Nico

Throughout much of her life, Nico was best known for three songs she didn't write that she recorded in 1966. As an adjunct member of the Velvet Underground, Nico took the lead vocals on "Femme Fatale," "All Tomorrow's Parties," and "I'll Be Your Mirror," that were written for her by Lou Reed and appeared on The Velvet Underground & Nico, issued in 1967. A far smaller audience embraced her post-Velvets work, which took her in a very different direction. Accompanying herself on the harmonium and penning darkly poetic songs steeped in European traditions, Nico created music that was moody and forbidding, though sometimes quite beautiful. The stark tone and challenging themes of 1968's The Marble Index, 1970's Desertshore, and 1974's The End won her a devoted cult following and would prove to be a major influence in the goth and art rock scenes. In the '80s, Nico would settle in the United Kingdom, where she frequently performed (a June 1985 show was documented on the album Chelsea Town Hall) and recorded her last studio efforts, 1981's Drama of Exile and 1985's Camera Obscura. Nico was born Christa Päffgen in Cologne, Germany on October 16, 1938. She came into the world in the midst of the Third Reich, and when she was two years old, she moved to the Spreewald forests on the outskirts of Berlin with her mother and grandmother to escape steady Allied bombing raids on Cologne. (Nico's father would die while serving in the Wehrmacht.) Nico's family would later move to Berlin, and she left school at the age of 13, taking a job in the lingerie department of a high-end department store. Photographer Herbert Tobias was covering a fashion show at the store when he met Nico and they struck up a friendship. He gave her the nickname that would follow her for life and suggested she pursue a career as a fashion model, making the most of her statuesque body and striking features. She followed his advice, and after moving to Paris, she was regularly appearing in Europe's leading fashion magazines. Nico landed a contract with Coco Chanel as a model and spokesperson, but she grew tired of the job and walked away to relocate to New York City, where she took acting lessons. In 1959, while back in Europe, she was spotted by famed Italian filmmaker Federico Fellini, who immediately cast her in a small but recognizable role in his film La Dolce Vita, which became a massive international success. She would later land the leading female role in the 1963 French drama Strip-Tease; she also recorded a version of the film's theme song composed by Serge Gainsbourg, though it would not be released until 2001.After enrolling in singing lessons, Nico got to know Rolling Stones guitarist Brian Jones. On his suggestion, Nico was signed to record a single for Immediate Records, run by the Stones' manager and producer, Andrew Loog Oldham. Jimmy Page would produce Nico's debut 45, "I'm Not Sayin'" b/w "The Last Mile." Nico would also have a brief romantic relationship with Bob Dylan, and he wrote the song "I'll Keep It with Mine" for her. Jones would later introduce Nico to Andy Warhol, and when Nico returned to New York, she fell into Warhol's orbit. Warhol had recently become manager and mentor to a rock band, the Velvet Underground, whose music was compelling but too harsh for many listeners at the time. Warhol urged the Velvets to let Nico sing with the band, and she became part of the Exploding Plastic Inevitable, the innovative multi-media show Warhol had devised for the Velvet Underground's performances. She also appeared in several of Warhol's films, including 1967's The Chelsea Girls, one of the few "underground" films of the era that became a commercial success in mainstream theaters. In 1966, the Velvet Underground recorded their debut album, The Velvet Underground & Nico, which received plenty of press attention when it was released in 1967; though sales were modest, in time it would be regarded as an influential, ground-breaking masterpiece. Nico, who had become the focus of much of the group's press coverage, sang lead on three songs written for her by Lou Reed, "Femme Fatale," "All Tomorrow's Parties," and "I'll Be Your Mirror." Reed wrote some of the songs during a short-lived love affair they shared, but when they split up, relations between them became tense. Nico expressed interest in being the Velvets' full-time lead singer, but most of their material did not suit Nico's deep, Teutonic voice, and they became disenchanted with her. In 1967, as the Velvet Underground stopped performing with the Exploding Plastic Inevitable show, Nico was edged out of the group, and she made her debut as a solo act at a New York nightclub. Lou Reed and VU co-founder John Cale occasionally served as her guitarist, as did Jackson Browne, a young singer/songwriter who dated Nico for a while. Verve Records, the VU's label, signed Nico to a solo deal, and 1967's Chelsea Girl featured three songs from Browne (including "These Days"), while Reed and Cale both wrote songs for the album as well as playing on the sessions, as did VU guitarist Sterling Morrison. The album was a polished mix of folk-rock and arty pop, and