1966–1971: Early years Nirvana was created as the performing arm of the London-based songwriting partnership of Irish musician
Patrick Campbell-Lyons and Greek composer Alex Spyropoulos (born George Alex Spyropoulos, 1941, Athens) and English producer
Ray Singer (born 1946). On their recordings, Campbell-Lyons, Ray Singer and Spyropoulos supplied all the vocals. Campbell-Lyons contributed on guitars, and Spyropoulos contributed on some keyboards. Musically, Campbell-Lyons and Spyropoulos blended rock, pop,
folk,
jazz, Latin rhythms and
classical music, primarily augmented by
baroque chamber-style arrangements. In October 1967, they released their first album, a
concept album produced by Chris Blackwell titled
The Story of Simon Simopath. The album was one of the first narrative
concept albums ever released, predating story-driven concept albums such as
The Pretty Things's
S.F. Sorrow (December 1968),
The Who's
Tommy (April 1969) and
The Kinks's
Arthur (September 1969).
Island Records launched Nirvana's first album "with a live show at the Saville Theatre, sharing a bill with fellow label acts
Traffic,
Spooky Tooth, and
Jackie Edwards." Unable to perform their songs live as a duo, Campbell-Lyons and Spyropoulos decided to create a live performing ensemble, the Nirvana Ensemble, and recruited four musicians. Though hired to be part of the live performance group rather than as band members, these four musicians were also included in the photograph alongside the core duo on the album cover of their first album to assist in projecting an image of a group rather than a duo. However, within a few months, Nirvana had reverted to its original two-person line-up. The four musicians who augmented Campbell-Lyons and Spyropoulos on their live appearances and television shows for those few months were
Ray Singer (guitar), Brian Henderson (bass), Sylvia A. Schuster (cello) and Michael Coe (French horn, viola).
Sue and Sunny also participated in providing their vocals. The band appeared on French television with
Salvador Dalí, who splashed black paint on them during a performance of their third single, "Rainbow Chaser". Campbell-Lyons kept the jacket but regretted that Dalí did not sign any of their paint-splashed clothes. Island Records allegedly sent the artist an invoice for the cleaning of Schuster's cello. Following the minor chart success of "Rainbow Chaser", "live appearances became increasingly rare" and the songwriting duo at the core of Nirvana "decided to disband the sextet" and to rely on session musicians for future recordings. Schuster later became the principal cellist of the
BBC Symphony Orchestra. In 1968, Nirvana recorded their second album,
All of Us, which featured a similar broad range of musical styles as their first album. After the release of the album, Ray Singer left the group to produce Peter Sarstedt. Their third album,
Black Flower, was rejected by Blackwell, who compared it disparagingly to
Francis Lai's
A Man and a Woman. Under the title
To Markos III (supposedly named for a "rich uncle" of Spyropoulos who helped finance the album), it was released in the UK on the
Pye label in May 1970, though reportedly only 250 copies were pressed and it was deleted shortly after. One track, "Christopher Lucifer", was a jibe at Blackwell. In 1971, the duo separated, with Campbell-Lyons the primary contributor to the next two Nirvana albums,
Local Anaesthetic (1971), and
Songs of Love And Praise (1972), the latter featuring the return of Sylvia Schuster. Campbell-Lyons subsequently worked as a solo artist and issued further albums:
Me and My Friend (1973),
The Electric Plough (1981), and
The Hero I Might Have Been (1983).
1985–present The duo reunited in 1985, touring Europe and releasing a compilation album,
Black Flower (Bam-Caruso, 1987). (
Black Flower had been the original planned title of their third album.) In the 1990s, two further albums were released.
Secret Theatre (1994) and
Orange and Blue (1996), which contained previously unreleased material, including a flower-power cover of the song "
Lithium" originally recorded by the Seattle
grunge band of the same name,
Nirvana. According to the band's official website, this was intended as part of a tongue-in-cheek album called
Nirvana Sings Nirvana that was aborted when lead singer
Kurt Cobain died. When the recording was presented on the
Orange and Blue album, Campbell-Lyons's liner notes treated it seriously and with allusion to
Heathcliff from
Wuthering Heights. Also, according to the website, the band still wanted to open for
Hole even after Cobain's death. The original group filed a
lawsuit in
California against the
Seattle grunge band of the same name, who played at
Reading Festival in 1992, in 1992. The matter was settled out of court on undisclosed terms that apparently allowed both bands to continue using the name and issuing new recordings without any packaging
disclaimers or caveats to distinguish one Nirvana from the other. Music writer
Everett True has claimed that
Kurt Cobain's record label,
Geffen, paid $100,000 to the 1960s band to permit the 1990s band's continued use of the name. In 1999, they released a three-disc CD anthology titled
Chemistry, including twelve previously unreleased tracks and some new material. Their first three albums were reissued on
CD by
Universal Records in 2003. In 2005, Universal (Japan) reissued
Local Anaesthetic and
Songs of Love And Praise. In 2018, a new album was released on the Island label
Rainbow Chaser: The 60s Recordings (The Island Years), which featured the first two albums in a double CD package, featuring 52 tracks with 27 previously unreleased outtakes, demos and alternative versions. In April 2026, Campbell-Lyons died. ==Musical styles and techniques==