time, but I was on
Speaker 1: the cusp of going from good to bad to worse.
Speaker 1: That's a well documented fact. I had some solid successes
Speaker 1: with Everybody's Talking Coconut Without You, Nielsen Schmilsen was nominated
Speaker 1: for some Grammys, even one, but I didn't make it
Speaker 1: easy to keep the hits coming. Look, man, I didn't
Speaker 1: tour or form live, and I wasn't exactly David Cassidy
Speaker 1: peering out at you on my album covers with acute
Speaker 1: smile and feathered hair. In fact, I looked frumpy as
Speaker 1: hell in my fucking bathrobe on the one that we
Speaker 1: called Nilsen Schmilsen, which is also a great big fuck
Speaker 1: you to the very notion of album titles. While on
Speaker 1: the subject of fuck you, when I want to gram
Speaker 1: you for without You, I immediately followed that record up
Speaker 1: with a song that said fuck you in the chorus
Speaker 1: and you simply cannot see things for the way they
Speaker 1: truly are. And then I followed that with a little
Speaker 1: touch of Schmilsen in the Night, an album entirely of
Speaker 1: standards from the Great American Songbook. I wasn't exactly gunning
Speaker 1: for sales or radio play, more like fueling up for
Speaker 1: self destruction life, Am I right? Give it a few
Speaker 1: years and things will funk right up, just nicely on
Speaker 1: their own. It was just the Beatles gave that press
Speaker 1: conference in New York when they formed Apple Records. Some
Speaker 1: reporter asked them who their favorite American singer was, and
Speaker 1: John and Paul both answered Nielsen. My phone rang off
Speaker 1: the hook for days. You couldn't ask for a better press.
Speaker 1: It was better than airplane, better than a decent record review.
Speaker 1: And then before I knew it, I was everywhere, not
Speaker 1: as a famous celebrity. Understand many people knew me simply
Speaker 1: as Nielsen. Since I didn't do the promotional circuit, there
Speaker 1: was a bit of mystery as to who or what
Speaker 1: I really was. But I mean I was everywhere. I
Speaker 1: was in the studio when the Beatles cut Piggies. I
Speaker 1: recommended this new songwriter, Randy Newman, and even performed an
Speaker 1: entire album of his songs. I watched Carly Simon as
Speaker 1: she tracked her vocal for Your So Vain, while Mick
Speaker 1: Jagger sang back up. I'm not overstating it when I
Speaker 1: say that the Beatles made my career, but I didn't
Speaker 1: need a little help from my friends to unmake it.
Speaker 1: I could do that on my own, just fine. My
Speaker 1: point is life, man, you go from receiving public accolades
Speaker 1: from the Beatles of all people, to what some would
Speaker 1: reasonably call a low point just a few years later,
Speaker 1: when you're hungover, eyes blood shot, offering angel dust to
Speaker 1: the same people who once sang your praises no ship.
Speaker 1: I asked Paul McCartney if he wanted to smoke some
Speaker 1: angel dust, or maybe it was a horse tranquilizer. I
Speaker 1: was at the beach house in Santa Monica, the one
Speaker 1: that John rented and we were all crashing at while
Speaker 1: we were making Pussycats. John was passed out in bed
Speaker 1: with May and then Paul and Linda just showed up
Speaker 1: in four Who is the last person you would expect
Speaker 1: to show up at a house that John Lennon is renting.
Speaker 1: Paul McCartney, right fucking a man, Because at this point,
Speaker 1: the word on the street is that John and Paul
Speaker 1: hate each other's guts. They're suing each other they're taking
Speaker 1: cheap shots at each other on their soul albums. But
Speaker 1: after Yoko had sent John to Los Angeles on this
Speaker 1: soul searching walk about or whatever the hell it was,
Speaker 1: when Yoko finally decided she was ready to welcome John
Speaker 1: back into her life and to try to repair their
Speaker 1: marriage and you know, start over. Yoko is the one
Speaker 1: who went directly to Paul and asked Paul to play
Speaker 1: the role of intermediary peacekeeper. So Paul flies out to
Speaker 1: l A and hunts John down at the Santa Monica
Speaker 1: Beach House. John sleeping. It's late morning or early afternoon,
Speaker 1: and I'm drinking and smoking whatever I can get my
Speaker 1: hands on because my mouth tastes like a dumpster. My
Speaker 1: head's on fire from whatever we did the night before,
Speaker 1: and there's all kinds of stuff floating around grass coke PCP.
