Nicolette Larson

 Nicolette Larson (July 17, 1952 - December 16, 1997)

She is perhaps best known for her work in the late 1970s with Neil Young and her 1978 hit single of Young's "Lotta Love" which hit #1 on the Hot Adult Contemporary Tracks chart and No. 8 on the Pop Singles chart. It was followed by four more Adult Contemporary hits, two of which were also minor pop hits. By 1985, she shifted her focus to country music, charting six times on the US Country Singles chart. Her only Top 40 country hit was "That's How You Know When Love's Right," a duet with Steve Wariner. Larson's final mainstream album release was Shadows of Love a 1988 recording made for the Italian CGD label and produced by Carlo Stretti and Ernesto Taberelli. In 1990 Larson participated in the Festival di Sanremo duetting with Grazia Di Michele on the song "Me and My Father". Larson's final album was the self-produced Sleep, Baby, Sleep comprising music for children and released on Sony in 1994. Larson's further session vocal credits comprised work with Paul Barrere and the Bluesbusters, Jimmy Buffett, Carlene Carter, Robert Forman, the Georgia Satellites, Marc Jordan, Troy Newman, Dolly Parton, Guthrie Thomas and "Weird Al" Yankovic. In 1992 Larson reunited professionally with Neil Young to sing on his Harvest Moon album; in 1993 Larson was featured on Young's Unplugged. Larson also provided vocal accompaniment on "The Little Drummer Boy" and "Greensleeves" the two tracks Neil Young contributed to Seven Gates: A Christmas Album by Ben Keith and Friends (1994). In 1988, Larson contributed to the soundtracks of the films Renegade and Twins with respectively the tracks "Let Me Be the One" and "I'd Die For this Dance".

Nicolette Larson died on December 16, 1997, in Los Angeles, California, as a result of complications arising from cerebral edema triggered by liver failure. According to her friend Astrid Young, Larson had been showing symptoms of depression, and her fatal seizure "was in no small way related to her chronic use of Valium and Tylenol PM". Larson is buried at Forest Lawn-Hollywood Hills.