The Jack Nitzsche Story - Hearing is Believing: 1962 - 1979
The ratio of rock superstars to genuine arranging-production legends is at least a hundred-to-one. The late Jack Nitszche was one of the greatest of his era, a wizard of the charts and mixing console who initially helped engineer Phil Spector's fabled Wall of Sound, yet eventually developed a spacious arrangement/production knack that was nearly its sonic opposite. Many of Nitzsche's fabled sessions (as far-ranging as Ike & Tina's"River Deep", the Stones'"Have You Seen Your Mother Baby","Porpoise Song"by The Monkees, Ringo Starr's hit"Photograph"and Buffalo Springfield's ghostly"Expecting to Fly") were beyond the reach of this compilation. Nonetheless, these 26 tracks offer up a compelling tribute to his singular musical vision via a wealth of early singles, album cuts and rarities by artists spanning the early '60s pop of Doris Day and Bobby Darin and '70s new wave of Mink DeVille and Graham Parker. Early instrumentals (the Nitzsche-penned Cali-classic "The Lonely Surfer," a rousing cover of Link Wray's "Rumble") display the ballsy studio power he could conjure. While tracks like Judy Henske's "Road to Nowhere," "Ashes, the Rain and I" by The James Gang and Marianne Faithful's harrowing read of "Sister Morphine" showcase the haunting, incomparable impressionism that graced so much of his work. His eerie theme forOne Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nestalso pays tribute to a parallel soundtrack career that yielded such unsung 90's gems asThe Hot SpotandThe Indian Runnerbefore his passing in 2000.--Jerry McCulley