Speaker 1: I asked Paul if he wants some angel dust while
Speaker 1: he's waiting for John to wake up. He goes, what
Speaker 1: is it? And I say, I don't know, man, Maybe
Speaker 1: it's a horse tranquilizer. I mean, honestly, some and told
Speaker 1: me it was angel does, But what the hell do
Speaker 1: I know? And so Paul asks, is it fun. I
Speaker 1: thought long and hard about that. It was a fair question.
Speaker 1: I think at that point I knew what we were
Speaker 1: doing was not sustainable, that it was destructive, that it
Speaker 1: was wrong, became a problem with our lives. But of
Speaker 1: course every day we just started right up again, drinking
Speaker 1: and drugging to drown out those sorts of thoughts. But
Speaker 1: this was still early enough in the day, and I
Speaker 1: could respond with some truth. NAH might tell Paul it's
Speaker 1: really not fun at all. Paul passed on the angel dust.
Speaker 1: Once John woke up, he was surprised to see Paul
Speaker 1: waiting for him. I honestly don't know how long it
Speaker 1: had been since they had seen each other. Paul passed
Speaker 1: on Yoko's message that John should come back to New York,
Speaker 1: but he needed to get his own place at first quarter.
Speaker 1: Send her flowers, take her out, really make an effort,
Speaker 1: and of course John did it. He played by the
Speaker 1: rules because John loved Joko. I truly believe that. And
Speaker 1: it was John's first steps out of the haze we
Speaker 1: had all found ourselves in. I even went with him
Speaker 1: to New York, where, for the second time in my life,
Speaker 1: John Lennon had a profound effect on my career. But first,
Speaker 1: before John accepted Yoko's invitation to head home, there was
Speaker 1: unfinished business. Unfinished monkey business. That is to put in
Speaker 1: Beatles terms, because when you look into the future and
Speaker 1: see nothing but calm, domestic bliss, you tend to realize
Speaker 1: that you have limited time left to break bad. It
Speaker 1: was spring of seventy Burbank Cocaine was going around a
Speaker 1: wired his ship in that recording studio, me John, Paul, Linda, Jesse,
Speaker 1: Ed Davis on the guitar, the Great Bobby Keys on saxophone,
Speaker 1: May Hang on tambourine, and Stevie Wonder on keys. Paul
Speaker 1: played ringos, drums and ringos. Pissed the next day when
Speaker 1: he found out Bobby Keys was probably coming up for
Speaker 1: air after partying with the Stones. But man, I have
Speaker 1: no idea how Stevie Wonder, of all people ended up
Speaker 1: in there with us, he was probably the only one
Speaker 1: who stayed straight for the entire session. He passed on
Speaker 1: grass Man. He just said no to John Lennon, if
Speaker 1: you want a snort, Steve, it's going around. It seems
Speaker 1: like the right thing to do. Since Paul was in
Speaker 1: town and he and John were talking and all, let's
Speaker 1: all go into the studio and have a laugh. You
Speaker 1: would think with a lineup like that, it would have
Speaker 1: just killed a supergroup. That's what they call those things
Speaker 1: back in the day. Can you imagine what something like
Speaker 1: that would have sold if it was released. But the
Speaker 1: results were really more of a nightmare, sloppy playing, sloppy singing, mangled,
Speaker 1: bungled covers. We recorded it on tape while we were
Speaker 1: in there, but none of us was that idiotic to
Speaker 1: actually release it, so it circulated as a rumor and
Speaker 1: then as a bootleg for years. It's too bad too,
Speaker 1: because it's the first and last time that John and
Speaker 1: Paul played together between when the Beatles broke up and
Speaker 1: John was shot. A missed opportunity. Really, none of us
Speaker 1: had the mental stability in that moment to recognize that.
Speaker 1: Of course, well maybe Stevie wonder that studio in Burbank
Speaker 1: was one of the studios we were using to make Pussycats,
Speaker 1: my album that John was producing. Well, Rise Up, Get
Speaker 1: Yourself Harry Nielsen's new album Pussycats, produced by John Lennon.
