How well known is Laura Nyro in USA/Canada?

Yesterday, I bought a Leonard Cohen autograph at a garage sale from the estate of a fellow over 90 who knew him personally. They gave it to me for $5.

 

Laura was a big concert attraction in her early (pre-1973) years. I saw her several times in college venues with over 5,000 people in the audience

 

Absolutely. She sold out three consecutive nights at the Fillmore East more than once.

Miles Davis was her opening act on the last series. Every night when she took the stage, he presented her with a bouquet of roses. He was a major fan.

Obscure now, but certainly not in those days.

 

At several of the large venue (over 5,000) shows where I saw her circa 1970, Laura insisted that ALL of the house lights and all spotlights be turned off, and she just played with one candle illuminating her face set on her grand piano. It was riveting. Several were solo shows, voice, piano and candle.

 

We'll known to whom?
Your reference to "serious music fans" is a bit nebulous.
I think that the niche of music buffs who follow, enjoy, buy, and discuss music dear to them, in particular to a certain decade or era, fans and followers of singer song writers, etc. Etc. Etc. are familiar with Laura Nyro.

 

She had her only charting hit (#92) with Carol King's Up On The Roof.

 

I first heard of Laura Nyro in 1969. She was the female Jimmy Webb: a hot, hip songwriter whose songs were all over the radio, even if her voice wasn't.

At the same time, though, I actually did hear one of her songs on the radio. It didn't chart nationally, but "Time and Love" got some airplay in Philadelphia in late 1969, around the same time that "Wedding Bell Blues," "And When I Die" and "Eli's Coming" were hits for others.

Barbra Streisand later did her own version of "Time and Love," but it didn't have the same magic as Nyro's original.

 

Cult artist known mainly by the sort of music geeks who hang around forums like this. And even some of us have never knowingly heard her music, despite well knowing who she is.

 

If Todd Rundgren is a cult artist (as I have read people in the thread mentioning) then I can agree Nyro is too.

 

RRHOF induction

 

Laura was a great talent who is missed.

 

Weird that you would expect them to.

 

With Miles Davis

 

I just figured (wrongly) that they'd know the name in a vague way.

 

I would imagine most, if not all, attendees at a Lilith Fair have heard of her.

 

Most people grow up unaware of the music before their time, unless their families exposed them to it, with the exception of the Beatles and maybe Elvis. The problem is that fewer people these days are musically curious.

I'd never heard of Chuck Berry or Little Richard until Lennon and McCartney mentioned what a huge influence they had been on them, but I found their records without too much trouble. Same was true of anything "jazz", which I thought was old people's music. Now I not only have a huge collection of music made before I was born, but I know the history pretty well.

 

One of the strangest phenomenon in popular music is how an artist who doesn't have chart albums (or only very low charting ones) can sell out large venues. Richard & Linda Thompson played the London Palladium in the 70s, with minimal chart action behind them.

If Laura Nyro was still alive and decided to play a one-off gig at the Albert Hall in London, I'm pretty sure she could fill the place. She doesn't have many British fans but the ones she does have are avid and would come from far and wide: people would travel from other countries, too.

 

That's an incredibly commercial song: it sounds a bit odd on the NYT album, because the rest of the album isn't commercial at all.

Most of her commercial songs were very big hits (for other people). Presumably, if she'd just wanted to write commercial material she could have done so and reaped Carole King-proportioned royalties in the process.

 

I don't think Nick Lowe is well-known at all beyond serious music fans of a certain age - many of whom will only know him as Elvis Costello's early producer.

Brindsley Schwarz are not well-known anywhere and Lowe's solo career only (really) threw up on major hit, back in 1978.

I'm sure there are some people who are only aware of him as Johnny Cash's ex-son-in-law.

 

I'm one of the people under 50 who has heard of her music and loves it.

 

"Save The Country" was somewhere close to commercial. Fifth Dimension smoothed it out and made top 40 with it.