While working as a computer programmer at a bank, he grew interested in musical composition and close-harmony singing and was successful in having some of his songs recorded by various artists, such as the Monkees.

62 in Rolling Stone's 2015 list of the "100 Greatest Songwriters of All Time", where he was described as "a pioneer of the Los Angeles studio sound" and "a crucial bridge" between 1960s psychedelia and the 1970s singer-songwriter era.

[7][8] His paternal great-grandfather, a Swede who later emigrated to and became naturalized in the United States, created an act known as an "aerial ballet" (which is the title of one of Nilsson's albums).

His younger brother, Drake Nilsson, was left with family or friends during their moves between Southern California and New York, sometimes living with a succession of relatives and his stepfather.

[11] Due to his family's poor financial situation, Nilsson worked from an early age, including a job at the Paramount Theatre in Los Angeles.

He had made early attempts at performing while he was working at the Paramount, forming a vocal duo with his friend Jerry Smith and singing close harmonies in the style of the Everly Brothers.

None of Nilsson's Tower releases charted or gained much critical attention, although his songs were being recorded by Glen Campbell, Fred Astaire, The Shangri-Las, The Yardbirds, and others.

In the weeks after the Beatles' Apple press conference, Nilsson's office phone began ringing constantly, with offers and requests for interviews and inquiries about his performing schedule.

Nilsson acquired a manager, who steered him into a handful of TV guest appearances, and a brief run of stage performances in Europe set up by RCA.

[17] Aerial Ballet also contained Nilsson's version of his composition "One", which was later taken to the top 5 of the US charts by Three Dog Night and also successfully covered in Australia by John Farnham.

Late in 1968, The Monkees' notorious experimental film Head premiered, featuring a memorable song-and-dance sequence with Davy Jones and Toni Basil performing Nilsson's composition "Daddy's Song".

Nilsson's next album, Harry (1969), was his first to hit the charts, and also provided a Top 40 single with "I Guess the Lord Must Be in New York City" (written as a contender for the theme to Midnight Cowboy), used in the Sophia Loren movie La Mortadella (1971) (US title: Lady Liberty).

While the album still presented Nilsson as primarily a songwriter, his astute choice of cover material included, this time, a song by then-little-known composer Randy Newman, "Simon Smith and the Amazing Dancing Bear".

The first was a cover of Badfinger's song "Without You" (by British songwriters Pete Ham and Tom Evans), featuring a highly emotional arrangement and soaring vocals to match – recorded, according to Perry, in a single take.

[15] The second single was "Coconut", a novelty calypso number featuring four characters (the narrator, the brother, the sister, and the doctor) all sung (at Perry's suggestion) in different voices by Nilsson.

[20] The third single, "Jump into the Fire", was raucous rock and roll, including a drum solo by Derek and the Dominos' Jim Gordon and a detuned bass part by Herbie Flowers.

Besides the problem of competing with himself, Nilsson was by then ignoring most of Perry's production advice,[11] and his decision to give free rein to his bawdiness and bluntness on this release alienated some of his earlier, more conservative fan base.

With lyrics like "I sang my balls off for you, baby", "Roll the world over / And give her a kiss and a feel", and the notorious "You're breakin' my heart / You're tearin' it apart / So fuck you" (a reference to his ongoing divorce), Nilsson had traveled far afield from his earlier work.

A third single, the tongue-in-cheek C&W send up "Joy", was issued on RCA's country imprint Green and credited to Buck Earle, but it failed to chart.

Prior to agreeing to be featured on an episode of director and producer's Stanley Dorfman's In Concert series for the BBC, Nilsson had appeared only once, for a few moments, on television in Britain and once in America.

His show was very interesting and innovative with a lot of new technology, multiple images and things like that, but I think any artist, with very few exceptions and none that I can really think of, can immeasurably enhance his career by appearing in front of the public.

Performing a selection of pop standards by the likes of Berlin, Kalmar, and Ruby, Nilsson sang in front of an orchestra arranged and conducted by veteran Gordon Jenkins in sessions produced by Derek Taylor.

With his voice strong again, and his songs exploring musical territory reminiscent of Harry or The Point!, Nilsson anticipated Knnillssonn to be a comeback album.

Nilsson cumulatively spent several years at the apartment, which was located near Apple Records, the Playboy Club, the Tramp nightclub, and the homes of friends and business associates.

[12] Nilsson, distraught over another friend's death in his apartment, and having little need for the property, sold it to Moon's bandmate Pete Townshend[28] and consolidated his life in Los Angeles.

He wrote a musical, Zapata, with Perry Botkin Jr. and libretto by Allan Katz, which was produced and directed by longtime friend Bert Convy.

They collaborated on a number of screenplays including Obits (a Citizen Kane-style story about a journalist investigating an obituary notice) and The Telephone, a comedy about an unhinged unemployed actor.

It had been written with Robin Williams in mind but he turned it down; comedian-actress Whoopi Goldberg then signed on, with Southern's friend Rip Torn directing, but the project was troubled.

[33] Nilsson made his last concert appearance on September 1, 1992, when he joined Ringo Starr & His All-Starr Band on stage at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, to sing "Without You" with Todd Rundgren handling the high notes.

[11] The filmmakers re-edited the film with rare found footage of Nilsson, additional interviews, and family photographs, and released it on September 17, 2010, at selected theaters in the United States.