Speaker 1: Nielsen's latest Pussycats on our CIA Records and Tapes. At
Speaker 1: the time, we were making it. We were calling it
Speaker 1: strange pussies. Hey, our Cia had let me put funk
Speaker 1: you in the chorus of a song. I figured it
Speaker 1: was worth a shot. Me ow. And now people used
Speaker 1: to call my voice boyish and angelic. They said I
Speaker 1: was a delightful mimic, and that my voice seemed to
Speaker 1: spring fully formed from this blanky, dorky body that was
Speaker 1: simply a vessel for this beautiful gift from God. But
Speaker 1: when John and I were making strange pussies, my voice
Speaker 1: was anything but angelic. I don't know if it was
Speaker 1: the bottomless brandy Alexander's or the cocaine or the cigarettes.
Speaker 1: I don't know if it was the angel dust or
Speaker 1: horse tranquilizer or whatever the funk that ship was. I
Speaker 1: don't think it was the L S D. Because I've
Speaker 1: never heard of that stuff messing with your throat. My
Speaker 1: neighbor Timothy Leary told me there was absolutely nothing wrong
Speaker 1: with acid. But my voice was getting worse. Gravel it
Speaker 1: horse like stretched leather man. I couldn't hit the upper register.
Speaker 1: I had reached for it, and it was like a
Speaker 1: shelf just out of reach. I tried over and over again.
Speaker 1: I tried John called for another take and another, and
Speaker 1: I kept on trying. I kept trying to get there,
Speaker 1: and he shimply, can't see things for the way they
Speaker 1: truly are. Maybe I was trying to impress John, show
Speaker 1: him that I was really as good as he thought
Speaker 1: I was. And as soon as I pushed it as
Speaker 1: far as I could possibly push it, I fasted at
Speaker 1: the blood They're on the back of my throat. I
Speaker 1: coughed and blood splattered all over the mic. The doctor
Speaker 1: said my vocal cords had hemorrhaged. He told me to
Speaker 1: stopped talking for two weeks, that I had to write
Speaker 1: everything down. That's when you stop look back. But of
Speaker 1: course that was easier said than done, because when you're
Speaker 1: driving John Lennon around Los Angeles and the Volkswagen Cure Wagon,
Speaker 1: this military style jeep I owned, you basically had to
Speaker 1: scream to be heard above the rumble of the engine
Speaker 1: and the howl of the wind. There's a crazy new
Speaker 1: thing from Volkswagen, and that comes with the top up
Speaker 1: the top down. I always had the top down. It
Speaker 1: was like having a conversation on a fucking runway. People
Speaker 1: called it the thing. And I showed for John any
Speaker 1: chance I could get where to tonight John influence on
Speaker 1: John Lennon. Yeah, shall we see if there's trouble to
Speaker 1: be had tonight John, Another brandy Alexander John. Maybe I
Speaker 1: did try a little too hard to impress John. It
Speaker 1: was well past midnight one night when just out of
Speaker 1: the blue, John told me he wished he had a
Speaker 1: couple of girls and a handful of acid. It's like
Speaker 1: two three in the morning, and you're just now having
Speaker 1: this burning desire. I had a hunch that I could deliver.
Speaker 1: I called up a friend of mine, a girl I
Speaker 1: figured would be game. She just happened to be awake,
Speaker 1: and she happened to have a friend with her, and
Speaker 1: that friend happened to have some asset on her, like
Speaker 1: it was meant to be friend. So I drove John
Speaker 1: over her place. In the thing, we all dropped acid,
Speaker 1: and then we all baled for days, literally days. I
Speaker 1: think it was the acid that sustained us. You ever
Speaker 1: bald for two days straight on LSD. I don't think
Speaker 1: I even knew my fucking name after that. My body
Speaker 1: was as ravaged as my voice was barely keeping it together.
Speaker 1: Strange pussies was getting stranger. I think that's where you quit.
Speaker 1: At some point I just looked over at John and
Speaker 1: told him I needed a break. I asked him when
Speaker 1: he was leaving for New York, and then I asked
Speaker 1: if I could go with him. We'll be right back.
Speaker 1: After this, word word word, John Lennon saved my ass.
Speaker 1: It happened like this. Our CIA Records didn't want me anymore.
