Laura Nyro Albums (15)
'Live at the Fillmore East May 30, 1971'
Release Date 6/1/2004
Tracks 12
Label Columbia/Legacy
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What The Critics Say
While a couple of the medleys of soul covers have shown up as bonus tracks on the expanded edition of Laura Nyro's Gonna Take a Miracle, everything else from this 1971 show was previously unreleased. In fact two of the songs, the lengthy Nyro originals "American Dove" and "Mother Earth" (the latter clocking in at eight minutes), appear here for the first time anywhere. It's just Nyro and her piano on this recording, and while the sleeve note apologizes for the sound quality due to deterioration of the tape, actually it sounds pretty good, though not pristine. There are both positive and negative ways of viewing this archival find. On one hand the set list, oddly, contained none of her best-known songs ("Wedding Bell Blues," "Stoned Soul Picnic," "Sweet Blindness," "Blowin' Away," and "And When I Die" are all missing for starters), which might disappoint some fans. Also, the unplugged reliance on nothing but piano backup makes this less varied and, in some ways, less interesting than the full arrangements she used on her early studio releases. On the other hand the emphasis on lesser-known songs and soul covers -- as well as, for that matter, the use of solo piano arrangements -- means that both the material and the setting provide a glimpse of different sides of the singer/songwriter than are apparent in her more familiar studio albums. Nyro sings in a beautifully high range and her piano accompaniment is sensitive, though whether due to the recording flaws or the way she presented herself in live performance, the words aren't always wholly distinct. It's not on par with her early studio releases, and neither "American Dove" nor "Mother Earth" are great songs; they're okay and certainly in her soulful singer/songwriting vein, but a little meandering. But fans will treasure this as a document of Nyro in a more intimate setting than her early official releases allowed. ~ Richie Unterberger, All Music Guide
'Live! The Loom's Desire'
Release Date 5/7/2002
Tracks 24
Label Rounder
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What The Critics Say
Culled from recordings made at New York's Bottom Line on Christmas Eve in 1993 and 1994, just a few years before her passing, these two dates on Live! The Loom's Desire offer as intimate a portrait of Nyro as we are likely to ever get from a recording. Using only her piano and two different harmony groups, Nyro runs through material from her own recordings and from the street-corner doo wop singing of her childhood. 1993's group has a six-piece backing group, making the sound full of depth and warmth, giving a kind of holiday intimacy to the proceedings -- especially on tracks like Nolan Strong's "Wind" and "Dedicated to the One I Love." There are a few more recent tracks that offer her views on animal rights, but they are woven though her more well-known songs. The big winners on the first set are "Emmie," which is chilling in its sheer desire, and the gospel-like raucousness of "And When I Die." On the 1994 concert, with a smaller group -- just a trio -- the effect is more riveting; there is an immediacy here that offers no sentimentality at all. On tracks like "Save the Country," there is a conviction not heard before, even in Nyro. On "Broken Rainbow," passion and heartbreak drip like rain from the petals of flowers. Most of the music is more recent, but it plays exactly the same as it if it were recorded in her "prime." There was no period on Nyro's life as a songwriter that wasn't a prime (check out the medley of "Blowin' Away" and "Wedding Bell Blues"). The set closes with Smokey Robinson's "Ooh Baby, Baby," and it is the most fitting goodbye, a way of tenderly sending off the crowd into the night with all the wishes a holiday season has to offer, but also with the appreciation and gratitude that she was so well-received. There is no goodbye like the one that has no idea that there will be no more hellos, and that's how this set whispers to a close, with the promise of a tomorrow that never arrived. ~ Thom Jurek, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
Angel in the Dark is a lovely recording featuring the graceful vocals and finely crafted songs that everyone expects from Laura Nyro. These sessions were completed in the summer of 1995 and represent the last music Nyro recorded. 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. These upbeat pieces perfectly integrate voice, arrangements, and lyrics to create an organic whole, and are two of the best cuts on the album. 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. There are also several covers including "Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow" and "Let It Be Me." The first of these is over five minutes and has been slowed down so much that it drags. In fact, she slows down all of the covers as if to convert them into heartfelt ballads. This works best on "Ooh Baby, Baby," partly because the arrangement is fuller and more dynamic. One other standout is the upbeat "Gardenia Talk," filled with lively percussion and a sensual vocal. Angel in the Dark is a fine coda, perfect for late-night listening, and a perfect companion to Nyro's other recordings. ~ Ronnie Lankford Jr., All Music Guide
