It always surprises me when I meet people who are deep music fans and they don't know (or worse yet, don't like) Laura Nyro. Thankfully, Laura received posthumous accolades when she was FINALLY inducted into the Rock N Roll Hall of Fame last year. Certain "critics" rolled their eyes that Laura was NOT rock n roll, and used her induction as another example of why the Hall Of Fame is a sham. I am very proud to say that a very good friend of mine, a recent inductee himself, was able to vote for Laura in the first year that he was eligible to vote.
I'm not here to deride the merits of the hall of fame, but as a trailblazing woman in music, Laura Nyro was the epitome of the rock n roll spirit.
While Laura's more confessional work (basically, everything recorded beyond her first album) tends to receive the most attention, her first LP is chock full of r&b influence, and this track (recorded in the era when more innocent girl group sounds were going into extinction) is never even THOUGHT of as one of the great girl group tracks, although it most certainly IS. Laura's music, to my ears, always retained a very strong backbone of soul influence.
I have a very strong bias towards Laura; I was raised in a very musical household, and some of my greatest memories as a toddler are of my mom playing Laura Nyro records. Something about them made a very deep impact on my psyche, and the fact that mom is also a songwriter and musician has always made me deeply interested in women in music and the plight that they face by chauvinistic men.
Pardon my tirade, and just enjoy this song. It's downright glorious. Perhaps I can even encourage you to play it five times in a row as I just have.
from 1967...
LAURA NYRO - STONEY END
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6 comments:
Thanks for this write-up on a song-writer who doesn't get nearly enough respect.
Thank you - I'm just rediscovering her via the 'Gonna Take A Miracle' album - with Labelle, great stuff!
You are SOOOOOOOOO right!
Wow!! Thank you Derek. I agree with you wholeheartedly. The true sham of the Hall of Fame is that women are so poorly represented. Great song by a great songwriter and singer and I'm so glad that you feel the same soul coming from Laura that I do. THANKS for putting her out there with all the other great records on your site.
KevinPatrick from New York
Thanks! Laura Nyro was, is, and always will be the best of the best. I listen to her albums just about every day, and they always sound as fresh, and new as they did the first time I heard them.
She was Iggy and The Stooges of solo singer/songwriter/instrumentalists. She HAD to perform full on and her own way, giving no quarter. Explosive, poignant, screaming, twilight-quiet, soulrock or melodic, she had it inside but shared it with the world. I'm glad we had her as long as we did. The songs performed by their maker were always worth it, each one giving the listener chilblains...
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