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HIGHLY RECOMMENDED
Assuming for just a moment that you're not a baroque diehard, a Spector diehard, or a Spectropop list member, chances are you have vague memories associated with this man's name. Maybe you remember a couple of his film scores, or his work with Neil Young and the Rolling Stones, but despite what seem to have been some strong-willed efforts to the contrary, Jack Nitzsche remained a "man behind the curtain," so to speak, a craftsman rather than a celebrated performer unto himself. Like certain other such people, he was, well, kind of a nut. That nuttiness played a vital role in crafting what we now regard as our collective cultural memory. If you've ever listened to a radio station that's concerned with AM pop of the '60s and '70s, you know what "the Nitzsche sound" is, without realizing it.
A lot of us came to know the name from its presence as credited "arranger" on a host of crucial 45's released by Phil Spector's label, Phillies. Nitzsche along with the Wrecking Crew was an indispensable element of the character in Spector's "Wall of Sound," but as an artist and arranger outside of that fellow pop genius' regime, he proved himself a master not just of rote arrangement but of composing, perfecting, designing the very sound of pop music in one of its peaks as a cultural force. In this 26-track rundown of some major and minor work of his spanning most of two decades, we get it all -- the weird quirks and key changes that characterized Nitzsche's writing, the eccentric love of strain, and most of all, that infatuation with space and a ghostly world apart in his sonics. As much as Spector advocated cacophony, Nitzsche aimed for a kind of precision and aural depth of field, making it rather incredible that they produced such memorable recordings together.
The signature Jack Nitzsche creation is arguably Stevie Wonder's "Castles in the Sand," recorded when Wonder was fourteen years old; it's marked by the seriousness with which it takes the young boy's sorrow and sense of loss, a picture complemented by the sound of the record as much as Wonder's (absolutely brilliant) performance itself. Longing strings stretch up against an unapologetically bright and propulsive rhythm, and the result is one of the most innovative (and surreal) of all classic-era Motown recordings. I wouldn't dream of suggesting that Phil Spector's work wasn't full of emotion -- emotion that may have been contrived in conception but certainly not so in execution -- but the songs on this collection leave their wounds considerably less guarded all the same, at least outwardly. Spector could have never written something like the gorgeously broken "Needles and Pins," here presented in its million-selling Jackie DeShannon incarnation. It's too direct, takes its ideas and feelings too seriously, is teenage as an act of directness, not something reached in a roundabout marketing-director sense. That's no slur on "Be My Baby" and such, but those songs were made by their audience and by their performers -- "Needles and Pins" is astonishingly durable, from the ground up, conceived on paper as just as affecting a piece as it finally was.
Hearing Is Believing is both a delightful nostalgia trip and a constant pleasure, even when it verges on kitsch (long-forgotten selections by Eddie Hodges and the Paris Sisters); it's convenient to be reminded of how strange the '60s truly were, just under the surface. There's of course seriously brilliant work here as well. The Frankie Laine side "Don't Make My Baby Blue" is unexpectedly striking, and it's jaw-dropping to hear Lesley Gore reconceived as some sort of garage rock Nancy Sinatra on "No Matter What You Do." Only the Righteous Brothers slow things down.
It's on the latter reaches of the disc that we wish for more, because Nitzche's writing and arranging have become much more consistent, and because we know how much crucial material we're missing that simply couldn't be included. His work with Tim Buckley and Marianne Faithfull does show up in the form of two expounding classics: "It Happens Every Time" and the legendary "Sister Morphine," respectively. Mink Deville is represented by the scrappily backward-looking "Mixed Up, Shook Up Girl," Graham Parker via the wondrous "You Can't Be Too Strong," and while Neil Young is absent, his song "Helpless" is lit up nearly unrecognizably by Buffy Saint-Marie and Crazy Horse (!). Saint-Marie and Faithfull offer two of the most intense vocal performances captured on disc in this era; "Sister Morphine" in particular is a must-hear, miles beyond the Rolling Stones' version.
A soundtrack snippet of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is offered to represent his film work; otherwise we're spared most of Nitzsche's sad decline, which is all well and good, but the disc's sole serious flaw is that it skimps on his work as a performer. One cut makes it, and it's magic: "The Lonely Surfer" manages to be a classic of both the surf and easy-listening (Beautiful Music, that is) genres, no small achievement. The thing is still stunning, enveloping, magnificent, a piece of instrumental mastery, capturing its atmosphere of sadness and sunset so well it could only have come from a deeply troubled romantic place. As with so many of these songs -- "Helpless" above all, perhaps -- it's over far before you're ready for it to be. Maybe, after everything, that's Nitzsche's true legacy: tantalizing brevity. Whatever the case, this disc -- along with the LP The Lonely Surfer if you can find it -- is the perfect primer on this man and makes his case flawlessly.
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