Elsewhere: Only the echoes of Harry Nilsson's mind

The life of the greatly underrated Harry Nilsson is full of irony - and stories about how he could drink. In fact, some people know Nilsson only as John Lennon's LA boozing buddy in the early 70s. Yep, that's Harry in the Famous Photo trying to stop the peaceful Beatle from punching someone out.

Others know Harry sang that beautiful ballad Without You and the memorable theme to Midnight Cowboy, Everybody's Talkin' which, incidentally, appears on Peter Urlich and Simon Grigg's new compilation Room Service.

But there's the irony: Nilsson was a gifted songwriter whose biggest hits were written by others. Without You was by Pete Ham and Tom Evans from the Beatles-blessed power poppers, Badfinger. And although Harry offered a beautiful original song as the theme to Midnight Cowboy (I Guess the Lord Must Be in New York City) director John Schlesinger opted for him singing Fred Neil's Everybody's Talkin'.

Nilsson was a craftsman who wrote children's songs (his album/story The Point was a metaphorical children's tale for adults and an animated television film), flat tack rock (Jump Into the Fire), naïve pop (Cuddly Toy was a hit for the Monkees) and faux Caribbean songs ("put de lime in de coconut"). He fooled around with sound effects and tapes, and used orchestras, Van Dyke Parks on piano, and steel drums when required.

He recorded an album of Randy Newman songs years before most people knew who Newman was and his ballads were sometimes undercut by his Anglophile humour: "Ever sat on a fence with bits of crap around its bottom blown there by the wind?" he sings seductively on The Moonbeam Song. He got the Stepney and Pinney pensioners choir to sing a chorus, "I'd rather be dead than wet my bed."

Nilsson's wayward genius was announced in 1968 by Lennon and McCartney when they launched the Apple label in New York and said he was their favourite artist.

Nilsson was a jobbing LA songwriter working in a bank at the time, but on his debut album Pandemonium Shadow Show he'd ambitiously covered She's Leaving Home, and You Can't Do That was a precociously clever amalgam of Beatles titles, hooks and riffs.

Throughout his short career - effectively little more than a decade from 67, and he never played a concert - Nilsson had an intuitive understanding of English music hall, Tin Pan Alley and rock'n'roll.

He didn't shy away from writing country'n'western parodies (Joy) or attacking sacred texts such as River Deep Mountain High.

Nilsson's many humours ran from wry observation to satirical stuff'n' nonsense. Oh, and he also wrote film scores. He was an exceptional piano player (for Nilsson sings Newman he analysed Randy's playing intensely), and could sing with great sensitivity or like his life depended on it.

Nilsson was more an adventurer than an artist: part Warren Zevon, part Boyce-Hart, an accomplished journeyman like Newman, and a balladeer with a three-and-a-half octave range. You can hear why Lennon liked his echo-heavy rock voice.

Of course, he also got boozed and coked to the eyeballs, and his career was over by 1980. He withdrew after Lennon's death, and died in 94 of a heart attack, aged 52.

His first eight albums have now been remastered and repackaged over five CDs by BMG Camden in one of the most thorough, deserving reissues of recent years. They come with useful liner notes, and judiciously few extra tracks and outtakes.

The discs are Pandemonium Shadow Show/Aerial Ballet; Harry/Nilsson Sings Newman; Skidoo/The Point; Nilsson Schmilsson and Son of Schmilsson. Of them, the two Schmilssons are essential. Harry/Nilsson Sings Newman is the next step. The early Shadow/Ballet pairing is interesting if you get real serious. His soundtrack songs to Otto Preminger's Skidoo is fine but hardly necessary. (He sings the films credits: "And Groucho Marx played God.")

But Skidoo is paired with The Point which is Harry reading his knowing gem of a story. Excellent, especially if you are a kid - or have ever been one.

Towards the end of Scorsese's Goodfellas there's that adrenalin-racin' sequence when Ray Liotta is snorting coke, picking up his brother from hospital, racing home to prepare spaghetti sauce, snorting again, selling guns, snorting, and watching for police choppers. The madness kicks in with Harry's breakneck Jump into the Fire. It's perfect.

Unfortunately, some days must have been like that for Harry, too. He jumped into fires but, unlike most, came up with remarkably consistent albums. These excellent reissues make you miss him all the more.