NILSSON: the true one: Fab Harry

John, George, Ringo and... Harry?!

Nice image with this very imaginative drawing of Harry and the Beatles influences on him and his work. A very true image when you know all the fascination Harry always had on the Beatles from the very beginning. And till the very end.

Harry and the Fab Four

People even thought of him as the famous fifth Beatle. That's not just the fruit of pure imagination. It's because his artistic talent as a singer and composer is very close to McCartney or Lennon's one.

On his first albums, Harry began with Beatles covers and even with a very imaginative medley of Beatles songs that came to Beatles attention through their press officer Derek Taylor. Taylor who quickly became a close friend of Harry writing liner notes for some of his early albums.

A for Apple

After that, Lennon told in Apple 1968 press conference that Nilsson was their "Favorite American Group" as a joke and ended as a very close friend of Harry during John Lennon's so called Lost Weekend in 1974 and eventually the recording of Pussy Cats album.

And of course Harry and Ringo longtime friendship gives credit in Beatles importance and influence in Harry's life.

Illustration by
Linda Guyman from Crawdaddy magazine,
Sept 1974 issue

John, George, Ringo and... Harry?!

And now the story. Here is how the article goes:

What would you say if someone told you that an ex-bank official

who recently recorded an album of songs like "As Time Goes By" and

"Makin' Whoopie" (and has never performed in public) was about to reunite the Beatles?!

You'd probably laugh, unless you've been hanging on the Beatles rumor grapevine over the last few months, in which case you could conjure a breathless whisper and a hearty "Harry Nilsson."

Do You Want To Know A Secret?

by John Swenson

(...) In this light the stories that have Harry Nilsson joining a reformed Beatles in place of Paul McCartney, or joining with the four of them as a keyboardist, thus freeing Paul to just play bass, can be looked up under "Speculative Fiction."

After all, Ringo recently made a public announcement in London to the effect that he would take all bets to £1,000 that the Beatles would not get back together.

Nevertheless, there are some nagging facts about Harry that fit him rather snugly into the controversial role that New York disc jockeys used to fight so vainly for back in '64-the fifth Beatle. (...)