Larson, Nicolette (1952–1997)

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Larson, Nicolette (1952–1997)

American singer known for her Top-Ten hit "Lotta Love." Born on July 17, 1952, in Helena, Montana; died on December 16, 1997, in Los Angeles, California; one of three daughters and six children of Robert Larson and Josephine Larson; married Russ Kunkel (a drummer), in 1990; children: one daughter, Elsie May Larson Kunkel (b. 1990).

Was a back-up and session singer in the Los Angeles country-rock scene (mid-1970s); sang on Tales from the Ozone by Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen, 1975; performed on dozens of other albums (1970s–1980s); was associated with Neil Young, Linda Ronstadt, Michael McDonald, Graham Nash and many other major West Coast artists; recorded six albums as solo artist; had Top-Ten hit, "Lotta Love" (1979); had a country-music career (1980s).

Solo albums:

Nicolette (1978); In the Nick of Time (1979); Radioland (1980); All Dressed Up and No Place to Go (1982); Say When (1985); Sleep Baby Sleep (1994).

Nicolette Larson was born in Helena, Montana, in 1952, one of three daughters of the six children of Josephine Larson and Robert Larson, who worked for the Treasury Department. The large family moved to a different U.S. city every few years, preparing Larson for the peripatetic life she was to lead as one of the most sought-after back-up singers and collaborators of the 1970s. Larson's family eventually settled in Kansas City, while Larson moved to San Francisco in 1974. Working for the Golden Gate Country-Bluegrass Festival, Larson was encouraged to pursue a professional music career, joining David Nichtern and the Nocturnes and playing clubs around the Bay area. A year later, at 21, she moved to Los Angeles, the center of the country-rock music scene, to find work as a session singer.

Her first break is said to have occurred when she was working at the coat-check counter of a Los Angeles nightclub and performed an impromptu duet performance with the club's sound engineer when the opening act canceled. It's likely, however, that by this point she had already come to the attention of Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen, who invited her to sing on 1975's Tales from the Ozone. Larson went on to tour with Commander Cody and sing on another two of their albums.

By the late 1970s, Larson was touring and recording with many of the era's key musical figures, including Linda Ronstadt , Neil Young, Emmylou Harris , Michael McDonald, Willie Nelson, Jimmy Buffett, Christopher Cross, the Dirt Band, Hoyt Axton, the Beach Boys, Graham Nash and the Doobie Brothers. Ronstadt, who became a mentor and close friend, and who was instrumental in launching Larson's career, described Larson as "a fellow road warrior."

It was a period when female solo artists—who were more than just the derided "girl singers" of the 1960s—were actively sought by record companies for the first time (described by The New York Times critic John Rockwell in 1979 as "the current fad for women singers"). In 1978, with the support of Ronstadt and Neil Young, Larson was offered a record contract with Warner Bros., releasing her first single, "Lotta Love," later that year. The song was written by Neil Young, with whom Larson had earlier had a brief but intense romantic relationship. (They remained friends for the rest of her life. Larson sang on five Neil Young albums, dueting with him on the poignant title track of 1992's Harvest Moon and appearing with Young on MTV Unplugged in 1993.) According to Larson, she first heard "Lotta Love" after spotting an old tape on the floor of Young's car. When she told Young how much she liked it, he replied: "It's you." A radio hit, "Lotta Love" reached #8 on the pop charts, helping her debut album Nicolette to achieve gold status.

Larson recognized that, like Ronstadt, she was a greater singer than a songwriter. "I'm not an instinctive songwriter like Neil, who can sit down and write six songs a day," she said in 1979. "[But] I think I express myself as a singer just fine." "Lotta Love" was to prove Larson's biggest hit. Her second album, In the Nick of Time, and single "Rumba Girl," both stalled at #47 on the charts, though the album's duet with Michael McDonald, "Let Me Go Love," was a Top-40 hit.

After indifferent sales for her next albums, 1980's Radioland and 1982's All Dressed Up and No Place to Go (which spawned the single "I Only Want To Be With You"), Larson retreated from the rock scene. "Nicolette moved a lot of people with her depth of feeling at a time when it was easy to be cynical," Jackson Browne once said. Seeking a change in focus, Larson starred in the country musical Pump Boys and Dinettes; the resulting good notices won her a recording contract with MCA Nashville in 1983. Her first country album, … Say When (1985), was a commercial failure, but in 1986 Larson enjoyed success with "That's How You Know When Love's Right," a duet with Steve Wariner. A Top-Ten country hit, the single stayed in the charts for five months. Her subsequent career included a USO tour with Valerie Carter and Lauren Wood , and some television and movie acting, including the role of nightclub singer in the Arnold Schwarzenegger-Danny De-Vito comedy Twins.

Larson's crystalline, strong, versatile voice was a distinctive presence on both pop and country radio. Bonnie Raitt called her "a sultry rodeo angel." Jimmy Buffett described hearing her "unmistakable voice" on a record playing in an Aspen restaurant: "The sun lit up the mountain and the sky was Caribbean blue, and the little girl with the big voice was coloring the Rockies."

Her awards included Performance magazine's Best Female Vocalist (1979), the Academy of Country Music's Best New Vocalist (1984), and Cashbox magazine's Best New Country Vocalist in 1985. In 1978, she won Rolling Stone magazine's critics' poll, the same year Ronstadt won the readers' poll. Ronstadt "was tickled," Larson recalled. "She said, 'We're both queens of the prom.'"

In 1990, Larson married renowned session drummer Russell Kunkel, giving birth to their only child, Elsie May, the same year. The birth of her daughter inspired the last album Larson recorded, 1994's Sleep Baby Sleep, a collection of lullabies and children's songs which included duets with Graham Nash and Linda Ronstadt. Larson remained a popular figure among her fellow musicians. Paul Gurion suggested that her "well-worn robe, the slippers, and the 'Aw Shucks' demeanor was a disarming disguise for an often probing wit that got right to the heart of the matter."

In December 1997, after being rushed to the UCLA Medical Center in Los Angeles with liver failure, Larson died from a condition known as cerebral edema, a build-up of toxic fluids in the brain. At a memorial concert in February 1998, fellow musicians paid tribute to the woman described by Dan Fogelberg as "a rare and wonderful singer."