Jack Nitzsche | Artist

Bernard Alfred "Jack" Nitzsche was an American musician, arranger, songwriter, composer, and record producer born 1937 in Chicago, Illinois. He first came to prominence in the early 1960s as the right-hand-man of producer Phil Spector and went on to work with the Rolling Stones, Neil Young, Leon Russell and many others. The son of German immigrants, Nitzsche moved to Los Angeles in 1955 with ambitions of becoming a jazz saxophonist. Completely self-taught musically, he was hired by Sonny Bono as a music copyist at Specialty Records. While there, he wrote a novelty hit titled "Bongo Bongo Bongo" and co-wrote with Bono the song "Needles and Pins" for Jackie DeShannon, later recorded by the Searchers. His instrumental composition "The Lonely Surfer" entered the Cash Box top 100 in 1963, and reached No. 37. Soon after he became arranger and conductor for producer Phil Spector and orchestrated the Wall of Sound for the song "River Deep, Mountain High" by Ike and Tina Turner. In 1964 Nitzsche met the Rolling Stones and played keyboards on many of their early albums as well as on their hit singles "Paint it Black" and "Let's Spend the Night Together"; and wrote the choral arrangements for "You Can't Always Get What You Want". Nitzsche was also a member of Neil Young's band Crazy Horse, as singer and keyboardist, plus he was in the Stray Gators who backed Young on his classic Harvest album. As well as producing many famous records for other artists, Nitzsche himself composed and recorded over a dozen movie soundtracks including One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Performance, Heartbeat, Starman, The Seventh Sign and The Jewel of the Nile. Nitzsche's second marriage was to fellow musician Buffy Saint-Marie, with whom he co-wrote the song "Up Where We Belong" which won the Academy Award for Best Original Song in 1983. Two Nitzsche compilations are highly recommended: The Jack Nitzsche Story: Hearing is Believing (2005) and Three Piece Suite: The Reprise Recordings 1971-1974 (2001).

Artist Website: wikipedia/Jack_Nitzsche

Featured Albums: Jack Nitzsche

Related Artists: Crazy Horse, Buffy Sainte-Marie, Neil Young, Rolling Stones, Phil Spector

Video Clips: Interview '81, Interview Pt 2, The Lonely Surfer