VIA PRESS RELEASE | Madfish and Snapper Music release a new 8LP deluxe vinyl box set featuring singer-songwriter Laura Nyro’s 7 breathtaking original albums—More Than A New Discovery, Eli And The Thirteenth Confession, New York Tendaberry, Christmas And The Beads Of Sweat, Gonna Take A Miracle, Smile & Nested plus an original LP of rarities and live recordings. The box set arrives 7/30.
During the singer/songwriter movement in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s, Laura Nyro was one of the most celebrated tunesmiths of her day. She penned soulful, literate 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 was a hugely respected recording artist, whose confident piano work and rich, expressive vocals made other sonic trailblazers such as Miles Davis and Alice Coltrane navigate towards her. She has influenced the greatest of songwriters—Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Elton John, Neil Young, Carole King, Kate Bush, and Elvis Costello among them. That influence continues today being heard in the works of Alicia Keys, Tori Amos, Suzanne Vega, Jenny Lewis and more.
Nyro’s wonderfully expressive and poetic songs—of which many became major hits by other artists, most notably The 5th Dimension, Three Dog Night, and Barbra Streisand—remain hallmarks of outstanding quality. “Eli’s Comin,” “Gibson Street,” “Wedding Bell Blues,” “And When I Die,” “Stoned Soul Picnic,” “Map To The Treasure,” “Sweet Blindness,” and “Stoney End” are magnificent examples.
Nyro was 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. But at the age of just 24, she drew back from her creativity and fame, battered and drained by the sheer energy and nerve required to sustain her career.
Fortunately for those of us who loved her music, that was not the end of the story. She returned briefly to the fray for three turbulent years in the mid-to-late 1970s, and then enjoyed a final decade of artistic achievement and public acclaim, before illness took her from us at the tragically early age of 49 in 1997. Nyro found her early fame challenging yet despite living under an unrelenting spotlight, she was able to create this series of utterly beautiful and stunningly unique albums.
