Laura Nyro
More Than a New Discovery

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.