Who is Harry Nilsson?

You can pick up pretty much any book about The Beatles and read something about Harry Nilsson. But in the early 80's he had been out of the spotlight for several years. We had probably read about his adventures with John Lennon in Los Angeles. But the first time we met him in the lobby of the Bonaventure Hotel it went something like this:

Harry - Something extremely flattering (like you're an Angel) to the not quite eighteen year old girl next to me.

Harry - You look alright (to me - I guess it was a compliment - LOL)

Harry - You look like one of those kids I knew in High School to my friend (which was funny because he was ONE of those type of kids).

At the time I had no idea that he sang the theme to the Courtship of Eddie's Father. A song I had heard a million times already at that point. Later I heard him sing the opening song to You Got Mail and Without You (a song that Mariah Carey made famous much later). It was hard to put the party animal image that he projected at the time with the soaring voice I would later hear in many songs.

The next time we chatted he was much more sedate and manning a booth for gun control. But that is one of dozens of memories from Beatlefest I will never forget.