'Live from Mountain Stage'
Release Date 10/17/2000
Tracks 10
Label Blue Plate
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What The Critics Say
Laura Nyro's career became difficult to follow in the late '80s and early '90s. In 1984, she emerged with Mother's Spiritual, her first album in six years, on Columbia Records, the label she had joined in 1968. She returned to occasional performances a few years later, and in 1989, Cypress Records, a short-lived label, issued Live at the Bottom Line, which featured several new songs, even though Columbia continued to claim her as an exclusive recording artist. She returned to Columbia four years later with what turned out to be her final studio album, Walk the Dog & Light the Light. The archival Live From Mountain Stage, drawn from a performance recorded for the radio series on November 11, 1990, and released a decade later, comes from in the midst of this period. Nyro repeats "Roll of the Ocean" and "Japanese Restaurant" (aka "The Japanese Restaurant Song"), two of the new songs from Live at the Bottom Line, and she previews three numbers that will appear on Walk the Dog & Light the Light: the covers "Oh Yeah Maybe Baby (The Heebie Jeebies)" and "I'm So Proud/Dedicated to the One I Love," and the new original "Lite the Flame," an animal rights song. She also plays her seasonal medley "Let It Be Me/The Christmas Song," then just-released on the various artists album Acoustic Christmas, and selects four songs from her catalog: "And When I Die" from More Than a New Discovery, "Emmie" from Eli and the Thirteenth Confession, "My Innocence" from Nested, and "To a Child" from Mother's Spiritual. She accompanies herself on electric piano and sings powerfully, if without the dramatic style of her early work. The disc runs less than 30 minutes, but it provides a well-rounded sampling of Nyro's career, and the performances have an intimate directness. ~ William Ruhlmann, All Music Guide
'Walk the Dog & Light the Light'
Release Date 10/12/1993
Tracks 10
Label Columbia
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What The Critics Say
Laura Nyro effectively recreates her emotional, piano-based sound on her first new studio album in nine years. 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. ~ William Ruhlmann, All Music Guide
'Laura: Laura Nyro Live at the Bottom Line'
Release Date 6/28/1989
Tracks 16
Label A&M
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What The Critics Say
Listening to this CD, this reviewer found himself swept up in its upbeat, ebullient introduction ("The Confession"), and then he had to resist the impulse to cry just a little. Officially titled Laura, and subtitled (and usually referred to as) Laura Nyro Live at the Bottom Line, this disc has been out of print since the mid-'90s, and so for many listeners it's like finding a long lost, intimate photo album, or even a home movie, of a deceased beloved friend or relative. It catches Nyro at her most delightfully assertive, ranging across her whole musical history, from "And When I Die" to "The Japanese Restaurant Song," with very personalized detours into numbers like "Up on the Roof" and "Hi Heel Sneakers" (gee, Laura Nyro overlapping repertoire with the Rolling Stones...and holding up). Vocally she was in superb form, having given up smoking at that point, and psychically, she manages to be reflective and outgoing at the same time, soaring beguilingly on the new material, so that numbers like "Roll of the Ocean" are as alluring as her decade-old hits. She is so tuned in to the music, her new band, and the crowd that she never fails to surprise in the course of living up to expectations -- the transition into "The Wild World" and the performance itself are almost worth the price of admission on the CD. And as good as she was that night, Diane Wilson was her match on harmony vocals, and the 1988-vintage live recording has held up as well across the years. This is a much smaller band than the one she had on Season of Light, her Columbia live album from the 1970s, and the Bottom Line is a more intimate venue than anywhere that album was recorded. Thus, not only Nyro's voice, but Jimmy Vivino's guitar and the rhythm section of Frank Pagano and David Wofford all sound up close and personal, and Pagano's drumming even generates a peculiarly melodic quality that's picked up well. Nyro slides across styles and sounds, morphing effortlessly but overpowering everywhere she stops, on soul, folk, jazz, gospel -- the first time this reviewer heard this performance of "And When I Die," he couldn't listen to the Blood, Sweat & Tears version for six months, and then only with wincing. The only flaw with the CD is a minor technical one -- the index numbers on the back are one off from the songs' actual indexing, which should only be the worst flaw on any CD. It's strange to think, as this is being written, that Nyro and the Bottom Line are now both gone -- anyone wondering why the artist and the room were legends couldn't do better than this release to get their questions answered. ~ Bruce Eder, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
