Laura Nyro

Today's story is about a woman who so impressed young talent agent David Geffen, who was then struggling with his own sexual identity, that he sent her to audition for Columbia Records’ Clive Davis (another queer music business icon: I should perhaps schedule both David Geffen and Clive Davis for future presentation). In his memoir Clive: Inside the Record Business, Davis recalled Nyro's audition for him: She'd invited him to her New York apartment, turned off every light except that of a television set next to her piano, and played him the material that would become her second album. "She was a brilliant composer, way ahead of her time," recalls Davis.

He was right: "I was obsessed with her," says Suzanne Vega, "her phrasing, the way she used words. You can hear her influence in Rickie Lee Jones and Tori Amos; women who write from a strong inner world." "She spoke in colors," says Janis Ian. "She’d tell the musicians, 'More purple, more like that chair.'"

By the way, I'm sure our friend, the Record Man, will enjoy today's presentation; it will feature some lovely songs by one of his favorite vocal groups, the 5th Dimension.

Laura Nyro (October 18, 1947 – April 8, 1997) was born Laura Nigro in the Bronx, the daughter of Gilda (née Mirsky) Nigro, a bookkeeper, and Louis Nigro, a piano tuner and jazz trumpeter. Laura had a younger brother, Jan Nigro, who has become a well-known children's musician. Laura was of Russian Jewish, Polish Jewish, and Italian ancestry.

"I've created my own little world, a world of music, since I was five years old," Nyro told Billboard magazine in 1970, adding that music provided, for her, a means of coping with a difficult childhood: "I was never a bright and happy child." As a child, Nyro taught herself piano, read poetry, and listened to her mother's records by Leontyne Price, Billie Holiday and classical composers such as Debussy and Ravel. She composed her first songs at age eight. With her family, she spent summers in the Catskills, where her father played trumpet at resorts. She credited the Sunday school at the New York Society for Ethical Culture with providing the basis of her education; she also attended Manhattan's High School of Music & Art.

As a teenager, Nyro experimented with going by various names, and Nyro was the one she was using at the time she was signed by Artie Mogull. She sold And When I Die to Peter, Paul, and Mary for $5,000, and made her first extended professional appearance at age 18, singing at the "hungry i" coffeehouse in San Francisco. Mogull negotiated her a recording contract, and she recorded her debut album, More Than a New Discovery, for the Verve Folkways label. The album provided material for other artists, notably the 5th Dimension and Barbra Streisand.

Let's listen to Laura's own version of And When I Die:

This is Peter, Paul, and Mary's version, although the video found on youtube has Mary Travers performing solo:

The song became one of Blood, Sweat & Tears' signature pieces:

Her album, one of the most exciting debut albums, especially for a 19-year-old, contained many more gems. This is my favorite:

Wedding Bell Blues was covered by the 5th Dimension - and their version was as good, if not better, as the original. It was rewarded by going all the way to the top of the US charts:

The above song is begging for an able EDM producer to turn it into a contemporary smash hit. If such a producer is reading this, I challenge you to try it. Just don't forget to mention this blog in your interviews, after you get your #1 hit!

There was another song in this album that became a hit for the 5th Dimension: Blowin' Away. Let's listen to the original version first:

... and here's the hit version by the Fifth Dimension:

These weren't the only hits that this album produced. Another spectacular song from it, was Stoney End:

... which became a #6 hit for none other than the great Barbra Streisand. Fanny are on background vocals. We'll get to them in a week or two.

Peggy Lipton had recorded the song before Barbra and it was almost a hit. In case you don't know who Peggy Lipton is, you need to know that in 1968 she became an overnight success through her best-known role in The Mod Squad on TV. Her fifty-year career in television, film, and on stage included many roles, most notably that of Norma Jennings in David Lynch's surreal Twin Peaks, the best show currently on TV. Lipton was married to the musician/producer Quincy Jones and is mother to their two daughters, Rashida Jones and Kidada Jones, who also became actresses.

