laura nyro

A friend gave me a vinyl copy of Gonna Take a Miracle a few weeks ago (I already had a home-burned CD, so I was familiar with the album). This time, I was struck by its strong similarity to The Ballad of Todd Rundgren, which I had been in the midst of playing non-stop in the car for a few days. Found this quote when I subsequently did a little reading on Nyro: "Todd Rundgren stated that once he heard her, he 'stopped writing songs like the Who and started writing songs like Laura.'"

As impressed as I was with my discerning ear, the similarity was hard to miss.

last year curmudgeon and I thought that Nicole Atkins' Goodnight Rhonda Lee sounded a bit like 60s Nyro (if the latter had ever responded musically to Dusty In Memphis, I further thought, although would Nyro or Springfield take after-midnight thinking and drinking quite this far, musically speaking?)
https://nicoleatkins.bandcamp.com/

yeah the first time i heard Eli i was all "dammit todd!"

Lol ^^^

See, I hear her exactly the opposite way. I’m like, “Right on, Todd.” The guy has exquisite taste and she’s the best.

Did he and Laura have a relationship around that time? Or am I imagining things that should’ve been?

Not sure there was ever anything romantic between the two, but he was clearly smitten, as his song "Laura" suggests. Nyro in turn asked Todd to be her band leader but he had to say no because he was still in the Nazz (this was around 1970.) Can you imagine what could have been? He later went on to produce and play on some of the Mother's Spiritual tracks, but apparently most of his suggestions were rejected by Nyro, a habit she had when dealing with producers, so maybe that wouldn't have been the dream team it sounds like. (Todd thought the album needed a hit, that the songs were about nothing more than trees and wind, and that it sounded like "mom" music. This was decades before "dad rock" became a thing.)

TR on LN…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=APZN_uL-z0A

That was awesome. The “gypsy with long, curled fingernails” image was...not surprising exactly but not something I’d quite anticipated either.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f5oDJZkb7gw

Listened to NYT years ago and couldn't really click but the tomcat song blew my mind. The way she shrieks on that is just stunning.

Too many years later I get Eli and it's all clicking and I realize she's so much more than a great singer. I need to return to NYT but I also want to get much further and it seems like most people drop off after a few albums. Nice to see Henry bigging up her later albums because I really want to get them eventually.

Nyro threads here are sadly short and even with the Rock N' Roll Hall Of Fame entry, she seems to still be due a ton of respect. I have noticed some female artists getting their due recently and here's hoping that Nyro will get hers soon.

There's also surprisingly little live footage of her on YouTube. This one, though, is pretty great. No sure where she goes between 5:52 and 5:56, but that look in her eyes gets me very time.

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

I wouldn't have noticed if they did but Mojo and Uncut really should have tried her as a cover feature.

I was a faithful reader of both, I think Uncut did a feature on NYT as a "lost classic" but that's about it. Wax Poetics had a nice long feature on Laura in their Blue-Eyed Soul issue (the one w/ Daryl Hall on the cover) a few years back.

An early 90s CD copy of Christmas cost me 20 pounds, the late 00s versions were way too expensive. Didn't expect this to be a rare CD.

Same with the Bottom Line live CD, even used copies go for for a hundred bucks.

Just listened to Christmas yesterday. FUN FACT: When I first developed my particular form of tinnitus, I noticed there was a certain piano chord on "Brown Earth" that would nullify the ringing, just for a second. Was the strangest sensation. Doesn't work anymore, probably because I've adjusted ("habituated", in med speak) to the condition.

I was a faithful reader of both, I think Uncut did a feature on NYT as a "lost classic" but that's about it. Wax Poetics had a nice long feature on Laura in their Blue-Eyed Soul issue (the one w/ Daryl Hall on the cover) a few years back.

Have been listening nonstop to the collaboration with Labelle.

I've heard her first four but not made it to anything later, how do you find it compares? Beyond being covers, of course.