Nested was Laura Nyro's second studio album of new original material to be released after her career hiatus of the first half of the 1970s, following 1976's Smile. Like that predecessor, it was a more restrained affair, musically and lyrically, than some of her more intense efforts of the late '60s, such as New York Tendaberry. In fact, such catchy soul-pop songs as "Rhythm & Blues" and "The Sweet Sky" sounded almost as if they could have appeared on her 1967 debut album More Than a New Discovery and been covered for hits. But 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 which she paused to speak quoted dialogue from him to her: "I've heard of liberation but sweetheart -- you're in outer space," and "you can be so arrogant, and you don't know anything about being cool." 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. The chorus, another quoted passage, goes "There's nothing we can do/we could not get there in time/It's too late -- /she signed on the dotted line." 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," and by the album's close with "Child in a Universe" and "The Nest," impending childbirth had become a major concern. As such, Nested could be viewed as the next installment in Nyro's allusive musical autobiography. ~ William Ruhlmann, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
After a five-year hiatus, singer/songwriter Laura Nyro returned with Smile in 1976. On this disc, Nyro's somewhat idiosyncratic writing and performance style is decidedly subdued. In its stead is a light pop and jazz feel similar to that of Maria Muldaur's mid-'70s recordings. Supporting Nyro instrumentally is virtually a who's who of New York and Los Angeles studio stalwarts. While the prowess of folks like Will Lee (bass), brothers Randy Brecker (trumpet) and Michael Brecker (flute/sax), Hugh McCracken (guitar), and Rick Marotta (drums) certainly strengthens Nyro's already laid-back material, it likewise reduces her to sounding like a Joni Mitchell ripoff. The undeniable highlight of Smile is the maturity in the songwriting. It becomes obvious that the half-decade away has done some significant good in revealing a decidedly positive evolution in Nyro's approach to her own life. What's more is that the material on this album seems to come from a place of contentment. The influence of her work with the female soul vocal trio LaBelle on Gonna Take a Miracle -- prior to her mini-retirement -- also seems to be a source of inspiration throughout this disc. The high and tight vocal harmonies -- all of which are credited to Nyro -- are wholly rewarding and hark back to her R&B-induced "Wedding Bell Blues" and "Stoned Soul Picnic." This is most evident on the opening track, "Sexy Mama" (penned by Harry Ray, Joe Robinson, and Al Goodman), which was also a hit for the R&B vocal group the Moments. The intimate nature of "I Am the Blues" and "Midnite Blue" are reminiscent of older Nyro favorites such as "Emmie" and "Captain St. Lucifer." In all, Smile is much like a musical letter from an old acquaintance and casts a direct light onto the next phase in Laura Nyro's recording career. ~ Lindsay Planer, All Music Guide
'Season of Lights...Laura Nyro in Concert'
Release Date 1/1/1977
Tracks 26
Label Columbia
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What The Critics Say
What with the expanded criterion DVD of Monterey Pop slated to include a pair of Laura Nyro numbers from that show -- at the very outset of her career -- it's a crying shame that, as of November 2002, Sony Music has never seen fit to reissue this live album in the United States. Yes, it's from a decade later, but it does capture a moment every bit as triumphant as the Monterey performance seemed disastrous in its time. From the opening moments of Season of Lights, as the band slides smoothly into "Money" from Laura Nyro's then-current album, Smile, you know that this record was cut at the perfect moment in Nyro's career -- her performance combines the understated sense of release of someone who is back from a long sabbatical (in this case, five years away from recording or performing), and the cool, smooth professionalism of a natural performer who has found a perfect accompaniment, in this case mixing elements of pop and light jazz. 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, once one hears this rendition it's difficult to take David Clayton-Thomas' performance of it seriously ever again -- and "The Confession." "Upstairs by a Chinese Lamp" becomes the vehicle for Nyro's introduction of the band, before she begins stretching her upper range, accompanied by Jeanie Fineberg's flute, John Tropea's guitar, and Michael Mainieri's vibraphone. "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, an approach that she emulates on "Captain St. Lucifer." The original ten songs from the original LP were a decent representation of where Nyro was at the time, though one can bet that if Clive Davis had still been president of Columbia Records, Season of Lights would have been the double LP that was intended. In 1995, Sony Music of Japan issued an expanded edition as Season of Lights -- Complete Version, which was later deleted. ~ Bruce Eder, All Music Guide
