Nicolette Larson: Inside the Life and Career of 'Lotta Love' Singer | Rolling Stone

"Lotta Love"
Neil Young with Nicolette Larson
1985 Meadowbrook Rochester, Michigan
photo via Jim Munro‎ on Neil Young's Ditch Trilogy | Facebook
(Click photo to enlarge) 

A major article on Nicolette Larson: Inside the Life and Career of 'Lotta Love' Singer | Rolling Stone by Angie Martoccio.

Nicolette Larson is often best remembered for her 1979 cover of Neil Young's "Lotta Love" which was a #1 hit and launched her musical career.

Nicolette Larson: 1952 - 1997

Regarding the song "Lotta Love", Nicolette said "I got that song off a tape I found lying on the floor of Neil's car. I popped it in the tape player and commented on what a great song it was. Neil said: 'You want it? It's yours.' "

We found this article to be one of the most insightful ever into the ways and whims of Neil Young's "shakey style".

From  Rolling Stone article:

" “With the possible exception of [Crazy Horse guitarist] Danny Whitten, Nicolette sang better with Neil than anyone,” says Young archivist and photographer Joel Bernstein. “Nicolette and Danny absolutely were the two best singers with Neil who really understood his singing, his soulfulness, and what to get across. When you hear Comes a Time now, many years later, it pulls at your heartstrings as much as it did the first time you heard it.” "

A Tribute To Nicolette Larson: Lotta Love Concert
Artist & Track Details

From Neil Young biography Shakey, Nicolette Larson remembers how Young greeted her that rainy night. “He said, ‘I guess I’m supposed to meet you, ‘cause I called three people lookin’ for a singer and everyone told me your name.’ Neil’s kinda cosmic about things like that.” 

"Young’s half-sister, Astrid, who sang with Larson and remained friends with her for the rest of her life, agrees: “Where she was at in her career and what she was doing was not really what he was looking for. I think he wanted something that was a little bit more home. [They] were on different roads. Even though they parted ways on a personal level, I think they still had a lot of love and respect for each other. Neil valued her so much on the work that she did with his music that was so incredibly pivotal to the sound at the time.” "

Nicolette Larson

 

Another key singer during this mid-70's period was Linda Ronstadt, who was a close friend of Nicolette Larson.

"Larson moved in with Ronstadt after the breakup, telling Crawdaddy, “One thing that I learned from the whole Neil episode: Good friends are essential. Linda pulled me through so much of that.” Ronstadt tells Rolling Stone she thought the split was for the best: “We go through those things, and they’re a drag. It was hard for her because they sang really well together, but I don’t think it was meant to be. Neil is really sweet, but he’s moody, and I think that was puzzling to Nicolette. He’s a real complicated guy, and he’s got a wonderful heart.” "

Linda Ronstadt & Nicolette Larsen w/ Neil Young
via "American Stars & Bars" sessions 

After Larson's death, an all-star tribute concert was held in February 1998 at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium, featuring Ronstadt; Crosby, Stills, and Nash; Bonnie Raitt; Jackson Browne; Carole King; and others.

""Young’s absence at the tribute was felt by many, including him. “I just couldn’t do it,” he says. “I just didn’t want to go. Because I have my own memories of her, and I just felt like I couldn’t do it at that time. But now I would like to say how great she was, and what a wonderful person she was.”"

“She was absolutely fearless,” Young tells Rolling Stone of Larson. “She told me, ‘I’m the best one. I can follow you anywhere you want to go. No one can follow you better than I can.’ And she could.”

Full article @ Nicolette Larson: Inside the Life and Career of 'Lotta Love' Singer | Rolling Stone by Angie Martoccio.

 More on RARE PHOTO: Nicolette Larson & Neil Young - 1985.

 More on Linda Ronstadt and Neil Young (Updated).

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Nicolette Larson, Neil Young + Gone with the Wind Orchestra: Nashville Musician’s Union Hall - 1977

"Lotta Love"
Neil Young with Nicolette Larson, 1985
Meadowbrook - Rochester, Michigan
photo via Jim Munro‎ on Neil Young's Ditch Trilogy | Facebook
(Click photo to enlarge)  

Folks may recall that we recently posted on the discrepancy on credits for the song "Daughters" as to whether background vocals are Nicolette Larson or  Emmylou Harris.

