How well known is Laura Nyro in USA/Canada?

I'm Canadian, born in the late 60's, and grew up collecting records and CD's.
I had never heard of her until i came across the reissue of New York Tendaberry from Pure Pleasure records about two years ago.
I would say she's like many 'cult' artists that if they didn't carry their career into the 80s or 90s
they probably got missed by a generation who were too young at the time they came on the scene,
and now with the interwebs, it's so easy to discover this kind of artist if you're looking.
It seems silly now that I had not ever come across the music before. Same with Nick Drake,
Bert Jansch, Tim Buckley, i only found those albums about 5 or 6 years ago.

 

Laura Nyro was one of a small handful of the very best known singer-songwriters of her generation , which happened to be THE generation when that vaguely defined thing called "singer-songwriter" was extremely popular world-wide (the boundaries between singer-songwriter and rock being fuzzy).

If people have never met anyone who knew of her, to me it means you and your friends came of age after the rise of disco or you hang out with people who don't pay much attention to singer-songwriters and their history. There's nothing wrong with that. You may not know Lester Young's name either.

Laura Nyro has a significant catalog (on the biggest record label of that era), and has had a major biography published. She really is not that obscure. It is not worthwhile to consider whether she is as well known as Joni Mitchell, Bob Dylan or the Beatles.

The best thing about not knowing Laura Nyro, though, is that you can still enjoy the thrill of discovering her work.

 

What is the point of saying someone was more famous than someone else? That word itself is very vague.

 

Quite well known where I'm from originally- Bay Area, California. My girl friend at the time introduced me to New York Tendaberry when it came out. Great stuff.

 

just trying to answer the op's question. well known-ess - fame. not comparing quality just name recognition.....

 

Sorry, it was not meant to be directed at you. But there are so many threads in this forum trying to compare "fame".

 

no problem

 

My second job ever was working in a record store (late 60s), so I was very familiar with her early on. When I got to college in 1969, every one of my girlfriends had all of Laura's albums and played them constantly, so at that time she was hard to avoid.

Her popularity faded over time, until she became almost as obscure as Nick Drake. Unfortunately, VW never did a commercial using one of her songs. Her legacy deserves better.

 

I only became aware of her early on because I paid attention to songwriting credits... And When I Die ( PP&M, BS&T), Eli's Coming (Three Dog Night), Wedding Bell Blues (5Th Dimension), etc. Became fascinated with her records after hearing "More Than a New Discovery" and comparing to all of the crap that passes for "talent" on BS shows like "American Idol". She couldn't have been much more than eighteen years old when she wrote and recorded the original version of "Wedding Bell Blues".

 

Respectable sales as an album artist. I see her Lps turn up at shops for reasonable prices. Personally I like her debut the best and consider it one of the top 20 Lps of 1967 and the next few albums are pretty great.

 

It's an interesting comparison to hear Stoned Soul Picnic by the 5th Dimension, Julie London and Laura Nyro. It's fair to say that none sound like they were at a real stoned soul picnic. The 5th Dimension have a generic commercial sound but with obvious radio appeal. Julie sings with her customary deft phrasing while Laura has a sort of unpolished fey charm. Laura's version is clearly the one with the least commercial potential which doesn't make it bad of course. However it explains why she did not achieve widespread fame as a performer herself but more as a songwriter.

 

I need to surry down to one of those. they sound like fun

 

What a nice trip down memory lane. For me, 5D were a guilty pleasure, and Laura's songs were the best. I loved "Wedding Blue Blues" even if it's overtly about a woman singing of love to a man. It just swells and swings and is completely convincing. And "Stone Soul Picnic" was another big charmer, followed by "Sweet Blindness." For a guy who at the time would rather be associated with Steppenwolf and Iron Butterfly, Nyro's songs done by the 5th Dimension were irresistible.

 

The vast majority would not know her here. Shame, really...but understandable.

