Greatest Hits Compilations

There have been a few...

Some good...others not so.  Harry was particularly offended by one, which RCA released with a photograph of  someone completely different (i.e. not Harry!) looking into a mirror! 

He said: "Look at this!  This is RCA for you!  That's not me.  Now, do you think RCA has got any f***ing soul whatsoever, when they do sh*t like this?  I begged them in the very beginning, 'Don't ever put out a best-of album until I'm dead or I'm off the label.'  And, no, they sneak this out and don't tell me about it, and hire a guy to look like me, and then they took the old picture of me and reversed it and put it in the mirror.  How about that for trash?"

In England the first 'greatest hits' album was called 'greatest music'. Everybody's Talkin' and Without Her were put together by Harry's friend Rob Burt.  Personal Best was 2/3 of Harry's own selection for a retrospective 3 CD set.  At RCA's insistence it was cut down to a 2CD release - I have tried for several years to find Harry's original choices for the full 3 CD set but to no avail.

The 'Harry And...' LP was released only in the UK and, again without Harry's permission, the songs were licensed to K-Tel, a cheapo, 'supermarket' label.  This gave Nilsson the opportunity to finally sever his ties with RCA and get out of his contract with the label.

In addition to these (and there are probably more!) individual Nilsson songs have appeared on countless compilations - 'Everybody's Talkin'' and 'Without You' the most common (try finding a 'Greatest Love Songs' compilation that does NOT include 'Without You'!)