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I have always wondered why some talented artists have to kick the bucket to finally be considered by the public.
We have a wide range of characters in the world of arts, literature, and sciences who are wildly ahead of their time, unconventional, and therefore incomprehensible.
Without making absurd and out-of-place comparisons, I also throw Laura Nyro, alias Laura Nigro, an Italian-Jew from New York, into the mix.
Singer-songwriter and pianist of immense talent, Nyro in the '60s was too confessional and psychoanalytic to be truly understood and assimilated. Too ahead of her time. Probably Laura's nature, a reserved and sensitive woman with a lovable and delicate shyness, did not help her achieve a worldwide success that never came, and so she remained a niche artist, delighting only a few refined palates. And naturally, after passing away, she was reevaluated, perhaps even by those who had culpably ignored her.
Her repertoire was shamelessly plundered by all and sundry who filled their pockets with money and their ego with glory through her songs: in this debut album, in fact, artists like Barbra Streisand ("Stoney End"), Fifth Dimension ("Wedding Bell Blues" and "Blowing Away"), Blood, Sweat & Tears ("And When I Die") stole jewels from her that were so intense, deep, and passionately intimate that they could only belong to her. It is well known, the general public is blind and ignorant but Laura Nyro's peers, especially her female peers, are no fools. Artists like Fiona Apple, Carole King, Tori Amos, and even Joni Mitchell have made Nyro their paradigm or have taken cues here and there.
In "More Than A New Discovery" you can already perceive her immense talent, her compositional and stylistic versatility, her profound love for blues, jazz, and soul. Melancholic anxieties alternate with bursts of playful gaiety and permeate her spiritual, warm, and welcoming lyrics. Her refined, soft, and flexible singing style further enhances them.
Prelude to two masterpieces like "Eli And The Thirteenth Confession" and "New York Tendaberry," this debut work remains a gem in the singer-songwriter's firmament, musically seductive, original, and sophisticated yet spontaneous, devoid of cloying mannerisms.
Tracklist Lyrics and Videos
03 And When I Die (02:40)
And when I die and when I'm dead, dead and gone,
there'll be one child born and a world to carry on, to carry on.
I'm not scared of dying and I don't really care.
If it's peace you find in dying, well, then let the time be near.
If it's peace you find in dying, when dying time is here,
just bundle up my coffin cause it's cold way down there,
I hear that's it's cold way down there, yeah, crazy cold way down there.
And when I die and when I'm gone,
there'll be one child born and a world to carry on, to carry on.
My troubles are many, they're as deep as a well.
I can swear there ain't no heaven but I pray there ain't no hell.
Swear there ain't no heaven and pray there ain't no hell,
but I'll never know by living, only my dying will tell,
only my dying will tell, yeah, only my dying will tell.
And when I die and when I'm gone,
there'll be one child born and a world to carry on, to carry on.
Give me my freedom for as long as I be. All I ask of living is to have no chains on me.
All I ask of living is to have no chains on me,
and all I ask of dying is to go naturally, only want to go naturally.
Don't want to go by the devil, don't want to go by the demon,
don't want to go by Satan, don't want to die uneasy, just let me go naturally.
And when I die and when I'm gone, there'll be one child born, there'll be one child born.
When I die, there'll be one child born. When I die, there'll be one child born.
When I die, there'll be one child born. When I die, there'll be one child born.
04 Stoney End (02:46)
I was born from love and my poor mother worked the mines
I was raised on the good book Jesus 'til I read between the lines
Now I don't believe I want to see the morning
Going down the stoney end
I never wanted to go down the stoney end
Mama, let me start all over
Cradle me, mama, cradle me again
I can still remember him with lovelight in his eyes
But the light flickered out and parted as the sun began to rise
Now I don't believe I want to see the morning
Going down the stoney end
I never wanted to go down the stoney end
Mama, let me start all over
Cradle me, mama, cradle me again
Never mind the forecast, 'cause the sky has lost control
'Cause the fury and broken thunder's come to match my raging soul
Now I don't believe I want to see the morning
Going down the stoney end
I never wanted to go down the stoney end
Mama, let me start all over
Cradle me, mama, cradle me
Going down the stoney end
I never wanted to go down the stoney end
Mama, let me start all over
Cradle me, mama, cradle me again
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