HARRY NILSSON - A Brief Encounter

Many years ago, on a Tuesday in the spring of 1972, I went to the wedding of a booking agent I’d befriended and while there fell into the company of Danny Hutton, one of the three singers with Three Dog Night, whom I’d interviewed in Germany the previous week and discovered to be a genial soul. Somehow or other Hutton, myself and others ended up much later at the Speakeasy Club from where Hutton called his hotel to check if he had any messages. One, evidently, was from Harry Nilsson, who’d arrived in London that very afternoon and was at that moment in situ at his Mayfair flat (the same flat where Mama Cass and, later, Keith Moon died) and wanting for company.

It was very late by this time but I smelled fun and games and accepted Hutton’s invitation to accompany him, along with a couple of girls to whom we’d become attached along the way. Once there Hutton introduced me to Harry who wasn’t best pleased that Hutton had brought a writer along. “I’m not really here,” he told me. I understood. Nevertheless, we availed ourselves of his hospitality, drank hard liquor, flirted with the girls, talked drug-fuelled nonsense and, I distinctly recall, listened to Harry play an upright piano and, with Hutton, sing all manner of songs, standards, Beatles, Randy Newman, all sorts, into the early hours until dawn broke. It was fantastic, probably all the more so in view of the state I was in.

It was about 9am when I left, head spinning, by taxi, to where I then lived in Bayswater. Sleep was out of the question so I took a long bath, had something to eat and, somehow, made it into Melody Maker’s offices by noon, ready to attend the weekly Wednesday conference which that week was chaired by assistant editor Richard Williams. I felt truly awful and didn’t contribute much in the way of ideas for next week's paper but I shrank visibly into my chair when Richard said: “I’ve heard a rumour that Harry Nilsson is in town. Does anyone know anything?” Everyone shook their heads, including me, though it was an effort since it throbbed so bad.

It wasn’t until 20 years later that I could bring myself to tell Richard the truth.