Speaker 1: I hadn't made a hit in Ages and after that
Speaker 1: album Standards, which r c A saw as a turkey
Speaker 1: top brass at the label just wanted to cut their
Speaker 1: losses and move on without me. I think when you
Speaker 1: get to self pity and suicide thoughts. My contract was
Speaker 1: expiring and r c A we're not quiet about unceremoniously
Speaker 1: passing on the renewal option. And then they heard about
Speaker 1: my voice getting out. You know, the one thing that
Speaker 1: I had that could potentially make them money. They were
Speaker 1: gonna bail. Nobody likes me and pussycats, which is what
Speaker 1: we were now calling strange pussies. Well, I don't know, man,
Speaker 1: that was destined to mold away in some dusty vault,
Speaker 1: like the tapes of that wild recording session with Paul
Speaker 1: and Stevie Wonder all I'd wanted to do was make
Speaker 1: a record with John Lennon. Was a bad influence on
Speaker 1: John Lennon? Was he a bad influencelfhy It was one
Speaker 1: thing to play on Ringo's records, and Ringo had played
Speaker 1: on mine, but John was a tougher nut for me
Speaker 1: to crack. Ringo and I were mates, but there was
Speaker 1: something unknowable about John. This is gonna sound weird since
Speaker 1: we spent so much time out on the town together,
Speaker 1: but it's true. But John was John. He was a walking,
Speaker 1: talking myth and icon, and not just a beatle but
Speaker 1: a cultural force. This was never more obvious than when
Speaker 1: he moved back to New York City upon Yoko's invitation. Now,
Speaker 1: John and Yoko didn't immediately get back together. People think
Speaker 1: this last weekend period of his was a few months
Speaker 1: out in l A. No, the last Weekend lasted something
Speaker 1: like eighteen months and spanned his time in l A
Speaker 1: and New York City. When he got back East, he
Speaker 1: and May got their own place at Sutton Place over
Speaker 1: on East fifty second. Weird that John was courting Yoko
Speaker 1: but still carrying on with May. None of my business,
Speaker 1: I suppose. And in New York John became a legend
Speaker 1: again among the city's night clubs. The guy was a
Speaker 1: social butterfly man. He was a regular at Ashley's, a
Speaker 1: disco club at Fifth Avenue and thirteenth Street, where the
Speaker 1: staff gave him the royal treatment, drinks on the house
Speaker 1: drugs gratis. They let him stay after hours, smoke whatever
Speaker 1: was left, and snort the rest. My lord, he didn't
Speaker 1: tell me personally about all the times he visited that
Speaker 1: brothel on twenty th Street, but I read later that
Speaker 1: he was a regular. It's crazy to think someone who's
Speaker 1: famous as John Lennon, and the city is big and
Speaker 1: as loud as New York, that he could keep those
Speaker 1: brothel visits hush hush for so many years. Even now,
Speaker 1: I'm sure some people don't want to believe that it's true.
Speaker 1: There's a lot about our heroes that we don't want
Speaker 1: to know about. But here's one thing about John that's true,
Speaker 1: and this gets back to my story. John was loyal.
Speaker 1: He knew that our c A was preparing to dump me,
Speaker 1: and he put his name in his career on the
Speaker 1: line to go to bad for me. That was in
Speaker 1: the spring of nine. We've been out all night and
Speaker 1: the morning was cruel as usual. I don't know if
Speaker 1: I could have gone to sleep if I wanted to.
Speaker 1: I was telling John about how I reached out to
Speaker 1: our CIA to get a new contract signed and how
Speaker 1: they were continuing to ignore me, and it just lit
Speaker 1: this fire under his ass. Let's go over there, John said, where.
Speaker 1: I asked him our CIA records. John responded, let's go
Speaker 1: on over to Rockefeller Center and take a meeting with
Speaker 1: Kenneth Glancy. The get we'll get him to resign you. Now,
Speaker 1: Kenneth Glancy was perhaps the root of my problem. He
Speaker 1: had been recently appointed as the new head of our CIA,
Speaker 1: and he didn't like me. The guy before him, Rocko
Speaker 1: lagan Estra. Now he liked me. John didn't give a fuck.