 

Meanwhile back in 2008 in Toronto, Elton John sang her praises in the first episode of Elvis Costello's Spectacle. Here's an excerpt from wiki:

In the premiere episode of Elvis Costello's Spectacle, John cited Laura Nyro as an influence on, among other, unusual structure and rhythm changes of this song in particular.[1]

This is one of the most musically complicated works of John's career. The key changes four times before returning to the original opening chord sequence at the half-way mark. It has always been quite a fan favorite, and John has frequently performed it live over the last 40 years.

 

Plus the New York Tendaberry album cover was a great photograph. Whoever did it deserves props. I remember it being advertised and it had an allure.

 

I'm American and I've known who she was since I was a teenager, but that doesn't really mean anything. I'm guessing people like us know who she was and most others don't.

 

Out here in the Islands I initially knew her through the various covers from the5D through 3 Dog Night but I really took notice of her own albums with New York Tendaberry and my favorite Captain St. Lucifer. The song starts off one way then zigs left and then zigs again. It was different and I was hooked. I really wish the 5D had covered this as I know Bones would've done a killer song.

 

I don't think I heard of her before coming to this forum.

 

Darn it, I'm only half-Jewish. Would those coffee houses still let me in?

 

Carole King is well known with the general public. Tapestry was a huge seller. Even my sister has heard of Carole King.

Janis Ian - seen the name, but never checked her out. Time to investigate, me thinks.

 

Laura Nyro was never anything close to a household name. But to be a household name meaning being the biggest of the big pop culture figures -- Michael Jackson was a household name, Madonna, Frank Sinatra, Beyonce, those kinds of figures.

Laura Nyro had a very esteemed reputation as a songswritter 45-50 years ago because "Stone Soul Picnic" and "Wedding Bell Blues" and "Stoney End" and "And When I Die" had been really big hits for the Fifth Dimension and Barbra Streisand and Blood Sweat & Tears, I think all top 5 hits (I think the cuts on the Fifth Dimension were number ones actually). Even "Eli's Coming" was a big hit for Three Dog Night. So she was well known in certain circles of fans and in the industry then kind of in a way that sort of, I dunno, Diane Warren, is or something (not really an ideal comparison). You know, you have that kind of string of big hits in a very short period of time, people pay attention, they come looking for songs, etc..

And her own albums got a little bit of AOR airplay in the '70s, during the heyday of the singer-songwriter thing and FM AOR more freely programmed radio, but she never sold a lot of records and I don't know that she ever drew big crowds. I mean I'm not sure she ever had an album top out any higher than 38 on the album chart, most of her albums barely cracked the Billboard 200 if at all. And then she kinda retired.

 

She's fairly obscure in the States, or at least obscure when I lived there. As others have said, you would need to be interested in that type of music or read song writing credits to know her. Ironically, I would have thought she was better known in the UK because the musical press has at least took an interest in her albums.

 

In the US, Leonard Cohen was not much if any more famous than Laura Nyro. If you stop 100 people on the street and ask them who Leonard Cohen is, you'd be lucky not to get 100 blank stares; you'd probably have a better percentage if you only as white men over 50 who look like they're trying to maintain the hip, a little indie a little cosmopolitan cool look that they hand in high school. I think they do have similar profiles here: known for some songs covered by others, got a little attention in the early '70s for singer-songwriter albums. The difference is Nyro mostly dropped out of the business (and then died young) and Cohen hung around, wrote and recorded and did interviews and promoted himself a lot (which Nyro didn't do a lot of even her her heyday) and got to kind of legendary cult artist status. Nyro had a much higher profile as a songwriter in the late '60s and early '70's with all those big hits on those high profile artists. But "Hallelujah" is probably today the best known song by either of them. Similarly obscure but respected figures in the U.S.

 

My first exposure to Ms. Nigro's music was via the radio in the late-60s.
AM radio: Songs covered by The Fifth Dimension, Barbara Streisand, Three Dod Night and David Clayton Thomas brought me to her music, althoughI didn't know it was her music at the time.
This lead to buying The First Songs.
FM radio: WPhD 103.3 FM in Buffalo NY played Gonna Take a Miracle regularly, so this was my next album purchase.
I think that if you were into her early albums you were pretty cool.