From: stegner_g@cubldr.colorado.edu
Subject: Re: Laura Nyro
Organization: University of Colorado, Boulder
Date: Thu, 17 Dec 1992 07:28:36 GMT

In article <3335@ucl-cs.uucp>, J.Crowcroft@cs.ucl.ac.uk (Jon Crowcroft) writes:
> 
> 
>  >Would like to start a thread on Laura Nyro.  Any info out there on what she's
>  >up to these days would be most appreciated.
> 
> no idea - but thread appreciated...
> 
> New York Tenderberry or however its spelled is my fave...
> 
> i reckon she picked up where Joni Mitchell got lost after Cactus Tree
> but with some great broadway musical and soul and torch add ons...
> 
> captain st lucifer - what a title,. what a song!
> 
>  jon

Oh yes, New York Tendaberry.  This, her 3rd album (2nd on Columbia) seems to
have a very 'dark' feeling to it, the music being somewhat obtuse and
foreboding.  Many find it one of the hardest of her albums to get into... one
person I know described it as her "primal scream" album!  Public reaction to it
at the time of its release (no, I was only 9 yrs old at the time and not even
remotely aware of Nyro; this is a historical perspective) was mixed. 
"Confused" is actually a better word.  She went off the deep end on
"Tendaberry" from the more conventional structures she used on "Eli", the album
that gained her public notoriety in 1968.

Other interesting historical footnotes regarding this album... it was during
the recording sessions for "Tendaberry" that Nyro first met one of her idols,
Miles Davis.  Miles peeked in on her studio progress, and she asked him if he
would do the horn arrangements on the album.  Miles declined, so she used a
house horn arranger.  Other famous luminaries who sat in the producer's booth
to watch Nyro record this album were Simon and Garfunkel, Bob Dylan, Liza
Minelli, and critic Rex Reed, who wrote the official "write-up" on this album
in Stereo Review, Feb. 1970.  During the recording sessions, Nyro would
describe how she communicates what's in her head with the musicians (as part of
an article about her in Life Magazine, Jan. 1970):  "I can't read music, so I
just tell members of the orchestra that I want a 'blue' feeling (melancholy,
ponderous) here, or a 'red' feeling (explosive, full of passion) there.  They
usually get the message."

Oh, one other interesting historical fact is that international
mega-businessman David Geffen (Geffen Records, Geffen Film Productions, etc.)
got his start in the music business promoting an unknown Laura Nyro in 1967. 
Geffen got Nyro her contract for Columbia that year, and was instrumental in
getting her a million-dollar advance to record "Eli and the 13th Confession". 
Geffen became her personal manager.  A few years down the road, Nyro had an
unpleasant rift with Geffen, and the two went separate ways.  The break
apparently happened when Geffen tried to get Nyro to break with Columbia and
join his then newly formed Asylum label.  Joni Mitchell, who was also under
Geffen's management (The Geffen-Roberts Company), went with Geffen; Nyro stayed
with Clive Davis and Columbia.  Nyro also becamed estranged from Geffen because
he was becoming an increasingly egocentric womanizer and arrogant business
tycoon during the early 70's.

Glen Stegner
University of Colorado at Boulder
stegner_g@cubldr.colorado.edu
Newsgroups: rec.music.folk