Laura Nyro, the acclaimed Bronx-born singer-songwriter who merged numerous musical genres into her own individual brand of blue-eyed soul, is being celebrated with a massive box set. Hear My Song: The Collection, 1966 – 1995, a 19-CD Deluxe collection, arrived December 6, 2024, via Madfish Music.
Born on October 18, 1947, Nyro released her first album when she was just 19 years old. That 1967 title, More Than a New Discovery, on Verve Folkways, contains no less than three Top 10 singles but that gargantuan chart feat requires an equally large asterisk. So why is this album not in the pantheon of singer-songwriter classics of say, 1971’s Tapestry, from Carole King, who was five years her senior? Not only was Tapestry the #1 album for 15 weeks and ultimately swept the Grammy Awards, but for a while it was also the top-selling album of all-time. The hard fact is, Nyro’s album peaked at just #181. That’s because none of its Top 10 singles, namely “And When I Die,” “Stoney End” and “Wedding Bell Blues,” were her recorded versions. The best known of each of those were from Blood, Sweat and Tears, Barbra Streisand and the 5th Dimension, respectively. And here’s the kicker: none of Nyro’s singles of her own songs ever charted on the Hot 100.
The arrangement of “And When I Die” from the debut has the “giddyap” that was so successfully used in the BS&T version that reached #2 two years later.
One very interested party at the time was Clive Davis, who was Columbia’s president. In the new collection’s liner notes, he writes about Nyro and her then-manager, David Geffen, who had arranged to buy out her contract from Verve. “His belief was intense. If Laura was going over budget, David would justify it, and in that case ask for a continuing showing of belief and support so that it was persuasive. Whatever the decision was, it was to continue the support of Laura. But we’re still talking about an unknown artist… someone who had not broken through at that time. Within reason, there’s no doubt that the belief was there and that she was special. And that stayed with me always because David’s passion and my ears told me that there was a very special artist here.
“But you must also understand that Laura Nyro never soared as an artist. She became an important artist, but… she was more influential as a songwriter. Her songs… were being recorded and they were becoming hits, so that there was no question that her talent expectation was being fulfilled one way or another. And if she was not emerging in a mainstream way, she was emerging with a cult and with a following that absolutely was intense as well. So, you had the combination of an artist that was not exploding out of the gate as an artist, but clearly was being evaluated as someone very unique, very special, very influential, but with the gift of being able to write hit songs.
“Spreading that word, she could have had no better… proponent, believer, manager, spokesman than David Geffen, because with an energy level and with a passion… he threw his whole being into it. He lived, ate, and breathed it with an intensity probably that I had never seen before in any manager.”
Nyro’s follow-up album, 1968’s Eli and The Thirteenth Confession, which marked her Columbia Records debut, featured three more classic compositions: her playful “Sweet Blindness,” as well as “Eli’s Comin'” and “Stoned Soul Picnic.” The latter two were Top 10s for Three Dog Night and the 5th Dimension (yet again), and somehow the best of the bunch, the 5th Dimension’s recording of “Sweet Blindness,” inexplicably stalled at #13. If you’re keeping score, that’s six aces that Nyro wrote and recorded before her 21st birthday.
The box set for the 2012 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductee is the deepest dive yet into Nyro’s recorded legacy. The songwriter died in 1997 of ovarian cancer, at just 49.
Hear My Song: The Collection, 1966 – 1995 is a fascinating look at all of Nyro’s 10 studio albums: More Than a New Discovery (1967), Eli and The Thirteenth Confession (1968), New York Tendaberry (1969), Christmas and The Beads of Sweat (1970), the covers album she made with Labelle, Gonna Take a Miracle (1971), as well as Smile (1976), Nested (1978), Mother’s Spiritual (1984), Walk The Dog & Light The Light (1993) and her posthumously released masterwork Angel In The Dark (2001) with lovely covers of “Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow” and “Embraceable You,” among the tracks.
1971’s collaboration with Labelle celebrates songs written by many who influenced her including Holland-Dozier-Holland (“Jimmy Mack” and “Nowhere To Run”) and Smokey Robinson (“You’ve Really Got a Hold On Me”).
