Everyone is talking about how amazing Joni Mitchell is because she performed at this year's Grammys at the age of eighty. I agree, but whenever I think of Joni Mitchell, I'm reminded of Laura Nyro, and this makes me sad. In the late 1960's, both Laura and Joni were successful singer/songwriters, and they were major influences on each other. But by the 1970's, Joni's fame and presence in people's minds completely eclipsed Laura's. I appreciate Joni Mitchell's talents, but it is Laura Nyro's music that speaks to me. Joni is more popular, but there are a select few of us who prefer the more primal, soulful and passionate Laura Nyro.
Laura Nyro was discovered by David Geffen while he was working as a talent agent, a few years before he became a record industry mogul. He quit the talent agency to devote all his time to managing Laura's career. But after releasing a few albums, it was clear that Laura shunned the public life that came with success. She created music primarily to please herself. She and David Geffen parted ways and sold her song catalog for $4.5 million dollars, each receiving half. The sale allowed David Geffen to start his own record label, and Laura was now free to do anything she wanted. What she wanted to do was "nest," so she bought a house in Connecticut and spent most of her time there raising her new baby son.
I first heard of Laura Nyro in an unusual, and somewhat embarrassing, way. I was seventeen and seeing a guy in my neighborhood who I suspected was also seeing another woman in our neighborhood. The first picture I ever saw of Laura Nyro reminded me of this woman. I was obsessed with looking at Laura's picture in my book. I was jealous, but also oddly curious, and eventually I figured, "Since I'm always looking at her picture, why don't I just listen to her music?!"
I was never fortunate enough to meet Laura Nyro, but I attended her very rare, live concert at the Berklee Performance Center in Boston, Massachusetts in 1989. Shortly after that, I got married, moved to Canada, and met my new aunt, Rose, who turned out to be a Laura Nyro fan. The first thing she said to me was, "Has anyone ever told you that you look exactly like Laura Nyro?" She said she was first introduced to Laura Nyro's music in elementary school. Her teacher, a priest, played Laura's "Eli and the Thirteeth Confession" album in class, pointing out some of the album's spiritual lyrics, such as: "I was walking on God's good side," and "Lucky's taking over and his clover shows. Devil can't get out of hand cause Lucky's taking over and what Lucky says goes." I hadn't considered "Eli" to be a spiritual album, as many of the songs are filled with anger and contain themes of feminism, poverty, and deep, passionate love. "Eli" is a fast-paced, energetic album, with musically complicated rhythms and powerful lyrics. Plus, this is the same album that has the song "The Confession" with the lyrics, "Oh I hate my winsome lover, tell him I've had others at my breast." I'm doubtful Aunt Rose's teacher played that song in class!
As a newlywed living in Canada, I was nesting too. I listened to a lot of Laura Nyro's music, and since so many of her early songs were about living in New York City, I gained solace in the fact that even though I was homesick, I knew that Laura had also left New York City when she moved to Connecticut and had probably been a bit homesick too. By this time, I mostly enjoyed the two albums she recorded in Connecticut, "Nesting" and "Smile." She sang about new things I was doing while nesting, like cooking. I often listened to her song, "Midnight Blue," and sang along to the lyrics: "There's smoke in the kitchen, shrimps curled." I watched a lot of Canadian TV, and one day I saw an acapella band called "The Nylons" performing Laura's song "Eli's Coming." Very soon afterward, while working at HMV Music Store in Toronto, Canada, I spotted one of The Nylons' singers, Micah Barnes, shopping for CDs. I approached him and we chatted for a bit, mostly about Laura's "Nested" and "Smile" albums, agreeing how wonderful yet underrated they are. Meeting another Laura Nyro fan made me feel less alone and more at home in Canada. I imagined it was more special than meeting a Rolling Stones fan or a Joni Mitchell fan because a lot of people are fans of them, but when it comes to Laura Nyro, there are so few of us. I realized I was finding my people.
In the mid-1990's, I moved back to New York City and worked in Manhattan as a legal secretary. My first boss, Murray, was an attorney who told me he used to have long hair and had attended the famous Woodstock festival in 1969. I was so impressed! During the three years I worked for him, we had many conversations about music. When I told him how much I loved Laura Nyro, a memory was sparked in him. "I met her once!" he said. He told me that one night, he was hanging out with a friend who was friends with Laura Nyro before she was famous. The friend needed to briefly stop by her apartment in the Bronx, but when she greeted them at the door, she asked them to come inside. She wanted their feedback on a new song she wrote, so she sat at her piano and played it for them. He then asked me if he could borrow a couple of my Laura Nyro CDs. One afternoon, after typing my dictations of his letters by listening to his voice on the tapes he had recorded at home, I told him I heard Laura's music playing in the background. "No you didn't!" he answered shyly, but obviously I did!
Murray often said he and I weren't just boss and secretary, we were also friends. I let him read my "Iggy Gorgess" novel's manuscript over a decade before it was published in book form. In fact, I changed the very last line of my novel because of his criticism, and I think it is better after taking his advice. Then, in 1998, I was devastated when Murray was diagnosed with a brain tumor. I never thought he would get cancer because he was already forty-six years old, and my experience of losing my dad at age fifteen convinced me that Murray was safe because he had already passed forty-one, the age my dad died of cancer. Murray was admitted to the hospital, and my firm sent me to the record store to buy a bunch of CDs he could listen to in his hospital room because I was the only one who knew exactly what music he liked. I visited him in the hospital and brought the huge pile of CDs I'd bought. He passed away four years later.
I stopped listening to Laura's music for several years after that.
I was reunited with Laura's music through YouTube after I found out she was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2012. Bette Midler gave her a beautiful tribute, saying she was "the very essence of New York City: passionate, romantic, ethereal, eternal." Her only child, Gil Bianchini, attended the ceremony and accepted her award. Through Laura's music, I learned to never hesitate to embrace the art I love even if it is different from what most people enjoy. Our passions draw us toward the people we are meant to meet, and I've found it's sweeter if that club has only a a handful of members. There are few things in life more beautiful than being bonded together by something rare and eternally special.
