There's a reason this album comes just one day after John Lennon's 'Rock 'n' Roll'. It's because it happened during the same infamous Lennon 'Lost Weekend' that lasted 18 months. Lennon and Yoko Ono were going through a bad patch and she suggested !?! he take off with their employee May Pang.
Off they went, but without Yoko to keep him in check, Lennon really went off the rails with booze and drugs.
As I mentioned in the previous post, there were problems with Lennon's own albums but he told his friend and drinking buddy Harry Nilsson that he wanted to produce Nilsson's next album 'Pussy Cats'.
The idea was that the musicians would all live together, which brought John Lennon, Harry Nilsson, Ringo Starr and Keith Moon all under the same roof in early 1974. Add Klaus Voormann to the mix and bring in Paul McCartney and Stevie Wonder for bootleg jam sessions and you have quite a heady gathering.
As a side note, that was the last time Lennon and McCartney played together in a studio.
Back to Nilsson. During these sessions he started having throat problems. Instead of trying to help himself he just kept up the cycle of singing and drinking and drugs, until his vocal chords hemorrhaged and Mickey Dolenz of The Monkees drove him to the hospital. With strain, polyps and a destructive lifestyle, despite being told to not even talk for six months, Nilsson basically carried on as before.
'Pussy Cats' is not a good album. Harry's voice is shot, the musicianship, despite all the names on the list, wasn't the best and Lennon's early lack of control didn't help.
There are, however, some stand-out tracks. 'Many Rivers To Cross' the Jimmy Cliff song, gets a painful, yearning rendition. I love this song - I have quite a few versions - and this one certainly leaves it's mark.
Then there's Dylans 'Subterranean Homesick Blues'. Ringo Starr and Jim Keltner beat out the intro and then the guitars come in followed by a frantic vocal.
I've always thought of this song as one of the world's first rap songs - Dylan delivering spoken/song lines in rapid fire. Nilsson takes those words, sings and then screams them over a driving beat with what's left of his voice. Chilling.
There's also a little in-joke on the cover.. Check out the alphabet blocks under the table. The letters 'D' and 'S' on either side of a rug. D-rug-S.
Subtle boys, very subtle.
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