Speaker 1: It was mid morning, We've been up all night, and
Speaker 1: he had a plan to save my ass. So we
Speaker 1: went over to Rockefeller Plaza up to our CIA offices,
Speaker 1: both of us wearing dark sunglasses and hats to conceal
Speaker 1: whatever the night before it done to us, though I'm
Speaker 1: sure the smell of us announced our presence a mile away.
Speaker 1: John walked right up to the receptionist and said, I'm
Speaker 1: John Lennon. I'm here with Harry Nilson and we need
Speaker 1: to speak with Kenneth Glancy. The girl practically hyperventilated. The
Speaker 1: look in her eyes said that she couldn't believe that
Speaker 1: John Lennon was talking to her. I still didn't know
Speaker 1: what John was planning, what he could say to this guy. Besides,
Speaker 1: I'm John Lennon and you should resign Nielsen. He could
Speaker 1: use his fame and legend to get free drinks and
Speaker 1: drugs at Ashley's. He could make an eighteen year old
Speaker 1: receptionist blushed just by smiling. But these corporate music guys
Speaker 1: are fucking stone man. Obviously, even I was underestimating John
Speaker 1: at the moment. So we were ushered inside this lavish
Speaker 1: office overlooking Rockefeller Plaza. Someone shoved cigars and glasses of
Speaker 1: brandy in our hands. We sat down in these pristine
Speaker 1: leather chairs across from the head of our c a.
Speaker 1: John looked this guy dead in the eyes and says, look,
Speaker 1: you've got two good artists on this piece of ship label,
Speaker 1: Elvis Presley and Harry Nilson. Obviously at this point he'd
Speaker 1: yet to befriend my labelmate David Bowie. But I digress.
Speaker 1: Glancey raised his finger like he wanted to beg to differ,
Speaker 1: but John told him he wasn't done yet. And then
Speaker 1: John pulled the ace out of his back pocket. He
Speaker 1: told Glancy that if our ci A resigned me for
Speaker 1: five million dollars, then John would sign with our c
Speaker 1: A too, and he'd do it cheap. Glance he couldn't
Speaker 1: pick up the phone fast enough. He should have known better,
Speaker 1: because who knows what kind of contract John was tied
Speaker 1: up in at the moment. John didn't really have the
Speaker 1: knowledge or the ability to be offering himself to any
Speaker 1: label at that moment, but Glance he bought it, book
Speaker 1: line and sinc. Within minutes, the receptionist walked that contract
Speaker 1: inside the office and we signed on the bottom line
Speaker 1: for five million. Did John ever intend to sign with
Speaker 1: darci A? Hell no, So we went through the motions
Speaker 1: of the whole thing, shaking that dope's hand as we
Speaker 1: left the office. Yes, yes, very good. I'll have my
Speaker 1: people call your people, quite right, great things. All that
Speaker 1: just smoke smoke right up that corporate bastard's ass. That's
Speaker 1: how John Lennon saved me. And he wasn't bullshitting either.
Speaker 1: He thought that Elvis and I were the only two
Speaker 1: notable artists on that label. And then Elvis died just
Speaker 1: two years later, slumped over on his porcelain throne. He's
Speaker 1: got no friends except for the ones who were drinking
Speaker 1: with you. I remember that day clearly because I immediately
Speaker 1: thought of John and what he had said to Kenneth
Speaker 1: Glancy at our c A about me and Elvis, and
Speaker 1: how I owed everything to him. That's when you stopped
Speaker 1: look back stock. I owed him my career when I
Speaker 1: first started, and then I owed him again when it
Speaker 1: looked like I had sucked everything up beyond repair. And
Speaker 1: I'm not sure that I was ever in the right
Speaker 1: state of mind at that time properly communicate to John
Speaker 1: just what all that meant to me? Yeah, Auguste. As
Speaker 1: far as John Lennon was concerned, Elvis Presley had died
Speaker 1: years ago, Marty eight, to be exact. That was the
Speaker 1: day that Elvis put rock and roll on hold to
Speaker 1: join the United States Army in Memphis, Tennessee. That's when
Speaker 1: they killed him. A disillusion John said. The rest was
Speaker 1: a living death. There was time when Elvis had been
Speaker 1: John's religion. John was nearly struck dumb when he first
Speaker 1: heard Heartbreak Hotel as a teenager, Elvis was everything. Elvis
Speaker 1: was it. Elvis Presley showed John Lennon what he would be.
