Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/A Little Touch of Schmilsson in the Night (TV special)

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The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was merge‎ to A Little Touch of Schmilsson in the Night. RL0919 (talk) 14:42, 16 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

A Little Touch of Schmilsson in the Night (TV special)[edit]

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A Little Touch of Schmilsson in the Night (TV special) (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log | edits since nomination)
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40-minute TV special documenting the recording/creation of a record album. The wiki article contains only two sentences about the TV show; the rest of the wiki article is about either the album (A Little Touch of Schmilsson in the Night) or the artist (Harry Nilsson). I have Googled the TV show and have found no significant coverage; it appears to have no independent notability outside either the album itself or the artist. Softlavender (talk) 00:56, 9 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  • Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Music. Softlavender (talk) 00:56, 9 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Television-related deletion discussions. QuietHere (talk | contributions) 01:28, 9 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Merge to either the album or the artist. This is a non-notable TV show otherwise. Oaktree b (talk) 04:10, 9 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Merge to A Little Touch of Schmilsson in the Night per Oaktree b. I lean towards the album (what I linked), rather than the artist. JML1148 (talk | contribs) 08:22, 9 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment: The lone two instances of this title in The Times archive at Gale are just TV listings, as are most of what the British Newspaper Archive has to offer. However, BNA does bring up a couple of articles on the special itself, as well as one review on the parent album (which we may use to start a Reception section or ratings box). (Refs below improved with matches from Newspapers.)
    "BBC 2 Highlights: 10:50: A Little Touch of Schmilsson in the Night". The People. London. 1973-06-10. p. 4. Retrieved 2023-06-09 – via Newspapers.com. Cult singer-composer Harry Nilsson normally refuses to do live concerts or appear on TV. Which is what makes tonight's show something of a coup for producer Stanley Dorfman, a close friend of Nilsson.
    Ariel (1973-06-11). "So relaxed as Nilsson sings the oldies". Liverpool Echo. p. 2. Retrieved 2023-06-09 – via Newspapers.com. The only pretentious aspect of Little Touch of Schmilsson in the Night...was the title. which may well have deterred many viewers. In the event, it turned out to be a delightfully relaxing 45 minutes in the company of singer Harry Nilsson.
    "Musicbox". Coleshill Chronicle. 1973-06-29. p. 9. Retrieved 2023-06-09 – via Newspapers.com. ...[Nilsson's] new album shouldn't come as too much of a surprise. Called A Little Touch Of Schmilsson In The Night (RCA), it follows the Schmilsson theme of his last two albums but in name only. For Harry has forsaken rock for the sweet strings and moon-in-June lyrics of the vintage years in songwriting.
--Slgrandson (How's my egg-throwing coleslaw?) 14:43, 9 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • The text from Coleshill Chronicle is about the album, not about the television special. Softlavender (talk) 20:27, 9 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Nothing new from Newspapers, apart from improvements to the refs above--plus this extra concerning the special. (A couple more on the album await as I find time to put them in that article.)
James, Clive (1973-06-17). "Television: Caught by the throat". The Observer. p. 31. Retrieved 2023-06-09 – via Newspapers.com.
--Slgrandson (How's my egg-throwing coleslaw?) 18:37, 9 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Keep: I have rewritten the page to summerize why I think it should be kept, which is as follows:

  • A Little Touch of Schmilsson in the Night is one of the only television appearances that American singer-songwriter Harry Nillson ever made on TV. Nilsson never toured and never played a single formal concert for a paying audience.[1] With exception to an episode of In Concert, which was Nilsson's first and only other show on television, A Little Touch of Schmilsson in the Night, was Nilsson's only televised full-length concert, albeit in the studio and without an audience.[2] One of the legends surrounding Nilsson is that he never performed any live concerts.[3] Despite being described as "a pioneer of the Los Angeles studio sound" and "a crucial bridge" between 1960s psychedelia and the 1970s singer-songwriter era, and that he was voted No. 62 in Rolling Stone's 2015 list of the "100 Greatest Songwriters of All Time"[4], Nilsson was known as a "singer-composer who is heard by not seen". He had appeared only once, for a few moments, on television in England and once in America.[5] As noted by Van Dyke Parks, "He didn't buy into the idea that you must go out and get clapped at and approved of in public to make a living."[6] A Little Touch of Schmilsson in the Night, named after his album by the same name (A Little Touch Of Schmilsson In The Night)[7], was filmed few days after recording the album, which he recorded in a few days in March 1973. Nilsson, Gordon Jenkins (also Nat King Cole and Frank Sinatra's arranger) recreated the scene of the album recording with a live orchestra, filmed by Dorfman at the BBC TV theatre in Shepherd's Bush. In 1994, almost twenty years later, the english journalist and record producer Derek Taylor summarized the TV special in Mojo magazine, saying "There has been nothing better on music TV since."[8] There is much more that I can (and will when I have time and if it doesn't get deleted to the page to show it's notability, but hopefully the proceeding does an inadequate job to describe why it should be kept - if only even as a stub. - SacredLotus7 (talk) 19:57, 11 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  1. ^ https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Trivia/HarryNilsson
  2. ^ https://www.toppermost.co.uk/harry-nilsson/
  3. ^ https://nilssonschmilsson.com/one-last-touch-of-nilsson.html
  4. ^ https://www.rollingstone.com/music/lists/100-greatest-songwriters#harry-nilsson
  5. ^ https://www.newspapers.com/image/760587047
  6. ^ https://www.rocksbackpages.com/Library/Article/harry-nilsson-i-sang-my-balls-off-for-you-baby
  7. ^ https://www.harrynilsson.com/music/a-little-touch-of-schmilsson-in-the-night/
  8. ^ http://www.rocksbackpages.com/Library/Article/singer-songwriter-fab-across-the-water-1941-1994
  • Merge to A Little Touch of Schmilsson in the Night (the parent album), where the TV special can be discussed in a new section. The show did indeed get some notice, but I don't think it was significant enough to merit a separate article. Even with some recent additions, this article is still mostly about the album itself and the fact that Nilsson rarely appeared on TV, and both of those are outside this particular TV special. Worth noting briefly at the album article, but that's all. ---DOOMSDAYER520 (TALK|CONTRIBS) 20:04, 11 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • As this 2010 article states[1] "If there was one roadblock in constructing the film, it was Nilsson's career-long aversion to live performance. Because he never toured, only two BBC specials and barely a handful of guest appearances on TV shows survive to illustrate him at work" and "Harry Nilsson had an aversion to live performance, leaving only two BBC specials and some TV guest appearances to illustrate his work" - As the article points out, this TV special was one of the two appearances left to illustrate Nilsson at work, and that deserves to be highlighted outside the album page. - SacredLotus7 (talk) 18:43, 11 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  1. ^ https://www.newspapers.com/image/426567492/?terms=harry%20nilsson%20tv%20performance&match=1
  • As (now) noted on the page, with exception to an episode of In Concert, A Little Touch of Schmilsson in the Night was Nilsson's only televised full-length concert. In 1994, almost twenty years later, the english journalist and record producer Derek Taylor wrote about the TV special in Mojo magazine, saying "There has been nothing better on music TV since."[1] SacredLotus7 (talk) 10:14, 11 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  1. ^ http://www.rocksbackpages.com/Library/Article/singer-songwriter-fab-across-the-water-1941-1994
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.
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