So the story of German singer-songwriter Nico‘s solo debut album is that members of The Velvet Underground, to whom she’d been attached by their patron Andy Warhol, did not appreciate her presence in the band. However, they were willing to help her perform live as a solo act and would help with her solo debut. And they weren’t the only ones, as Tim Hardin, who already had a solo career, and Jackson Browne, who was only writing songs for other people at the time, and who was then dating Nico, also were performing with her. Nico had yet to write her own music so Browne, Hardin and Lou Reed and John Cale of the Velvets all contributed songs to her debut. (There’s also a Dylan cover.)
Nico had a creative battle on her hands with famed producer Tom Wilson, however. The initial recordings were just her singing and either Jackson Browne on guitar or three quarters of the Velvet Underground, i.e. minus their drummer. (Cale didn’t play bass on the record either.) Nico wanted more guitars and more drums, perhaps a sound closer to the Velvets or to the folk rock sound that had taken over the world in the mid ’60s. But, instead, after they recorded the songs, Wilson added strings and, most notoriously, flute, turning what was perhaps supposed to be a folk rock record into a chamber folk record and earning Nico’s enmity.
Tony Molina is a Bay Area musician who began his career as a hardcore punk singer at the turn of the century but who soon transitioned to indie rock as both singer and guitarist. He’s been in a bunch of different Bay Area bands and has been releasing solo albums for nearly two decades. His latest release is a single featuring two covers, the b-side of which is a Jackson Browne tune he and Nico recorded for her debut album.
Nico’s version was just her and Browne initially – Nico’s distinct contralto singing somewhat languorously over Browne’s slightly sloppy guitars. But Wilson added his elaborate, busy string arrangement which changed the feel of the song entirely.
Not that Nico and Browne’s version would have been folk rock, but it’s interesting to think what they would have done with creative freedom. They likely wouldn’t have gone full-on Byrdsian folk rock but that’s the route Molina has opted for on his new cover. Well, Byrdsian folk rock filtered through indie rock. His version opens with jangling folk rock guitar that could be ’80s REM. But then bandmate Rachel Orimo sings in a dreamy style just about as far from Nico as one can get. And distortion and guitar feedback sit in the background removing any lingering similarities to ’60s folk rock or to REM. Alicia Vanden Heuvel provides harmony vocals for Orimo and we almost get the impression of a woman-fronted Jesus and Mary Chain albeit with more a lot more folk influence and much less prominent distortion.
It’s a fun cover that might be spiritually closer to what Nico had originally intended for her own version if she had been given more creative control.
