Laura Nyro

Laura Nyro was just a couple of years ahead of her time. Her late-'60s heyday as composer-of-the-moment helped pave the way for the female singer/songwriters of the '70s. Strong R&B influences and a dash of Tin Pan Alley reveal Nyro's New York roots; she was definitely a departure from the Joan Baez–Judy Collins school in terms of both songs and singing. Nyro's whoops and sighs sometimes cross the line into screechiness; her ruminative and intensely personal lyrics can easily slip into obscurity. As the hit cover versions of her very best songs suggest, however, Nyro can also bait a melodic hook with the confidence of a Brill Building pro. Three Dog Night ("Eli's Coming"), Blood Sweat & Tears ("And When I Die"), and Barbra Streisand ("Stoney End") reaped the benefits, while the Fifth Dimension served as her personal messengers: The pop-soul harmony group scored hit singles with "Wedding Bell Blues," "Sweet Blindness," and "Stoned Soul Picnic." Nyro's original versions -- contained on The First Songs and Eli and the Thirteenth Confession -- bristle with an electrifying confessional charge. Eli was Nyro's second album and breakthrough; it's a more accurate portrayal of her soulful sound than the slightly popified debut More Than a New Discovery (later reissued as The First Songs), confidently negotiating a stunning compromise between personal statement and melodic outreach. The challenging New York Tendaberry is even more stark, often just the singer and her piano. It contains the reassurance of "Save the Country" and "Time and Love," but much of the rest ducks down darker New York City side streets where the Fifth Dimension were not likely to follow. By Christmas and the Beads of Sweat her song sense is taking a backseat to alternating currents of free-floating anxiety and preciousness, though a loving cover of "Up on the Roof" hints at an antidote.

Gonna Take a Miracle comes close to pulling a miracle off. Produced by Gamble & Huff and backed vocally by a cobilled LaBelle, Nyro tackles an assortment of R&B and girl group material that allows her to both kick up her heels ("The Monkey Time") and bare her soul (Nolan Strong's doo-wop masterwork "Wind"). She then returned to her own songs with a somewhat lighter touch on Smile. That 1976 work appeared after a five-year break, and it would be decades until her next album of new material. Walk the Dog & Light the Light (1993) was the last released before her death in 1997, and it brings her personal politics -- feminism in "The Descent of Luna Rose" ("dedicated to my period") and "A Woman of the World," animal rights in "Lite a Flame" -- to the fore. The majority of her catalogue has been reissued, most with bonus cuts, and is anthologized in the flawless single disc Time and Love (flawless because it contains nothing cut after 1975) and the double but consequently not quite as essential Stoned Soul Picnic. There have been two posthumous collections, both distinguished by some of her best singing ever. She was finally in control of her upper register (or maybe, with the wisdom of age, she was simply less inclined to push it where it wouldn't go). Angel in the Dark contains her final studio recordings, led by the beguiling title track and moving versions of "Let It Be Me" and "Will You Love Me Tomorrow." The two-disc Live/The Loom's Desire documents her 1993 and '94 Christmas Eve concerts at New York's Bottom Line club. With only piano and backing singers for support, she offers the faithful sets that lean on the later songs, using her signature pieces and golden-oldie interpretations as spice. In such a setting the hits aren't terribly missed; whether she's singing about a plum wine reverie in "Japanese Restaurant" or sending the crowd on its way with a tender reading of Smokey Robinson's "Ooh Baby Baby," Laura Nyro was one of a kind. (MARK COLEMAN/BEN EDMONDS)

From 2004's The New Rolling Stone Album Guide