I Never Meant to Hurt You was another song from this album covered by Barbra. Here's Laura's original:

... and here's Barbra:

Nyro was able to blend the introspection of a classic torch ballad with an undeniable intimacy inherent in her lyrics. Buy and Sell is one such song:

Billy's Blues was another:

Lazy Susan incorporates the same acoustic noir that would become the centerpiece of her future epics:

After Geffen became her manager, with a new recording contract with Clive Davis at Columbia Records, she released her second album, Eli and the Thirteenth Confession (1968). As good as her first album was, this one is even better. With its invigorating blend of blue-eyed soul, New York pop, and early confessional singer/songwriting, Nyro sang of love, inscrutably enigmatic romantic daredevils, getting drunk, lonely women, and sensual desire with an infectious joie de vivre. In the February 2016 issue of UNCUT magazine it was rated in the 100 Greatest Albums of All Time.

This album also contained a couple of gems that were then covered by the 5th Dimension. There was Stoned Soul Picnic; this is Nyro's original version:

... and this is the hit version (US, #3) by the 5th Dimension:

Another one was Sweet Blindness. This is Laura:

... and this is the 5th Dimension:

My favorite song from the album is Eli's Coming:

... which was a US Top 10 hit for Three Dog Night:

The song Luckie was derived from an earlier composition Nyro had played at her audition for Verve Records in 1966.

Lu is another great song:

Nyro was pathologically private, and only her closest friends knew she was bisexual, even though Eli‘s Emmie was pop’s first lesbian love song.

... another great song from this album, The Confession:

... also Once It Was Alright Now (Farmer Joe):

In 1969, a year after Eli, came her most commercial release, New York Tendaberry, peaking at #32 on the US albums' chart. Although New York Tendaberry was nearly as strong a record as its predecessor, Eli and the Thirteenth Confession, it wasn't as accessible. In large part that's because, unlike her first two albums, it didn't have three or four songs that would become instantly recognizable hits in the hands of other artists. But it was also because the mood of the record was considerably darker and the production quite a bit starker. 

Was there a 5th Dimension hit here, you may ask. Sure there was: Save the Country. Here's Nyro's original:

Here's the 5th Dimension's version:

... And here's a version by the great Roberta Flack:

Was there a song here covered by Barbra Streisand, you may ask. Sure there was: Time and Love. Here's Nyro's original:

... and here's Barbra:

Nyro described the title track as having emerged during a "very wild time of exploration" in an interview with SongTalk. Accordingly, New York Tendaberry was a deeply emotive arrangement, with moments of absolute silence braced against a piano as the sole accompaniment to Nyro's soothing vocal harmonies that carried a lyrical portrait of city life: 

Another great song, intense and unpredictable, is Captain Saint Lucifer:

Also, listen to Gibsom Street:

Also, here's Mercy on Broadway:

Laura Nyro's third Columbia effort is easily the equal of her previous two. The overwhelming strength of her song writing and distinctive arrangements fuel Christmas and the Beads of Sweat (1970). Her unmistakable style of delivery maintains the continual examination of herself as a performer. The results are uniformly interesting and provocative as she continues to draw upon her love of jazz, folk, and R&B. Let's start with the upbeat When I Was a Freeport and You Were the Main Drag:

Now, a change of mood with the hauntingly beautiful Christmas in My Soul:

Beads of Sweat is the aching hollowness that came with the disillusionment that Vietnam, Kent State, and racial relations brought upon America in 1970.

Blackpatch was another great one:

Upstairs by a Chinese Lamp transports you to a melancholic place, but also surrounds you with comfort:

Ironically for such an inspired composer, who wrote iconic hits for other artists, Nyro's only single to crack the US Hot 100 (at #92) was Up On The Roof, a Gerry Goffin and Carole King composition, which was a major hit for the Drifters in early 1963:

Nyro had a relationship with singer/songwriter Jackson Browne in late 1970 to early 1971. Browne was Nyro's opening act at the time.

