For the Love of Harry: Everybody Sings Nilsson

Tribute albums are difficult things to pull off at the best of times, so it's no surprise that not quite everything works on this 23-track set. Part of the problem is that Harry Nilsson wrote some amazing songs in his time -- but he also wrote some that were not quite so amazing. Another part of the problem is that some of these songs don't lend themselves easily to interpretation -- thus we have Fred Schneider destroying "Coconut" with a loud, crunchy treatment, and LaVern Baker turning "Jump into the Fire" into a wimpy R&B outing. On the other hand, "Spaceman" is even more interestingly quirky in the hands of the Roches and Mark Johnson, Aimee Mann brings out the sweet side of "One," Adrian Belew does a fine "Me and My Arrow," and Steve Forbert turns in a supremely cute take on "The Moonbeam Song." Overall a nice project (with money going to the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence), though it does not replace the original Nilsson performances by a long chalk.