VIA PRESS RELEASE | High Moon Records is proud to announce a new vinyl collection of rare tracks from cult singer-songwriter Laurie Styvers. Let Me Comfort You: The Hush Rarities arrives Friday, October 25, 2024 exclusively on vinyl LP, joined by a 4-page lyric insert with liner notes from 5x GRAMMY® Award-nominated compilation producer Alec Palao. Pre-orders are available now.
Let Me Comfort You: The Hush Rarities follows High Moon’s 2023 release of Gemini Girl: The Complete Hush Recordings, the first-ever comprehensive anthology of Styvers’ remarkable body of work, including her two deeply moving solo albums, Spilt Milk (1971) and The Colorado Kid (1973). Akin to a lost third album, the new collection now gathers 11 alternate takes, demos, and previously unissued songs from the original album sessions, further showcasing the enigmatic Texas singer-songwriter’s honey-voiced intimacy and intangible magic, its lovelorn gems like “Let Me Comfort You” and “Crazy Rainy Spring” equal of anything on either now-rightfully acclaimed albums.
Laurie Styvers may be amongst the lesser-known names within the milieu of 1970s cult singer-songwriters, but anyone who experiences the bewitching innocence on display within her two deeply moving solo albums, Spilt Milk (1971) and The Colorado Kid (1973), will surely fall in love with this enigmatic figure.
Born in Texas, Styvers was a student at the American School in London when she joined the legendary 1960s psych-folk outfit Justine, guesting on their eponymous 1970 debut LP before heading back to the US to attend college in Colorado. She soon returned to the UK, embarking upon a solo career after signing with Hush Productions, founded by legendary producers Shel Talmy (The Kinks, The Who, Small Faces) and Hugh Murphy.
Produced by Murphy (known for landmark work with Gerry Rafferty, Richard and Linda Thompson, Van Morrison, and others), Styvers’ Hush recordings revealed her as an exceptional songstress with a humble, captivating vocal presence, akin to such artists as Carole King, Karen Carpenter, and Judee Sill. The sumptuous musical backgrounds—arranged by Tom Parker (Apollo 100, New London Chorale) and David Whitaker (Nico, Marianne Faithfull), and featuring the cream of UK session personnel as accompaniment—expertly elevate Styvers’ intimate, haunting songcraft, heightening songs like her debut single, “Beat The Reaper,” with the baroque flavors of early 1970s British pop.
Styvers commuted between London and Colorado while making Spilt Milk and The Colorado Kid, but the relative commercial failure of both albums—as well as a disastrous engagement supporting Emitt Rhodes at Los Angeles’ famed Troubadour—saw her ardor dampen for a music career and hastened her exit from the scene. She sadly faded into obscurity, spending her later years caring for animals before passing away in 1998, her seraphic face and voice somehow frozen in time.
Styvers recorded a small amount of tracks in addition to Spilt Milk and The Colorado Kid, but in the light of her all too brief sojourn in the recording studio, none of it could be considered extraneous. Drawn from the original session reels, Let Me Comfort You: The Hush Rarities compiles those completed masters that remained in the can, along with a smattering of alternate versions and early demos, all appearing on vinyl for the first time.
The strength of the material and the production values are commensurate with her released work, offering additional evidence of Styvers’ unrequited talent and a regretful, if unintended, epitaph to her shining light. Pitchfork applauded Styvers’ heretofore obscure music as “a piano-driven wonderland that invoked the buoyant pop side of Laurel Canyon vogue to frame a complicated internal portrait.”
“For decades, Laurie Styvers was, to all intents and purposes, a ghost,” writes Alec Palao. “Nevertheless, (her) two albums continued to entice and intrigue all who encountered them. And now, we have more of that voice, and those songs, to further entrance and delight.”