With the 1971 release Gonna Take a Miracle, Laura Nyro completed her four-album/four-year deal for Columbia. As much as Gonna Take a Miracle is indeed a Laura Nyro album, it could likewise, and perhaps more accurately, be described as a collaborative effort between Nyro and the female soul trio LaBelle - featuring Patti LaBelle, Nona Hendryx, and Sarah Dash - as well as producers Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff. It is ultimately this team that is responsible for the album's overwhelmingly solid results.

The album opener is a stunning acappella performance of the Shirelles hit from 1958, I Met Him on a Sunday:

... Then comes the Marvin Gaye song, The Bells:

It's Gonna Take a Miracle was originally a hit for The Royalettes in 1965:

The album balances the grittier numbers with the more ethereal soul ballad, The Wind:

... As well as with the sultry love ballad, Désiree:

However, by the end of 1971, aged 24, Nyro had married a carpenter, Vietnam War veteran David Bianchini, relocated to rural Massachusetts and announced her retirement from the music industry. The marriage ended after three years. A short-lived relationship with Harindra Singh produced a son, Gil Bianchini (a.k.a. musician Gil-T), whom she gave the surname of her ex-husband.

In 1975, Nyro not only split from Bianchini, but she also suffered the trauma of the death of her mother Gilda to ovarian cancer at the age of 49. She consoled herself largely by recording a new album, which she dedicated to her mother, enlisting Charlie Calello, with whom she had collaborated on Eli and the Thirteenth Confession. The album was called Smile. The high and tight vocal harmonies are most evident on the opening track, Sexy Mama, which was also a hit for the R&B vocal group the Moments.

Money was one of the outstanding tracks:

The title track, particularly, explores a deep flirtation with Chinese music:

I dedicate The Cat Song to my good friend Alexandra D from Mykonos - I know she'll be reading this:

Season of Lights is Nyro's first live album, issued in the summer of 1977, taking the songs from various locations on Nyro's 1976 tour. From this album, here's Sweet Blindness:

She gave listeners fresh reconsiderations of ten-year-old works like And When I Die, which she does in a slow, lyrical, yet slightly funky manner, as though neither she nor any of her audience had ever heard of Blood, Sweat & Tears - talk about reclaiming a song for herself.

When I Was a Freeport (And You Were the Main Drag) is the kind of song that, ideally, should only ever have been presented live, showing off Nyro at her most gently beguiling and accessible, teasing the audience with the play of her words and her voice.

Following on from her extensive tour to promote 1976's Smile, which resulted in the 1977 live album Season of Lights, Nyro retreated to her new home in Danbury, Connecticut, where she lived after spending her time in the spotlight in New York City.

Nyro had a studio built at her home, and recorded the songs that comprised Nested (1978) there. The songs deal with themes such as motherhood and womanhood, and it is a notably more relaxed Nyro that sings on the album. The instrumentation is laidback and smooth, similar to that of Smile, but perhaps less jazz-inspired and more melodic. Nyro was assisted in production by Roscoe Harring. Nyro's highly personal perspective was also on display on the record, starting with the lead-off track, Mr. Blue (The Song of Communications), an account of an attempt to re-establish relations with a lover.

 In American Dreamer, she turned from her personal life to her professional life, apparently recalling the early business deal that resulted in a former manager ending up with half the proceeds from her song publishing royalties.

But the overwhelming theme of the album, as its title suggested, concerned Nyro's pregnancy. In Crazy Love, sung with only her own piano accompaniment, she first referred to her "unborn star".

By the album's close with Child in a Universe and The Nest, impending childbirth had become a major concern. Here's Child in a Universe:

... and here's The Nest:

In the 1980s, Nyro began living with painter Maria Desiderio (1954–1999), a relationship that lasted 17 years, the rest of Nyro's life. Laura and Maria had met for the first time when Maria, a self-described native of Brooklyn, was 12/13 years old, taking keyboard lessons from Alice Coltrane. Laura was 19 at the time.

In mid 1978, at the Roxy Theatre, on a fan line,  Laura and Maria again see each other. Laura is very pregnant. That was all that was needed to rekindle the “flame.”  They begin a correspondence.  Alice was the likely go-between. From 1980 to Labor Day Weekend 1982, they were having an affair which Zoe, Maria's lover at the time, unmasked. Immediately, Maria goes East to live with Laura. It can be fairly stated that Maria Desiderio was Laura Nyro’s soul mate. Maria Desiderio’s passion was painting and her obsession was Laura Nyro.