Related: Our Album Rewind of Nyro’s collaboration with Labelle
But it’s also the live material here that shines with discs devoted to Spread Your Wings And Fly: Live at The Fillmore East (1971), Season of Lights… Laura Nyro in Concert (1977), Live / The Loom’s Desire (1993 & 1994), and two previously unreleased concert recordings from San Francisco (1994).
Laura Nyro in 1971 (Photo © Jerry De Wilde; used with permission)
After Nyro performs “Save the Country” on the Fillmore East album, she says to the audience, “No matter how insane the world seems or how bad the times seem, the vibration that you people put into the world is very important. It all goes down in the book of life.”
Hear My Song: The Collection, 1966 – 1995 highlights:
• 10 Original Studio Albums, 6 Live Albums including 2 Previously Unreleased Live Concerts, Nyro’s original demo tape from 1966 and bonus disc of rarities including mono versions, alternative versions and live tracks
• All albums remastered especially for this collection
• All housed in a deluxe, lift-off lid box
• 90-page coffee-table hardback book with in-depth liner notes by Vivien Goldman, foreword from Elton John and numerous testimonials
• Rare, previously unseen photographs including intimate family shots illuminate the book
Rounding off this complete collection is Laura’s first ever demo tape Go Find The Moon (1966) and a collection, Rarities & Live Recordings. All audio has been remastered especially for this set and housed in individual sleeves with original artwork.
At the center of this deluxe package is a 90-page coffee table hardback book with liner notes by acclaimed author Vivien Goldman, forewords from Elton John, Laura’s son Gil Bianchini, and brother Jan Nigro. There are contributions and testimonials from Charlie Calello, Will Lee, John Sebastian, Jackson Browne, Lou Adler, Randy Brecker, Bernard Purdie, Scott Billington, John Sebastian and Gary Burden alongside never-before-seen photographs and intimate family shots.
Part of Elton John’s foreword: “She wrote songs that had no kind of fixed compass point. They remain as unique and absolutely spellbinding to this day as when I first heard them in the ‘60s.”
From the Madfish announcement: During the singer/songwriter movement in the late ’60s and early ’70s, Nyro was one of the most celebrated tunesmiths of her day. Nyro was just 18 years old when she signed her first recording contract and wrote the songs for which she is likely to be best remembered. By the time she was 22, she had become one of the most successful composers in American popular music. She wrote wonderfully expressive and poetic songs that took the folky introspection of her peers and infused it with elements of soul, r&b, jazz, and gospel, giving them an emotional heat that set her apart. Nyro also possessed something of a crystalline voice which, when accompanied by her formidable piano skills, elevated the songs even higher.
But at the age of just 24, she drew back from her creativity and fame, exhausted and struggling with the weight of expectation placed on her and the attention that came with it. The inevitable result was that she began to feel alienated from her music, and herself. What’s remarkable is not that she found fame so challenging, and self-discovery so painful, but that she actually achieved what she did. Under an unrelenting spotlight, she was able to create a series of utterly beautiful and stunningly unique albums.
Newly unearthed audio treasure, “Hear My Song,” gives us even more of a closer insight into this enigmatic artist whose songwriting influence has had a profound effect on Bob Dylan, Elton John, Joni Mitchell, Alicia Keys, Alice Cooper, St Vincent, Kate Bush, Tori Amos, Todd Rundgren, Suzanne Vega, Elvis Costello, Jenny Lewis and many more.
Hear My Song: The Collection, 1966 – 1995 is available in the U.S. here and in the U.K. here.
Madfish Music has previously issued massive box sets from John Mayall, the Four Seasons, Al Stewart, and others.
A film documentary on Nyro is currently in production in the U.S.
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2 Comments so far
Jump into a conversationA slight correction to a fine article: Laura was born in the Bronx, not Brooklyn. I wrote a play about her: “And a World to Carry On (Laura Nyro remembered).”
I believe Joni Mitchell has gone on record as saying she was influenced by Laura Nyro when composing and recording the Blue album. I definitely hear it.