M- 1968 NICO CHELSEA GIRL - Velvet Underground Psych

$

107

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1968 first pressing *VINYL*             

             NICO ~ Chelsea Girl

...USA - royal blue w/ silver letters Verve - V/V6 5032 

Rare sought original 1968 VINYL first pressing on the royal blue & silver letters VERVE label. The firt solo album by Nico.  Nico first became known in the music world as a singer on the first Velvet Underground album, and her later solo records would plumb even darker depths than that famed New York band of iconoclasts. Her first solo album, CHELSEA GIRL, however, is another matter entirely. It's a delicate collection of orchestral poprock and chamber folk, with Nico's deep, Teutonic voice adding a subtle sense of discord. Like many interpreters of the time, Nico took on tunes by some of the era's most respected folk-rock songpoets (Bob Dylan, Jackson Browne, Tim Hardin). Even more impressive, though, are the compositional and instrumental contributions from Nico's Velvet Underground bandmates John Cale and Lou Reed (Cale would go on to produce some of Nico's finest, most forward-looking albums). Unique in Nico's solo catalogue for its fragility and gentility, CHELSEA GIRL is both a poignant period artifact and a perennially affecting piece of work.

Nico: vocals
Jackson Browne: acoustic guitar [Side 1: 1, 2. Side 2: 2, 3, 4]
Lou Reed: lead guitar
John Cale: electric viola, piano, bass

Recorded 1967-04-04 Mayfair Sound Studios, 701 Seventh Avenue, New York City, NY
Overdubs 1967-05-00 Mayfair Sound Studios, 701 Seventh Avenue, New York City, NY
Producer: Tom Wilson.

Below is an interesting accounting published in a New York magazine just after the release of Chelsea Girl in 1967:

I don't really know anything about her. Although we'd talked for more than an hour she'd requested that I not ask any "everyday questions;" questions like where she was born, her nationality, what she was trying to do.

And so, factually, I know only that her name is Nico ... mother lives in Paris ... son is four and a half ... top Parisian model ... had a part in Fellini's La Dolce Vita ... came to the States two years ago ... is part of Andy Warhol's Velvet Underground.

And all this I learned from her manager, Paul Morissey, while Nico sat behind the bar of the dusky Dom down on St. Mark's Place and sang very soft, sad songs in a deep voice which, when stretched out, has a little mourn to it; like a child's last sob.

I watched as she sat, her head hanging to one side, her long flaxen hair fallen to her waist, catching highlights from the kaleidoscopic light works projecting ever-changing images on the walls. She held the mike with both hands, her long neck reaching out towards the ceiling as she went for a note. There was a strange existentialness to her; she was at once both cool and warm and her style of singing stretched words to the point where they were out of shape — their meaning shaded in graduations until they were no longer words conveying thoughts but sounds conveying feeling.

I'd seen Nico a year ago when Warhol first opened his Exploding Plastic Inevitable. I was rounding a corner of the stairs when this tall lithe figure moved past like a sudden thought-picture you saw so totally you saw no details; the parts creating none of the sum.

Her set ended finally and her manager told me not to be surprised if she turned her head when introduced.

"She's very shy, really," he said.

"No, I'd like to talk. It's not that I have to talk ... I just don't see why I should be silent right ... now."

Nico seemed relaxed and extremely feminine in that personal, yet distant, way which is the mark of so many European women.

After promising that I wouldn't ask any everyday questions, I did just that: How long had she been singing.

"Well, yes," she said, but instead of continuing she stopped and seemed to search back past all the timeless copouts, past the obvious to what she really did think.

"I don't even see that it makes a difference," she replied finally, "because everyday I feel that the day before doesn't count ... so much happens ... I don't sing for the audience. I try to remain as much alone as I can ... not to make contact at all. (Except for the people who come every night)."

"I like sad songs, tragic ones ... I like to improvise with the notes, with the feeling I have at the time about the song."

Even those people who were friends of hers only six months ago she feels isolated from, because in this Underground movement  (the italics are hers) things move so fast because yesterday doesn't exist.

"They think I'm not polite ... but whatever I have to say to these people seems so unnecessary ... I just can't be around ... be around anything that is forced ... I'd rather just remain how I feel ... what happened before happened ... now it's only sentiment that you can't scratch out."

People, places, the years no longer exist for Nico except as blocks of emotion that can't be recaptured but only re-felt.

"I can't respond in the old way ... it's, you know, fake ... with people that you like for good reasons but not the most important reasons."

One of Nico's favorite people she says, was Lenny Bruce. "I like him for that thing ... that nothing is wrong to do or to say or to take ... he really destroyed himself in the end."

Her voice is low but strong; sensuous but reserved. Sometimes she seems as if she is talking to herself.

Nico's speech is slow; she makes sudden leaps of thought jettisoning the bridging word. Like a movie camera her thoughts keep cutting, instead of panning, from one to another; if only feeling linking them up and leading her on. Her voice flies high as she talk putting her emphasis on the conjunctions instead of the adjectives or verbs.

The conversation changes to Andy and Chelsea Girls, three and a half hours long. "I like the last sequence with the Pope and Ondine and that quiet film beside it." Nico is also in his new film, all in color, which runs for twenty-four hours.

She says Andy likes other people to become Andy for him; that he doesn't want to be always in charge of everything.

"He would rather be me or someone else sometimes ... like the radio interview when I couldn't show up ... he went on and took my part — said the sings I would say."

"It's part of pop-art, I guess, that everybody can impersonate somebody else ... that you don't always be you.

If tomorrow I find somebody who is pretty much like me and I put her here to sing, she can be Nico while I go to do something else."

She is beautiful. And in a world where so much can easily be possessed on a whim or for a promise, she is unpossessable. She has a clear, pure ring, a trueness, like an arrow that has hit an inner mark and can't be wedged loose. Her voice and her manner, that stretch farther into the past than perhaps she realizes, may set the new style: and existential pop style that is as earthy as Mary Travers (Peter, Paul & Mary) yet more elegant, more isolated.

Her name is Nico. I don't know where she was born, how old she is or anything about her life as a model in Paris, an actress in Rome, a beat in Ibiza or a member of the Velvet Underground.

I could easily find out. But I'd rather not. All that was yesterday.

1. The Fairest of the Seasons (4:06)
2. These Days (3:30)
3. Little Sister (4:22)
4. Winter Song (3:17)
5. It Was a Pleasure Then (8:02)

1. Chelsea Girls (7:22)
2. I'll Keep It with Mine (3:17)
3. Somewhere There's a Feather (2:16)
4. Wrap Your Troubles in Dreams (5:07)
5. Eulogy to Lenny Bruce (3:45)

CONDITION: The cover is very solid and clean "EX" (excellent) delete drill at bottom left, otherwise no split seams, no bends, no writing, sharp corners, will look *great* in any collection!

The vinyl is all glossy both sides M- ... expect to play TOP level ...

40 year old artifact of the Velvet Underground era

             ~ NICO ~ Chelsea Girl

      A cool addition to anyone's music library!

SEE: SELLERS OTher items for similar cool sounds for "head" people...

EFFICIENT/CAREFUL GRADING

All imperfections are noted both cover & record