Gone but not forgotten
Laura Nyro died twenty years ago today. This is her first record released in 1966. She was just 19 years old. After this, she moved to Columbia Records and released the influential Eli and Thirteenth Confession, New York Tenderberry, Christmas and the Beads of Sweat and Gonna Take a Miracle – an album of soul covers with Labelle. She was the first artist to be managed by a young David Geffen. She came back after a short hiatus away from the business in 1976 and released Smile, Nested, Mother’s Spiritual and other LPs in the 80’s and 90’s including a few live albums. She succumbed to ovarian cancer in 1997 at the age of 49.
Her avid fanbase includes Elton John, Todd Rundgren, Elvis Costello, Bette Midler, Ricky Lee Jones and many performers like Barbara Streisand, Three Dog Night and The Fifth Dimension that had hits with her songs. At one point in 1969, she had three of her songs covered by others in the Billboard top ten. But it’s her own versions that really show her emotional depth. Though Laura Nyro was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2012, she still remains largely unfamiliar to many. I urge anyone with a heart and soul to check out her music for themselves. She was a rare artist and poet.
More Than A New Discovery / Laura Nyro (Verve Folkways FT/FTS 3020 : FT-3020-S-1 MG-780 / FT-3020-S-2 MG-781)
SIDE I:
1. Goodbye Joe
2. Billy’s Blues
3. And When I Die (Hit play)
4. Stoney End
5. Lazy Susan
6. Hands Off The Man
SIDE II:
1. Wedding Bell Blues
2. Buy And Sell
3. He’s A Runner
4. Blowin’ Away
5. I Never Meant To Hurt You
6. California Shoe-Shine Boys
All of the above compositions written by Laura Nyro (BMI)
Arranged and Conducted: Herb Bernstein
Produced by: MILT OKUN
Production Supervisor: Jerry Schoenbaum
Production Assistant: Jean Goldhirsch
Director of Engineering: Val Valentin
Engineer: Harry Yarmark
Cover Design: Michael Malatak
Cover Photo: Murray Laden
(22 votes, average: 4.18 out of 5)
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April 8th, 2017 at 1:31 pm
Never forgotten. Thanks for the reminder. She is always here.
April 8th, 2017 at 4:26 pm
A voice unrivaled
April 9th, 2017 at 7:03 pm
April 10th, 2017 at 8:43 pm
You probably already know this, but when the album was re-issued on Columbia in the early 1970s, the running order was changed, so that the three songs that had become hits for others opened both sides and closed the album. If it’s of interest, here is the rare censored single version of “Stoney End” that features a first verse which doesn’t question the authority of the New Testament:
April 16th, 2017 at 2:36 pm
I seriously recommend Gonna Take a Miracle for any fans of LaBelle or Laura Nyro who may have missed it. It’s my desert island disc.
November 17th, 2017 at 9:25 am
Do you know about the strange cropping-up of ‘Hands Off The Man’ east of the former Iron Curtain, (Czechoslovakia) thanks to Alena Tichá’s ‘Dám vám lék’?
It’s featured in the most recent post at my Blog, ‘Girls Of The Golden East’, FYI.
A cracker of a tune
I don’t know why it didn’t register in this country (ie., the UK) and it’s only thanks to Alena Tichá’s version that I know anything about Laura Nyro.
The East of Europe can teach the West a thing or two about the West’s own music!