Speaker 1: But later, after the Beatles had broken up and after
Speaker 1: he had returned from the service, Elvis turned his back
Speaker 1: on John when he said what he really thought about
Speaker 1: the liverpoody and lads who had once idolized him. He
Speaker 1: told these things directly to President Richard Nixon. He sold
Speaker 1: out John as an anti American rabble rouser. He said
Speaker 1: John abused to drugs. He said John planted conspiratorial ideas
Speaker 1: in the minds of America's impressionable youth. Of course, the
Speaker 1: irony of that conversation is that the king of rock
Speaker 1: and roll could have been describing himself. If Nixon didn't
Speaker 1: know it at the time, he likely figured it out
Speaker 1: on August sixte n seventy seven, when Elvis Aaron Presley
Speaker 1: was found dead on his toilet, his bloated body loaded
Speaker 1: on us in his legacy one of filling the impressionable
Speaker 1: young minds of American youth with hip twisting, naughty thoughts.
Speaker 1: And Elvis's obituary for The Village Voice Rock critic and
Speaker 1: perennial kurmudgeon Lester Bangs wrote that we will never again
Speaker 1: agree on anything as we agreed on Elvis. That's a quote.
Speaker 1: Lester Bangs was right, just like John was right that
Speaker 1: Elvis was never the same after he returned from serving
Speaker 1: in the army, and in the late nineties seventies, rock
Speaker 1: and roll was in itself anymore. Rock was no longer king.
Speaker 1: Rock now had to share room on the radio dial
Speaker 1: with disco, punk, prague and funk, and fans became zealous
Speaker 1: who defended their chosen genre to the death. R c
Speaker 1: A Records, on the other hand, went all in on Elvis.
Speaker 1: In the wake of Elvis's death, the entire world clamored
Speaker 1: for Elvis Presley Records. This was a time long before
Speaker 1: streaming music, long before instant music, a time where you
Speaker 1: had to have a physical copy of a twelve into
Speaker 1: slab of wax of the title you long to hear.
Speaker 1: Retail stores sold out of Elvis's entire catalog. R CIA's
Speaker 1: pressing plants operated twenty four hours a day to meet
Speaker 1: the demand and even subcontracted other plants to help. One
Speaker 1: third of all albums sold in America between the fall
Speaker 1: of nineteen seventy seven. In the fall of nineteen seventy eight,
Speaker 1: where Elvis Presley Albums and so with our CI a
Speaker 1: Laser focused on around the clock operation to keep Elvis
Speaker 1: Pressley's memory alive, they forgot about the other guy, The
Speaker 1: guy who, according to John Lennon, was the only other
Speaker 1: artist of consequence on that label. Harry Nilson wasn't long
Speaker 1: for the r c A stables anyway. His final r
Speaker 1: CIA album, Cannilson that's his surname, but spelled with a
Speaker 1: whole bunch of ends in a k at the beginning
Speaker 1: that shouldn't be there, was released in the summer of
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy seven before Elvis's heart gave out. As a result,
Speaker 1: our Cier shifted all the money and resources they had
Speaker 1: planned to use to promote Harry's record over to repressing
Speaker 1: and replenishing Elvis's catalog from coast to coast. The timing
Speaker 1: was absolute ship, but Harry had a laugh that it
Speaker 1: was absurdly poetic. Nelson was intended to be Harry's triumphant return.
Speaker 1: He was focused again, His vocal cords had healed, and
Speaker 1: his voice, while not the sublime instrument it once was
Speaker 1: was on the men, but triumph was not in the
Speaker 1: cards for Harry Nelson. He received no support from his
Speaker 1: label and there was no going away party. When his
Speaker 1: contract came to an unceremonious end. Harry hadn't seen his
Speaker 1: old friend and asked saver John Lennon in years when
Speaker 1: in nine eighty he landed an opportunity to write songs
Speaker 1: for a new movie by American autour director Robert Altman.