The one with Labelle is all about the incredible vocals. It’s got more straightforward song structures and more simple instrumentation (heavy on the bass and drums). But if Motown and girl group tunes aren’t your thing, well, it might not work.

It's one of the best of those 'dollar bin' or flea market records that you see everywhere.
I've had several copies of Gonna Take a Miracle and never spent more than $2 on any of them.

I've bought a bunch of em to give people over the years.

Everyone should have it. It's too good a record not to buy for a dollar.

I kind of drift away in the middle of Christmas And The Beads Of Sweat but the first track and the last few are fantastic.

‘Upstairs By A Chinese Lamp’ is fantastic...Alice Coltrane and Laura Nyro...can you imagine a collab between those two

Plenty of photos out there of her in the studio with Miles Davis, though I don't think the sessions produced anything.

The Nyro biography I read said that Miles was just visiting the studio.

I think Christmas and the Beads of Sweat is amazing all the way through, kind of the apotheosis of the progressive Brill Building mysticism of her early albums. Also side one concludes with the definitive version of "Up On the Roof," Carole King's anthem for urban introverts and on some days my favorite song of all time

I thought the story was that she asked him to play something on one track and he declined by saying “you already played it.”

You're right, but there was never a serious session.

Maybe he meant that she'd already produced a Milesian vibe vocally---thinking of the way her phrasing is recorded on, say, "Billy's Blues."

That's on the only LP of hers I ever owned, The First Songs: what a sound, what singing, what writing, arranging (maybe a demo, but it works, like very early Joni Mitchell).

This bit of "Brown Earth" I adore. Such beautiful singing.

"Give with your heart and love will come to you
Kids come in all shapes and colors
To the cool morning dew"

Article on Laura Nyro ahead of the release of American Dreamer, a box set containing her first seven albums and an eighth disc of rarities and live tracks.

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2021/jul/27/laura-nyro-the-phenomenal-singers-singer-the-60s-overlooked

Hadn't heard about that! But posted this on Rolling Reissues:

From Goldmine:

LOS ANGELES, Calif. — Omnivore Recordings will release two sets of rare Laura Nyro music over the next few months: Trees of the Ages: Laura Nyro Live in Japan and the never-before-issued Go Find the Moon: The Audition Tape. Both will be available on CD and Digital, with Go Find the Moon also available on vinyl (a 45-rpm LP). Each was restored and mastered by Grammy®-winner Michael Graves and produced for release by Grammy®-winner Cheryl Pawelski and George Gilbert with the approval of the Laura Nyro Trust.

https://www.goldminemag.com/.image/c_limit%2Ccs_srgb%2Cq_auto:good%2Cw_602/MTgxMjY0NjI0NzQwNDc2MjY0/go-find-the-moon.webp

Go Find the Moon: The Audition Tape, scheduled for September 10, [contains the proto singer-songwriter’s previously unissued 1966 audition.

https://www.goldminemag.com/.image/c_limit%2Ccs_srgb%2Cq_auto:good%2Cw_602/MTgxMjY0NjI0NzQwNTQxODAw/tree-of-ages.webp

Tree of Ages: Laura Nyro Live in Japan, previously available only in Japan, due out July 16.

A member of both the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the Songwriters Hall of Fame, Laura Nyro not only wrote songs that became hits for artists like 5th Dimension, Blood, Sweat & Tears, Three Dog Night, and Barbra Streisand, but has been cited as a major influence by artists as varied as Kate Bush, Elton John, Elvis Costello, Cyndi Lauper, Todd Rundgren, Broadway composer Stephen Schwartz (Godspell, Wicked), and countless others. Born in the Bronx in 1947, she left us far too soon, at age 49 following a bout with ovarian cancer.

She recorded ten of her own studio albums (one released posthumously), but a live performance from Nyro was always a particularly special event.

Originally issued only in Japan as Live in Japan in 2003, the 16 tracks recorded at Kintetsu Hall, plus five recorded at On Air West return as Trees of the Ages: Laura Nyro Live in Japan, to be released July 16, 2021.

