We continue our look back at the music of 50 years ago…………
Her birth name was Laura Nigro…born in the Bronx in 1947 and raised on classical music and the pop songs she heard on the radio. She taught herself piano and sang on street corners with her friends and…as Laura Nyro…became one of the top pop songwriters of the late 60’s. Her songs were mostly hits for other people as she was a reluctant star. She wrote “Stoney End”…and “Wedding Bell Blues”..and “And When I Die”…and “Eli’s Coming”…and on and on….and she also released a series of folky, jazz inflected albums through the late 60’s and early 70’s. In 1971 she decided to do an album of covers. Songs that she grew up listening to and singing in the 1950s and 60’s. And it’s a fun record filled with a very good songs sung by someone who knows a good song when she hears one. The album was called ‘It’s Gonna Take A Miracle” and features LaBelle on backing vocals.
The title track was originally done by a group called the Royalettes, and later went to #1 on the R&B charts for Deniece Williams… and Nyro nails it…just a fantastic recording
Here is a concert from 1971 featuring Nyro and LaBelle at Carnegie Hall
The songs on the LP include stellar versions of I Met Him On A Sunday (Shirelles), You’ve Really Got A Hold On Me-(Smokey & The Miracles), Spanish Harlem (Ben E. King), Jimmy Mack (Marvelettes) and a cooking version of Nowhere to Run (Martha and the Vandellas).
It would Nyro’s last LP for four years as she pulled away from the music industry as she got married and moved to a farm. She would later return to the stage and recording studio before dying at the age of 50 of ovarian cancer.
You know the songs…enjoy these versions sung by a fan.
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