Nico was vocally displeased with the final product. Sales were meager, and Verve dropped her from their roster. While spending time in California, Nico fell in love with Jim Morrison of the Doors, who encouraged her to write her own songs. Nico purchased a harmonium, a small Indian organ that was worked by pumping a bellows with one hand while controlling the keyboard with the other. Nico signed with Elektra, and John Cale agreed to produce her first LP for the label, 1968's The Marble Index. It was a very different musical experience than Chelsea Girl, full of minor-key melodies and doomstruck poetics, with Nico and her harmonium accompanied by an array of keyboards played by Cale. It set the template for much of Nico's future work, and it was praised by the few critics who took notice. Elektra dropped Nico when the album flopped in the marketplace; the label heads were also concerned about her growing addiction to heroin and an incident where Nico stabbed a Black woman with a broken wine bottle in what was widely seen as a racist incident. (Nico also made several statements slurring people of color in interviews during the '70s.) Nico left the United States and recorded her next album in London. 1970's Desertshore, produced by John Cale and Joe Boyd, was even more dour than The Marble Index, and fared no better in the marketplace; it would be her sole release for Reprise Records.In early 1972, Nico took part in a concert in Paris, France where she performed alongside Lou Reed and John Cale; the concert was recorded and was widely circulated as a bootleg before being given an authorized release in 2004. While some speculated it was a dry run for a Velvet Underground reunion, that was not the case, and in 1974, Nico released her fourth solo album, The End. Once again produced by John Cale, the album also featured contributions from Brian Eno and Phil Manzanera from Roxy Music. The End included Nico's cover of the Doors' "The End," as well as a controversial take on "Das Lied der Deutschen," the German national anthem that was widely associated with the Third Reich. It would prove to be Nico's first and only album for Island Records. Nico focused on live performing in the next several years, often accompanied by guitarist Lutz Ulbrich of Ash Ra Tempel. Near the end of the 1970s, with the rise of the new wave and punk movements, a growing number of musicians were citing Nico as an influence, and Siouxsie and the Banshees took her on a tour of the U.K. as their opening act. In 1979, she made her first American appearance in years at CBGB in New York, accompanied by John Cale and Lutz Ulbrich, and she launched a short U.S. tour. During a sojourn in France, Nico was introduced to Philippe Quilichini, a musician from Corsica with a taste for world music. Quilichini would produce Nico's 1981 studio album Drama of Exile, a major departure from her previous work that was a curious mix of new wave rock and Middle Eastern sounds; it also included covers of David Bowie's "Heroes" and the Velvet Underground's "Waiting For The Man." In 1981, Nico would perform in Manchester during a British tour, and after telling the promoter Alan Wise that she didn't have a place to stay, he signed on as her manager, found her a flat, and sent on a seemingly endless series of concert tours – it has been estimated she played 1,200 shows between 1980 and 1988, despite her addiction to heroin. Nico toured Europe in 1982, and excerpts from those concerts would appear on the 1982 live set Do Or Die. It was the first of many semi-authorized live albums that would document the last decade of her career. In 1985, she reunited with John Cale, who produced her sixth studio album, Camera Obscura. She was accompanied by her road band, provisionally named the Faction, which included keyboard player James Young, who would later pen a book on his years working with Nico, Songs They Never Play on the Radio (published in North America as The End). The music was a more refined variation on the arty new wave of Drama of Exile, though it closed with "König," a striking performance featuring just Nico and her harmonium. In 1988, Nico went into a methadone program as she made her first steps toward kicking heroin. She toured Japan as an opening act for John Cale, and started work on new songs for an upcoming album. She traveled to Ibiza for a vacation with her son Ari (whose father was French film star Alain Delon), and was taking a ride on a bicycle when she fell and hit her head. A cab driver spotted her and took her to a hospital, but it was too late. Nico died on July 17, 1988, having suffered a cerebral hemorrhage at the age of 49. In 1995, filmmaker Susanne Ofteringer released Nico Icon, a feature-length documentary about the singer. Actress Trine Dyrholm played Nico in Susanna Nicchiarelli's fact-based drama about her final year, Nico, 1988. In addition to James Young's book, two other major biographies of Nico appeared after her death, 1992's Nico: The Life and Lies of an Icon by Richard Witts, and 2021's You Are Beautiful and You Are Alone: The Biography of Nico by Jennifer Otter Bickerdike.
© Mark Deming /TiVo