Nicolette

Blame my iPod. It kicked into a set of Nicolette Larson songs that just brightened my day.  "Give a little. Care a lot. Try to use the love you've got."  That was first up.  She had such a lovely voice. She was the singer part of the singer-songwriter and she loved other people's music, just like me.

I first met her in Kauai when she was living at the Crosby, Stills, Nash, Young and Jackson Browne compound.  We stood in the back of a bookstore and couldn't stop talking about music. I love her story about riding around Neil Young's Montana ranch with him in his jeep.  That's how he wound down, she said.

On one of their drives, he reached into the glove compartment and gave her a hand-written piece of paper.  He said, "You should record this.  It just sounds like you." It was the lyrics to a song he had written called "Lotta Love". She was blown away that he just gave it to her. She made the record and became a star when it hit the top of the charts.

I've got all of her catalogue but I don't listen to it as much as I should.  It is purely feel-good music. Her versions of Jesse Winchester's "Rhumba Man" and Lowell George's "Two Trains" make you want to dance. I may not be hopeless, but I am a romantic.

Nicolette was from Helena and had a great connection with the Northwest.  She was definitely "one of us".  She died in LA in 1997 from cerebral edema.  It was a sad day in the music business. But we've still got her songs.