Every so often, this list throws up something genuinely unexpected that I hadn’t heard of before. In this case Laura Nyro is a singer songwriter from New York, and if I hadn’t looked at the date on the album I would have been hard pressed to pin this down to any time in the last fifty years. For an album released in 1968 by someone who was just 20 at the time, this sounds remarkably contemporary.
Nyro wrote all of the tracks here, and there’s a dizzying mix of genres, tempo and feel, often within the same song. She has a gorgeous, soulful voice and her lyrics are equally strong, especially with lines like ‘No one knows the blues like lonely women’ and Emmie, which is an unapologetic love song to a woman. I wasn’t surprised to read in her biography on Wikipedia that she was a bisexual woman and a feminist, which is probably partly the reason that she didn’t get the public recognition that this album clearly deserved. She died at the tragically young age of 49 from ovarian cancer.
The album is strongest for me on the three stripped down demo versions of the songs Lu, Stoned Soul Picnic (her one reference to the hippie era) and Emmie, which feature just Nyro playing piano with home produced multitracked vocals. They sound utterly amazing and it’s worth looking out for this version of the album to hear them.
Apparently she was an influence of Todd Rundgren and Elton John. Hey, fellas - you might have let the rest of us know about her!
Sassafras-and-moonshine-tastic!
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