Bernard Alfred “Jack” Nitzsche  April 22, 1937 – August 25, 2000) was an American musician, arranger, songwriter, composer, and record producer. He first came to prominence in the early 1960s as the right-hand-man of producer Phil Spector, and went on to work with the Rolling Stones and Neil Young, among others. He also worked extensively in film scores, notably for the films Performance, The Exorcist and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. In 1983, he won the Academy Award for Best Original Songfor co-writing “Up Where We Belong” with Buffy Sainte-Marie.

Nitzsche was born in Chicago and raised on a farm in Newaygo, Michigan, the son of German immigrants. He moved to Los Angeles in 1955 with ambitions of becoming a jazz saxophonist. He was hired by Sonny Bono, who was at the time an A&R executive at Specialty Records, as a music copyist. While there, Nitzsche wrote a novelty hit titled “Bongo Bongo Bongo”. Nitzsche wrote with Bono the song “Needles and Pins” for Jackie DeShannon, later recorded by the Searchers. His instrumental composition “The Lonely Surfer”entered the Cash Box top 100 on August 3, 1963, and reached No. 37.