Nicolette Larson

Nicolette Larson first gained experience providing backing vocals for multiple country-rock ensembles before joining Commander Cody's Lost Planet Airmen as a full member for several years in the middle of the 1970s. By the final years of that decade she stepped forward with a solo career. At the outset she embraced the relaxed style of West Coast country-rock, which produced a Top Ten pop success in 1979 through her version of “Lotta Love.” After that breakthrough she stayed with the soft-rock Californian approach for a while longer, only turning toward country music in the mid-1980s. Across the remainder of the decade she collected several country-chart entries before gradually stepping back from regular recording.

Born in Montana, Larson and her family later relocated to Kansas City. After finishing high school she moved to San Francisco and took a job with the Golden Gate Country/Bluegrass Festival. While working there she encountered numerous musicians who admired her singing voice and urged her to turn professional. Heeding their advice, she joined David Nichtern and the Nocturnes and performed in clubs throughout the Bay Area. Her work eventually caught the ear of Commander Cody & the Lost Planet Airmen, who asked her to contribute vocals to their 1975 album Tales From the Ozone. After its release she toured with the group; over the next three years she also appeared on two further band recordings, Rock 'n' Roll Again and Flying Dreams, while continuing to travel with them.

Around the same period she relocated to Los Angeles and began working as a studio vocalist. During the following four years she lent her voice to numerous country and rock projects, among them albums by Neil Young, Linda Ronstadt, Hoyt Axton, Guy Clark, Jesse Winchester, Emmylou Harris, Jesse Colin Young, John Stewart, the Doobie Brothers, Rodney Crowell, and Graham Nash. In 1978 Warner Brothers offered her a contract; her first single, a cover of Young’s “Lotta Love,” appeared late that year. The track climbed to number eight on the pop charts and helped drive her debut album, Nicolette, to gold certification. Although both the album and single succeeded immediately, follow-up efforts fared less well: “Rhumba Girl” stopped at number 47, matching the highest position reached by her second album, In the Nick of Time. That record did yield one Top 40 hit, the duet “Let Me Go, Love” with Michael McDonald, yet her third album, Radioland (1980), attracted little attention.

After another pop attempt with 1982’s All Dressed Up & No Place to Go and its single “I Only Want to Be With You,” Larson withdrew from the pop mainstream to appear in the country musical Pump Boys and Dinettes. Her performance earned favorable notices, prompting MCA to sign her in 1983. The Academy of Country Music named her Best New Female Vocalist in 1984 on the strength of that stage work, even though she had not yet charted any country singles. She finally issued a country album, …Say When, in 1985, but it failed to meet commercial expectations. Despite strong critical praise, the record produced only one modest single, “Only Love Will Make It Right,” which reached the Top 50; nevertheless Cash Box still named her Best New Female Vocalist of the year.

Larson finally entered the country charts in 1986 when her duet with Steve Wariner, “That’s How You Know When Love’s Right,” rose into the Top Ten and remained on the chart for five months. The track appeared on Rose of My Heart, which sold respectably, yet she chose not to follow it with another country project. Instead she recorded Shadows of Love in Italy in 1987 and, the following year, began pursuing acting roles. In 1988 she appeared on the Black gospel television program Family Reunion, in the Arnold Schwarzenegger/Danny DeVito film Twins, and on the series Throb. During the early 1990s she toured with Valerie Carter and Lauren Wood; the three performers also participated in a USO tour. In 1994 she released the children’s album Sleep Baby Sleep. Larson died on December 16, 1997.