Nyro again took a break from recording, this time until 1984's Mother's Spiritual. The album was less well-reviewed than her previous ones. It was criticized for "romantic generalizations of matrifocal ecofeminism", not surprisingly, written by a male critic, Robert Christgau. Here's the title track:

Here's A Wilderness:

In Melody in the Sky, she sang "I'm not waiting / for Miss or Mr. Right":

Nyro performed increasingly in the 1980s and 1990s with female musicians, including her friend Nydia "Liberty" Mata, a drummer, and several others from the lesbian-feminist women's music subculture, including members of the band Isis. Nyro made a solo appearance at the 1989 Michigan Womyn's Music Festival. On July 4, 1991, she opened for Bob Dylan at the Tanglewood Music Center in Lenox, Massachusetts.

Walk the Dog and Light the Light (1993), was the last album of new original material that Nyro released during her lifetime. By now, the political stands are a part of her persona, expressed as directly as her emotional ones, and this is a well-rounded portrait of a mature artist.

A Woman of the World is a female empowerment song:

Lite a Flame (The Animal Rights Song) is, like the title says, an endorsement to the fight for animal rights:

Louise's Church is a song that celebrates creative and pioneering women across the centuries:

Broken Rainbow is a song that praises ecology and condemns the massively uneven distribution of wealth:

In late 1996, Nyro, like her mother before her, was diagnosed with ovarian cancer. After the diagnosis, Columbia Records prepared a double-disc CD retrospective of material from her years at the label. The company involved Nyro herself, who selected the tracks and approved the final project. She lived to see the release of Stoned Soul Picnic: The Best of Laura Nyro (1997), and was reportedly pleased with the outcome.

She died of ovarian cancer in Danbury, Connecticut, on April 8, 1997, at 49, the same age at which the disease had claimed the life of her mother. Her ashes were buried beneath a maple tree on the grounds of her house in Danbury.

In 2001, a posthumous album was released, called Angel In The Dark, which featured recordings made in 1994 and 1995. It is a lovely recording featuring the graceful vocals and finely crafted songs that everyone expects from her. The title cut and Sweet Dream Fade mine the same soul terrain as her late 60s recordings, featuring horns and underlined by heavy guitar riffs. They are two of the best cuts on the album. Here's the title track:

... And here's Sweet Dream Fade:

Slower, piano-based songs like Triple Goddess Twilight, He Was Too Good to Me, and Serious Playground are mixed in-between these songs. These pieces are quieter and introspective, with Nyro's voice more intimate. It is almost as though she was sitting at the piano, late at night, and singing to herself. Here's Triple Goddess Twilight:

Here's He Was Too Good to Me:

... And here's Serious Playground:

One other standout is the upbeat Gardenia Talk, filled with lively percussion and a sensual vocal:

If Nyro’s story feels in some way confounding, all that turn-tailing on talent and success, all those steps to the left when the going looked so good, it’s perhaps consoling to consider that the unexpected twists that ran through her life were in some way an echo of her songwriting – full of rhythmic convolutions, free-form compositions, vocal variations. As Elton John put it: "The soul, the passion, just the out-and-out audacity of the way her rhythmic and melody changes came was like nothing I’d heard before."

More than anything, Nyro’s lyrics always felt lived. "Everything seemed exotic and heightened in her songs," Bette Midler said in the speech she made to posthumously induct Nyro into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2012. "She could make a trip to the grocery store seem like a night at the opera."

The traditional route of the prodigiously talented singing star is to grow ever-more removed from normal life, to choose a world of penthouses and private members’ clubs, to breathe a more rarefied air. Nyro, however, chose a life that recalled her younger years, when she loved to sing on street corners, pressing music out into the world. And I think this is a quality that runs through her career, from her debut through to her final work – songs that despite the distance of the singer, can still stand close to the listener.