Speaker 1: Popeye was a truly bizarre, yet undeniably endearing adaptation of
Speaker 1: the popular A comic strip starring Robin Williams as the
Speaker 1: spinach chomping Sailor and Shelley Duval as Olive Oil. Harry
Speaker 1: injected more than a little of that lost weekend spirit
Speaker 1: into the tipsy melodies of the soundtrack, which sounded even
Speaker 1: otter in the actual film because the cast members sang
Speaker 1: the songs live instead of in post production as was
Speaker 1: usually the case. Harry's Puppeye soundtrack was a stark contrast
Speaker 1: to John and Yoko's latest album, which was released a
Speaker 1: month earlier. Double Fantasy presented some of John's most lucid
Speaker 1: domestic music of his entire career. Harry and John were
Speaker 1: still fellow pussycats. It's just that one of them still
Speaker 1: preferred an occasional stroll down a back alley while the
Speaker 1: other was content growing up in front of a fireplace.
Speaker 1: John was playing the part of the house bound pussycat
Speaker 1: at the Dakota in New York City on Saturday, December six,
Speaker 1: when Popeye made as much anticipated premiere in Los Angeles.
Speaker 1: John never did get a chance to see the film
Speaker 1: where here Harry's delightfully skewed soundtrack, because two days later,
Speaker 1: on December eighth, the unthinkable happened and the entire world
Speaker 1: changed in a blink. The news would travel fast and
Speaker 1: hit Harry hard. He wouldn't be able to think about
Speaker 1: anything else for years, not music, not pussycatty. He would
Speaker 1: turn from cat to bulldog and take on the n
Speaker 1: r A to lobby for sweeping gun control reform. But
Speaker 1: before that, Harry spent the weekend of December six, then
Speaker 1: a darkened movie theater in l A, watching Robin Williams
Speaker 1: and Shelley Duval sing his songs on the big screen.
Speaker 1: He became caught up in Van dyke parks evocative orchestrations
Speaker 1: and was swept away to a place that was part
Speaker 1: fantasy in part reality, the kind of place that only
Speaker 1: music or a movie can take you, the kind of
Speaker 1: place where you could dance till a quarter to three,
Speaker 1: the kind of place where the good times would never end,
Speaker 1: and no one got old, no one grew cold. There
Speaker 1: was no pain or a struggle or conflict or strife,
Speaker 1: and there's certainly there's no Blood on the Tracks, right,
Speaker 1: all right, everybody, thanks for listening to Blood on the Tracks.
Speaker 1: If you like what you hear, be sure to find
Speaker 1: and follow Blood on the Tracks on Apple podcast, I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio, app, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 1: On this season two of Blood on the Tracks, we'll
Speaker 1: be releasing ten episodes on the incredible life of John Lennon,
Speaker 1: with a new episode every Thursday. You can also binge
Speaker 1: all ten episodes of season one on the insane story
Speaker 1: of the notorious record producer Phil Spector right now. It's
Speaker 1: available wherever you get your podcast. This episode of Blood
Speaker 1: on the Tracks was written by Zeth Lundie and hosted
Speaker 1: an executive produced by me Jake Brennan, also executive produced
Speaker 1: by Brady sad Story and copy editing by Pat Heally.
Speaker 1: This episode was mixed by Colin Fleming. Additional music and
Speaker 1: score elements by Ryan Spraaker. This episode featured Chris ANZELONEI
Speaker 1: has Harry Nilson. Blood on the Tracks is produced by
Speaker 1: Double Elvis and partnership with I Heart Radio. Sources for
Speaker 1: this episode are available at double Elvis dot com on
Speaker 1: the Blood on the Track series page. If you want
Speaker 1: to chat about this show or hear more about the
Speaker 1: other shows, we're making a Double Elvis tap in on
Speaker 1: Instagram at double Elvis, on Twitter at double Elvis FM,
Speaker 1: and now on Twitch, where we're streaming three days a
Speaker 1: week at twitch dot tv slash Double Elvis Podcasts, and finally,
Speaker 1: be sure to check out disgrace Land, the award winning
Speaker 1: music and true crime podcast that I also host. Disgraceland
Speaker 1: is available only on the free Amazon Music. To hear
Speaker 1: tons of insane stories about your favorite musicians getting away
Speaker 1: with murder and behaving very badly, go to Amazon dot
Speaker 1: com slash disgrace lamb, or if you have an Echo device,
Speaker 1: just say Alexa play the disgrace Land podcast. Rock Alone,
Speaker 1: Dytegrages our dand