Then, we reported here last week, several major announcements regarding the Neil Young Archives Vol #3 - coming in 2022 - including:

• A Snapshot in Time -  " 'Barefoot Floors' is also included on NYA Volume 3 in ‘a snapshot in time’ disc 3. This is a documentary tape of me playing the songs on stars n bars for Nicolette Larson, Linda Ronstadt and David Briggs before we went into the studio. I think it’s the best recording. It may have been done separately in the studio."
• GIVE TO THE WIND - planned for NYA Volume 3, Disc 4. "We have the rehearsal tape done at the Nashville Musician’s Union Hall the previous day with Nicolette and I and the entire orchestra."

In today's Times-Contrarian | NYA,  Neil Young fondly recalls Nicolette Larson and the Gone with the Wind Orchestra sessions at Nashville Musician’s Union Hall in 1977. 

Nicolette’s voice and soul will live forever in my heart. She brought her love and spirit every time she sang with me or anyone else. When Ben Keith called her the best harmony singer he had ever heard, he was right. Nicolette loved to sing! Singing along with me once she said she could follow my voice anywhere it went.

Nicolette.

She once told me her friends would go with her on gravel roads, bumpy ones, in an old truck and “sing like Neil Young”, referring to my shaky vibrato and laughing as they flew down the bumpy road.

Neil Young continues that he is completing the long lost recording from the Nashville Musician’s Union Hall with the ‘Gone with the Wind Orchestra’.  Ten songs are planned for  NYA#3 disc "GIVE TO THE WIND".

 "Give to The Wind" Unreleased Album Artwork  

(See ULTRA RARE: Neil Young's Unreleased "Give to The Wind" )

 

More on Neil Young Archives Vol #3 details.

Also, more on Nicolette Larson & Neil Young.

A Tribute To Nicolette Larson: Lotta Love Concert

Also, see Nicolette Larson Covers 'Lotta Love' on YouTube.

More on the Nicolette Larson Tribute: The "Lotta Love Concert", Feb. 21-22, 1998, at the Santa Monica, CA Civic Auditorium.

Also, see INTERVIEW - 30 Years Ago: Nicolette Larson Talks Neil Young .

Nicolette Larson: 1952 - 1997

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RARE PHOTO: Nicolette Larson & Neil Young - 1985

"Lotta Love"
Neil Young with Nicolette Larson
1985 Meadowbrook Rochester, Michigan
photo via Jim Munro‎ on Neil Young's Ditch Trilogy | Facebook
(Click photo to enlarge)Well here's a pretty rare photo of Neil Young performing "Lotta Love" with Nicolette Larson in 1985 at the Meadowbrook Arena in Rochester, Michigan (photo via Jim Munro‎ on Neil Young's Ditch Trilogy | Facebook Thanks Jim!).

Nicolette Larson is best remembered for her 1979 cover of Neil Young's "Lotta Love" which was a #1 hit and launched her musical career.

Regarding the song "Lotta Love", she said "I got that song off a tape I found lying on the floor of Neil's car. I popped it in the tape player and commented on what a great song it was. Neil said: 'You want it? It's yours.' "


Nicolette Larson's "Lotta Love" written by Neil Young.

Nicolette Larson sang on Neil Young's 1977 album, American Stars 'n Bars, with Linda Ronstadt on the tracks "Old Country Waltz", "Saddle Up the Palomino", "Bite the Bullet", "Hold Back the Tears", and "Hey Babe".


Nicolette Larson: 1952 - 1997

Sadly, Larson died in 1997 at the age of 45 after suffering a cerebral edema.

In August 2005, during the Neil Young's Nashville Ryman concerts, "Young referred repeatedly to the late singer Nicolette Larson" among the personal losses Young has experienced.

The "Lotta Love Concert," a tribute to late vocalist Nicolette Larson was staged Feb. 21-22, 1998, at the Santa Monica, CA Civic Auditorium.

