Laura Nyro

Eli and the Thirteenth Confession didn't set the Billboard on fire, but its mix of blue-eyed soul, folk and Big Apple savvy inspired everyone from Carole King to Phoebe Snow to Rickie Lee Jones. What makes Nyro so unique is her ability to be the confessional singer-songwriter without sucking the fun out of what is essentially pop music. A raver like "Sweet Blindness" has all the moxie of "Sugar Sugar," but the depth of Van the Man's finest. Crank this record on a sunny Saturday afternoon.

I wasn't at Monterey. Consequently, I don't really know what Laura Nyro did there that
turned so many people off. She must have done something, because the word was so thick
that it convinced me that there wasn't any point bothering with her first album. It took a
lunatic friend of mine, barging into my apartment a couple of weeks ago, frothing at the
mouth about the record, to get me to listen to it seriously. All I can say is I'm glad... More >