Some performers have a hard time dealing with the limelight & find a back road to success. Singer/songwriter Laura Nyro was a perfect example. Afflicted by chronic stage fright, she never found more than a cult audience with her solo career; but when her work was covered by Barbra Streisand, Frank Sinatra, Three Dog Night or Blood, Sweat & Tears, her songs effortlessly reached the American Top 10 in the late 1960s & early 1970s. Somehow, those reinterpretations brought her material closer to the audience's preoccupations. Laura Nyro died too early, at just 49 years old, 13 years ago. You might have missed the obituary. Her death didn't inspire the type of media coverage accorded to pop icons like Elvis Presley, John Lennon or George Harrison. In fact, you may not even be familiar with her name.
But if like me, you were listening to the radio from 1968 to 1971, you know her music. Laura Nyro was still in her teens when she wrote- Wedding Bell Blues, & When I Die, & Stoney End. By the time she was 21, she had produced a body of work that would be the envy of most songwriters over the course of a lifetime. She never had a hit record herself, & the average radio listener may have never heard her name. That's a shame. She was not only a distinctive songwriter who created her own world in song, she also possessed a deliciously idiosyncratic vocal style, a soulful voice, & a deep feeling for the blues, jazz, soul, gospel & folk music that made up her music.
I wonder where the Fifth Dimension would have been without her songs. That group scored hits with Stoned Soul Picnic, Wedding Bell Blues, Blowin' Away, Sweet Blindness & Save the Country. Blood, Sweat & Tears took - & When I Die to #2 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1969, & Three Dog Night hit #1 with Eli's Comin. Barbra Streisand had Stoney End at #6 in 1971, using the song to increase her hipness quotient & prove that she was not just a singer of show tunes.
Laura Nyro was born Laura Nigro in 1947, the daughter of a jazz trumpeter. She began playing music as a little girl, read poetry & was exposed to the works of classical composers- Ravel & Debussy by her mother. She attended Manhattan's High School of Music and Art, & listened to a wide range of music, from Dylan to Coltrane, gospel to doo-wop, Burt Bacharach to Smokey Robinson.
Her first album- More Than a New Discovery was recorded in 1966, when she was only 19. It contained Wedding Bell Blues, & When I Die, Blowin' Away, Stoney End & Goodbye Joe. It was a remarkable debut, but one that gave her little attention as a performer.
A little known music agent we shall call- David Geffen saw her performance at the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967, where she was booed off the stage, quit his job & became her manager. He got her a contract with Columbia Records, &she recorded her next album- Eli & the13 Confession in 1968. This LP included Sweet Blindness, Stoned Soul Picnic & Eli's Comin'. the critics liked it & but the hits came from the covers versions by the Fifth Dimension & Three Dog Night, & Nyro’s originals went unnoticed by most of the record buying public, except for listeners of extreme good taste, like me.
New York Tendaberry, released in 1969, was Nyro's only album to reach the Top 40. It included 2 more songs that the Fifth Dimension would cover: Time & Love & Save the Country. This album gave her a cult following, & foreshadowed the introspective singer/songwriter movement that would emerge in the early '70s. Ironically, Nyro's own best-selling single was a cover of Carole King & Gerry Goffin's- Up on the Roof.
Nyro released 2 more albums before announcing her retirement in 1971 at the age of 24, but a 4 year hiatus, she returned to the recording studio, & periodically released new recordings for the next 2 decades. In 1997, a retrospective boxed set was being released by Columbia: Stoned Soul Picnic: The Best of Laura Nyro. Nyro herself, selected the tracks & approved the final project. She lived to see its release, & was reportedly pleased with the outcome. Nyro died of ovarian cancer in on April 8, 1997, at the age of 49; the same disease had claimed the life of her mother at the same age, leaving behind her partner of 18 years, artist- Maria Desidero. A tribute album, Time & Love: The Music of Laura Nyro; with Nyro's songs performed by 14 women singers & groups, including Phoebe Snow, Suzanne Vega, Roseanne Cash, Sweet Honey in the Rock, & Jane Siberry was issued in 1997 after her death.
Nyro's influence on other musicians has also been acknowledged by: Janis Ian, Joni Mitchell, Melissa Manchester, Rickie Lee Jones, Steely Dan, Todd Rundgren, Sandra Bernhard & Elton John. She is Bette Midler’s favorite singer. Barry Manilow lists her amazing album, my personal favorite Nyro album- Christmas & The Beads Of Sweat, on his Desert Island Discs. The Jackson Browne tune- That Girl Could Sing is about Nyro. Elton John & Elvis Costello discussed Nyro's significant influence on both of them during the premiere episode of Costello's interview show Spectacle on the Sundance channel.
I loved Laura Nyro beyond all reason when I was a youth & her songs are very much a part of my musical consciousness. The Husband is a fan & my friend Bryan has a passion for her work. If you remember these songs in their hit versions by other artists, it's fascinating to hear Nyro’s own interpretations. If you're too young to remember these songs from AM radio, you will be knocked out by the variety & depth of her vision. Listening to her music more than 40 years later, I am transported back to that amazing time. I don't know why more people didn't discover the singer/songwriter behind these great melodies & lyrics. Stoned Soul Picnic captures the sweet, hopeful trippiness of 1967-68 better than most protest music of the time: "There'll be trains of blossoms, there'll be trains of music…there'll be trains of trust, trains of gold & dust…"
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