The event featured performances from Dan Fogelberg, Joe Walsh, Jackson Browne, Emmylou Harris, Crosby, Stills & Nash, Jimmy Buffet, Carole King, Linda Ronstadt and Little Feat with Bonnie Raitt, a number of whom Larson recorded with in her lifetime.


A Tribute To Nicolette Larson: Lotta Love Concert
Artist & Track Details

From the Tribute CD's liner notes:

"Neil Young, urged by Emmylou and her producer-husband, Brian Ahern, ambled down malibu's Broad Beach to play some tunes for Linda and found her harmonizing with Nicolette. So were born the Bullets on American Stars'n Bars. The next year Nicolette backed up Young on Comes A Time"."

(Thanks firehills!)

The liner notes also says of the Tribute concert that "Neil Young sent a bouquet of roses as big as the audience. He could only attend in spirit on the group encore of 'Lotta Love'".

From a profile on Nicolette Larson in Rolling Stone #280, December 14, 1978 (The Uncool - The Official Site for Everything Cameron Crowe):

One evening when Linda Ronstadt got a call from Neil Young, a Malibu neighbor, looking for a female vocal accompanist. Ronstadt mentioned Nicolette to Young, who had already been given Larson's name three times that day. He promptly came over with guitar in hand.

'I didn't know much about Neil Young,' remembers Larson. 'But we went over and sat by the fireplace and Neil ran down all the songs he had just written, about twenty of them. We sang harmonies with him and he was jazzed.'

A week later Young invited Larson and Ronstadt up to his northern California ranch/studio to re-create the same vocal mix for his American Stars and Bars album. 'We [Neil and Crazy Horse] worked out the songs in a room of his house,' says Larson. 'And just when we had the songs down, Neil said, 'Thanks a lot... we've got the album.' He was recording all the rehearsals secretly in another room.'

Larson didn't hear from Young until six months later, when he summoned her to Nashville where he was beginning Comes a Time. Young wanted her to front a twenty-two-piece studio band with him - dubbed the Gone with the Wind Orchestra. 'He told me to sing whatever I wanted,' says Larson. 'You can hear me trying to work the parts out on the album.'"

From a profile on Neil Young in Rolling Stone #284, February 8, 1979 (The Uncool - The Official Site for Everything Cameron Crowe):

After the Ducks episode, Young had taken his son Zeke for a cross-country ride in his tour bus. They ended up in Nashville and Neil decided to begin his next record there. Young rounded up a crew of sidemen that included country session musicians who had never played anything resembling rock, a singer – Nicolette Larson – he had worked with on American Stars ‘n Bars, and six acoustic guitarists.

Young began his most accessible and ultimately best-selling album since Harvest. “I was feeling pretty sunny,” he recalls. Nicolette Larson had kept a tape of some of the material from when she and Neil first met and sang together at her friend Linda Ronstadt’s house. When the phone call came from Nashville, she was ready.

Young barely had to show her the songs before they were singing the duets that appear on the album. The Gone with the Wind Orchestra, as the entire conglomeration of twenty-two musicians was called, lasted throughout the album and for one live performance, on Young’s thirty-second birthday, at an outdoor benefit for children’s hospitals in the Miami Beach area.

Young rehearsed the outfit in a Nashville storefront and flew everyone to Florida where, sharing the windy stage with Nicolette, he played what could well have been his purest and most note-perfect performance ever. The show ended with Young playing part of Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Sweet Home Alabama,” which he dedicated to “a couple of friends in the sky.”

A visit to Young’s house in Zuma Beach a month later found him and Nicolette in floppy sweaters before the fireplace – Ma and Pa Kettle at home. Young made some coffee, put on the tape, and they sang with themselves while Comes a Time played.

Also, see Nicolette Larson Covers 'Lotta Love' on YouTube.

More on the Nicolette Larson Tribute: The "Lotta Love Concert", Feb. 21-22, 1998, at the Santa Monica, CA Civic Auditorium.

Also, see INTERVIEW - 30 Years Ago: Nicolette Larson Talks Neil Young .

