Re-Laura Nyro

Bob: Boy did you nail it! Al Kooper forwarded to me your Laura Nyro review. People should only know how many successful writers she inspired. She remains one of the most memorable artists I've recorded and every time I play the music we made together it still puts a smile on my face. Thanks for helping to keep her memory alive.

Charlie Calello

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Now THIS was an album I lived by!!

I saw her at the Troubadour and it's no secret that she was my favorite female writer of my generation.

For me no one came close, but that's hardly news!!!!

Thanks for this great post.

Wendy Waldman

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Laura Nyro - Musical Architecture: http://youtu.be/mXRe0RBuTWY?

Todd Rundgren on working with Laura Nyro: http://youtu.be/APZN_uL-z0A

Dan Manella

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Oh Bob, you've hit on one of my all time favourites. I used to lie down in the den with my head between portable stereo speakers like they were headphones and be transported away by the Eli album. Timer is my all time favourite track. If you haven't seen this you must take a look: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tUiVPCfJqAo Laura is on some TV show singing He's A Runner to a TV track (a song I would have added to your playlist) and then playing Save The Country on piano. You can see the shy, frightened performer she was in those days, never really comfortable in the limelight. But those songs…they don't make them like Laura anymore. And we're the poorer for it. Died far too young.

Steven Ehrlick

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Oh my God. She was amazing. Her voice could and still does tear my heart out. Incredible emotion to go with her great writing. Wrote Flim Flam man when she was 17, I've read. And described the sound she wanted to her musicans as colors. ("try to get a brown sound") A genius. She and Joni are so above the rest it's not even worth discussing. Saw her twice. Not enough.

P.S. if you haven't heard Gonna Take a Miracle - an album of soul covers recorded with Labelle - GET IT.
P.P.S. You forgot He's a Runner. Another great one, also covered by BS&T.

Dave Thorn

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Not sure how I came across this on Spotify, but there's a wonderful and obscure Four Seasons cover of "Emmie" called "Emily" that's become one of my favorite playlist additions.
Who the hell knew that they'd covered Laura--but I guess since everyone else was having hits with her songs, they tried too…
https://open.spotify.com/track/4kzsUTCLd6kxF1R0LwKvlH

It's from a late Seasons album called Half & Half (1/2 Frankie, 1/2 Four Seasons, get it?); with another absolutely killer hit-that-never-was called "Patch of Blue". https://open.spotify.com/track/4kzsUTCLd6kxF1R0LwKvlH

These kind of finds make me love music, and the endless panoply that is streaming. I'm also happy to have found the LP of this record, which now gets spun in our offices with some regularity.

Mike Krumper

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She was so special. Laura's musical influence far exceeded her units moved
(except for the artists who covered her songs).

She was one of Todd R's most obvious influences. This song was truncated
as part of a medley on Runt but here is the full version - his little love
poem to Laura Nyro.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JdlbJUy04Zk

William Nollman

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Two additions:

Christmas In My Soul was produced by Felix Cavaliere with Dino on drums and other traditional Atlantic studio musicians.

For those who try to put Laura into "just a songwriter" box, there's the entire Gonna take A Miracle album of outstanding covers. A timeless classic (that also shows her roots).

Roy Lott

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I prefer The Raiders (Paul Revere) version of 'Save The Country' from their 1970 album, Collage, of which received a high review from Rolling Stone. In fact, it was really the only acknowledgement RS has ever provided Paul Revere & The Raiders, if you do not include Revere's obituary.

Save The Country http://youtu.be/r5rhEoZZbbc

Alex Hart

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Ah, don't forget this version of Stoney End by The Blossoms, first heard via a white label 45 provided by my sister Nancy (thank you!).
https://youtu.be/DrHyVMUKbso

Walter Blaisdell

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Dug your piece on the genius of Laura Nyro. Have you heard Billy Childs album of Nyro songs "Map To the Treasure"? Exquisite. Co-produced by Larry Klein. The great Lisa Fischer sings the title track; other high points are Alison Krauss/And When I Die, Rickie Lee Jones/Been On A Train, Susan Tedeschi/Gibsom Street, Ledisi/Stoned Soul Picnic, and Becca Stevens/The Confession. The subtitle of the album is "Reimagining Laura Nyro, and Billy surely does.

Fred Simon

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Many years ago Laura stood with David Geffen on a balcony in the Big Apple. "New York is a tender berry," she muttered through her gaze. The song was soon to follow.

John Hartmann

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She didn't sound like anyone else. I loved Laura so much, I burned through six copies of Eli. (My brothers called me Laura.)

When my high school friends and I heard Laura was going to record a doo-wop album at Philadelphia's Sigma Sound Studio, we started hanging around after school and pestering the people going in and out to let us audition as backup singers. Then we found out about LaBelle. Sigh.

My favorite Laura story: There was a Sunday afternoon, word-of-mouth show she did at the late great Main Point in Bryn Mawr -- '69, maybe? She settled her tush on the Steinway's piano bench, spread all of that long black chiffon skirt around her, and pulled out a cigarette. She leaned forward and breathed into the mike and said, "DAY-vid, I need ... a LIGHT." And the not-yet-famous David Geffen ran onstage to light her cigarette.

A friend who was a sound tech told me it was a bitch running the sound board in her later years. She preferred to play on a Casio keyboard, and wouldn't let them plug it into the board. She made them mike the keyboard's tinny little speaker. She insisted.

I read one interview decades ago in which Joni Mitchell rather begrudgingly admitted Laura was the only singer-songwriter she thought of as a peer. It must have killed her to admit it.

Susan Madrak

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In January of 1970 I went to a Laura Nyro concert at the Berkeley Community Theater put on by Bill Graham. I was a huge Laura Nyro fan, and I devoured her first three albums "More Than a New Discovery", "Eli and the Thirteenth Confession", and "New York Tendaberry". I wore out Eli and Tendaberry. Literally. I felt such a connection with her music, and I was so familiar with it that I felt like I really knew her influences from Curtis Mayfield to Smokey Robinson to The Sweet Inspirations, Miles Davis,and on and on. The concert was of course, wonderful, and since I knew Bill Graham, I was able to go backstage after the show and meet Laura. We started talking, and the next thing I knew we were sitting in a corner, just the two of us, and I proceeded to tell her that I knew her music inside out, and I knew her influences song by song. We had the greatest discussion about music and we made a real, genuine connection. Neither of us realized how much time had passed. We were in another
world. Over an hour later Bill came over to us and explained that Laura's people were ready to go, and my girlfriend was also patiently waiting. Everyone else had left. On the drive home back to Mill Valley, I spoke excitedly to my girlfriend about the deep connection I had just made with Laura. It was a musical connection, not sexual, but of course that's a very personal connection as well.
The next day a dozen red roses were delivered to my house with a very sweet and personal note from Laura, saying how much she enjoyed meeting and talking with me the night before. It was at that point that my girlfriend, who was also a singer, left.
Laura and I never had any other contact, but that was a night I will never forget.

Michael Shrieve



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