Born in
Chicago and raised on a farm in
Newaygo, Michigan, Nitzsche moved to
Los Angeles in 1955 with ambitions of becoming a
jazz saxophonist. He found work copying
musical scores, where he met
Sonny Bono, with whom he wrote the song "
Needles and Pins" for
Jackie DeShannon, later covered by
The Searchers. His own instrumental composition "The Lonely Surfer" became a minor hit, as did a big-band swing arrangement of
Link Wray's "Rumble".
He eventually became arranger and conductor for the influential producer
Phil Spector, and orchestrated the ambitious
Wall of Sound for the song "
River Deep, Mountain High" by
Ike and Tina Turner. In later years, an embittered Nitzsche would allege that Spector received disproportionate credit for his contributions to what the former described as an equitable collaboration.
Outside of Spector, he worked closely with West Coast session musicians such as
Leon Russell, Glen Campbell, Carol Kaye, and
Hal Blaine in a group known as
The Wrecking Crew, they created the backing music for numerous sixties pop recordings by various artists such as
The Beach Boys and
The Monkees.
While organizing the music for
The T.A.M.I. Show television special in 1964, he met
The Rolling Stones, and went on to contribute the keyboard textures to their mid-sixties hits such as "
Paint It Black" & "
Ruby Tuesday" and the choral arrangements for "
You Can't Always Get What You Want". In 1968, Nitzsche introduced the band to slide guitarist
Ry Cooder, a seminal influence on the band's 1969-1973 style.
Nonetheless, Nitzsche's most enduring rock productions were conducted in collaboration with
Neil Young, beginning with his production and arrangement of
Buffalo Springfield's "Expecting To Fly", considered by many critics to be a touchstone of the psychedelic era. In 1968, he produced Young's eponymously titled solo debut with
David Briggs. Even as the singer's style veered from the baroque to rootsy hard rock, he continued to work with Young on some of his most commercially successful solo recordings, most notably
Harvest. Nitzsche played electric piano with
Crazy Horse throughout 1970 (a representative performance can be heard on the
Live at the Fillmore East album) and went on to produce their sans-Young debut album a year later.
While prolific and hard working throughout the seventies, he suffered increasingly from
depression and
substance abuse problems. After virulently biting the hand that fed him by castigating Young in a drunken 1974 interview, the two men became estranged for several years and would only collaborate sporadically thereafter; later that year, he was dropped from the Reprise Records roster after recording a scathing song criticizing executive
Mo Ostin. This culminated in his arrest for a violent assault on longtime girlfriend
Carrie Snodgress (formerly Young's companion) in 1979.
Nitzsche had also worked on film scores throughout his career, such as his contributions to the Monkees movie
Head, the theme music from
Village of the Giants (recycling an earlier single, "The Last Race"), and the distinctive soundtracks for
The Exorcist,
Performance and
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. He worked with
Willy DeVille on several Mink Deville albums and produced
Graham Parker's 1979 landmark album "
Squeezing Out Sparks". In the late 1970s he began to concentrate more on film music rather than pop music, and became one of the most prolific film orchestrators in Hollywood at the time, winning an
Academy Award for Best Song for co-writing '
Up Where We Belong' from 1982's
An Officer and a Gentleman.
His intensive output declined somewhat in the 1990s. In the mid-1990s, a clearly inebriated Nitzsche was seen in an episode of the reality show
COPS, being arrested in Hollywood after brandishing a gun at some youths who had stolen his hat. In attempting to explain himself to the arresting officers he is heard exclaiming that he was an Academy Award winner. In 1997, he expressed interest in producing a comeback album for Wray, although this never materialized due to their mutually declining health.
He died in Los Angeles in 2000 of cardiac arrest brought on by a recurring bronchial infection.
In 1983, he married Canadian/Native American folk singer/songwriter
Buffy Sainte-Marie. His first wife was blue-eyed soul singer Gracia Ann May; they divorced in 1974. In the 1990s, he was frequently seen once more in the company of Snodgress.