The set runs the gamut of her career, from Nyro-penned hits including “And When I Die,” “Wedding Bell Blues,” and “Save the Country,” to covers of Bacharach/David, Smokey Robinson, and Phil Spector classics. It is an essential document of her historic February 1994 visit to Japan. With Nyro on piano and vocals, augmented by the harmonies by Diane Wilson, Dian Sorrell, Diane Garisto, the performances are sublime.

The reissue packaging contains updated artwork and new liner notes from author and musician John Kruth. Looking and sounding incredible, this essential addition to Nyro’s discography is available worldwide for the first time. Trees of the Ages: Laura Nyro Live in Japan cements the legacy of an incomparable artist.

* * *

In the summer of 1966, an 18-year-old Laura Nyro auditioned for Milt Okun, one of the most respected music producers of the day, and Artie Mogull, a noted A&R man. After the session, these eventual music business legends were so blown away that Mogull became her manager, and Okun signed on to produce her debut record, More Than Just a Discovery. The first song she performed, “And When I Die,” became the opening track on Peter, Paul and Mary’s hit album, The Peter, Paul and Mary Album, and achieved even bigger success with the cover by Blood, Sweat, & Tears, which reached #2 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1969. Quite a song with which to begin an audition!

Nyro certainly wrote other future smashes delivered to the charts by artists like Three Dog Night (“Eli’s Coming”), the 5th Dimension (“Stoned Soul Picnic,” “Save the Country,” and “Wedding Bell Blues”), Barbra Streisand (“Stoney End”), and more. But it was Nyro’s heart, soul, songwriting brilliance and magnificent vocal talent that drove music fans to discover her own work.

Go Find the Moon: The Audition Tape, due out September 10, 2021, puts the listener in the room at the very beginning of Nyro’s legendary career. Available now for the first time, it includes “And When I Die” as well as songs she never officially released, and her own versions of classics, all delivered with a deft and distinctive touch.

As journalist Jim Farber writes in the liners: “Here, Laura Nyro led the way with a performance that captured an artist who, however young, was, at root, already fully formed.”

Omnivore will offer a special bundle of the LP Go Find The Moon: The Audition Tape with a numbered litho print of the cover limited to 200.

Track listings:

Trees of the Ages: Laura Nyro Live in Japan

1. Dedicated to the One I Love

2. Ooh Baby Baby

3. Woman of the World

4. Louise’s Church

5. Lite a Flame (The Animal Rights Song)

6. Walk the Dog & Light the Light (Song of the Road)

7. The Japanese Restaurant Song

8. And When I Die

9. To a Child

10. The Descent of Luna Rose

11. Wild World

12. Save the Country

13. Wedding Bell Blues

14. Trees of the Ages/Emmie

15. Walk on By

16. Let It Be Me

17. Oh Yeah Maybe Baby (The Heebie Jeebies)

18. Wind

19. Broken Rainbow

20. My Innocence/Sophia

21. Art of Love

Go Find The Moon: The Audition Tapeeion

1. And When I Die

2. Lazy Susan (False Start)

3. Enough of You

4. In and Out

5. Go Find the Moon

6. Luckie/Studio Talk

7. When Sunny Gets Blue (Fragment)/Kansas City (Fragment)/I Only Want to Be With You

8. Lazy Susan

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ojTJ30UL5ms

Has there never been a proper Nyro documentary? I can find references online to people planning to make one, but it doesn't appear that it's ever happened. Seems surprising, though I guess access to material and cooperation from the estate could be obstacles.

Love her line at the begining of the song " buy and sell "
Cocaine and quiet beers, sweet candy and caramels.

The lyrics of this entire song are astonishing by any standard, even more so for an 18-year-old woman:

Life turns like the endless sea
death tolls like a vesper bell
children laugh and lovers dream
on a street called buy and sell

Ladies dress calico style
beware your heart
when they smile
and their men walk shamelessly
aimlessly by
cinders in the daylight
junkyards in the sky