Only the good die young: Jimmie Haskell revisits hit records with Rick Nelson

Drop dead gorgeous and definitely cast against type, Rick Nelson is a flute playing Pied Piper who persuades inexperienced young girls to become prostitutes in “Harem”, a second season episode from “The Streets of San Francisco” broadcast on September 5, 1973. Image Credit: ABC Photo Archives / Getty Images

Jimmie Haskell, a three-time Grammy-winning music industry veteran who worked with Elvis Presley, Neil Diamond, Chicago, the Everly Brothers, and hundreds of other talents, takes off his boxing gloves for a no-holds-barred conversation recalling his glory years spent supervising the recordings of “Garden Party” songwriter Rick Nelson.

In his own estimate, the soft-spoken conductor arranged and produced 75 singles for the posthumously inducted Rock and Roll Hall of Famer. Fashionably late to recording sessions but possessing a tireless work ethic that extended into early morning wake-up calls for The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet, Nelson considered Haskell, only three and a half years older, as an experienced mentor of sorts.

Many all-nighters were spent behind the mixing console as the duo diligently labored over their mutual passion. And it definitely paid off, as energetic bursts of sublime rockabilly or finely crafted ballads rolled off with near superhuman precision — e.g. “Lonesome Town”, “It’s Late”, “Believe What You Say”, “Travelin’ Man”, “Hello Mary Lou”, “Milk Cow Blues”, and “It’s Up to You.”

Nelson ruled pop airwaves, sailing 35 Top 40 singles onto the charts with relative ease. He was hands down the prime contender for Presley’s rock ’n’ roll…