Nicolette LarsonNicolette Larson: 1952 - 1997

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30 Years Ago: Nicolette Larson Talks Neil Young

Nicolette Larson
Here's an interview with Nicolette Larson from thirty years ago in 1983 when she was playing a concert in Vancouver.

Nicolette Larson sang on Neil Young's 1977 album, American Stars 'n Bars, with Linda Ronstadt on the tracks "Old Country Waltz", "Saddle Up the Palomino", "Bite the Bullet", "Hold Back the Tears", and "Hey Babe".

From 30 Years Ago: Nicolette Larson talks Neil Young, Eddie Van Halen, and roommate Linda Ronstadt | Georgia Straight by Steve Newton:

How did you come to meet Neil Young?

Nicolette Larson:When he did American Stars 'n Bars his initial concept was to get two unknown singers and do the album with them, but he tried that and it didn't work at all. And then he decided to take the other route and get Emmylou and Linda, but Emmylou wasn't available to do it, so she and Linda recommended me. Neil kind of functions on cosmic operations, you know, and that was cosmic enough for him. If everyone had recommended me then I was supposed to work with him. So Linda and I went up to his ranch and sang backups on that album, and then when he did Comes a Time he called me again to come and sing on it.

Did you release your own version of "Lotta Love" before he did his?

Nicolette Larson:Well, this is what happened. He recorded it first, and I heard it and said "Gee that's great. How come you don't put that song out?". And he goes, "Oh, do you want it? It's yours." That was what he said with every song of his that I admired. It was kind of like, "Don't ask me why I don't put this out. You want to put it out, you put it out." So I recorded it, and got it all ready to put out, then at the very last minute he changed his mind on Comes a Time and put it on that. So we both released it the very same day, actually. I changed it around quite a lot from Neil's version. His is a lot different with all the "la la la la's" at the beginning.

Full interview at 30 Years Ago: Nicolette Larson talks Neil Young, Eddie Van Halen, and roommate Linda Ronstadt | Georgia Straight by Steve Newton.

Also, see Neil Young News: Nicolette Larson's "Lotta Love" & Neil Young.

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Nicolette Larson Covers 'Lotta Love' on YouTube

Nicolette Larson

 

Nicolette Larson's 1979 cover of Neil Young's "Lotta Love" was a #1 hit and launched her musical career.

 

NICOLETTE LARSON (Live) - Lotta Love

 

Regarding the song "Lotta Love", she said "I got that song off a tape I found lying on the floor of Neil's car. I popped it in the tape player and commented on what a great song it was. Neil said: 'You want it? It's yours.' " Larson sang much of the backing vocals on Neil Young's "Comes a Time" and "Harvest" albums, and duets on the song "Motorcycle Mama". Sadly, Larson died at the age of 45 in 1997.

Regarding the song "Lotta Love", she said "I got that song off a tape I found lying on the floor of Neil's car. I popped it in the tape player and commented on what a great song it was. Neil said: 'You want it? It's yours.' " Larson sang much of the backing vocals on Neil Young's "Comes a Time" and "Harvest" albums, and duets on the song "Motorcycle Mama". 

Sadly, Larson died at the age of 45 in 1997.

 A Tribute to Nicolette Larson: Lotta Love Concert 

The A Tribute to Nicolette Larson: Lotta Love Concert is a nice tribute to Nicolette featuring Crosby, Stills & Nash on "In My Life" and "Southern Cross", Jackson Browne on "Running on Empty" and Emmylou Harris on "Even Cowgirls Get the Blues". 

From the CD's liner notes: "Neil Young, urged by Emmylou and her producer-husband, Brian Ahern, ambled down Malibu's Broad Beach to play some tunes for Linda and found her harmonizing with Nicolette. So were born the Bullets on American Stars'n Bars." 

Also, from the liner notes: "Neil Young sent a bouquet of roses as big as the audience. He could only attend in spirit on the group encore of 'Lotta Love'".

More on the Nicolette Larson Tribute: The "Lotta Love Concert", Feb. 21-22, 1998, at the Santa Monica, CA Civic Auditorium. Also, Nicolette Larson's "Lotta Love" & Neil Young. 

And congratulations to Roel and Roos on their marriage! 

 It does take a lotta love.

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