The First Songs

Artist: Laura Nyro
Label: Sony
Category: Music

Average customer rating:

Media: Audio CD
Number Of Discs: 1

UPC: 074643141024
EAN: 0074643141024
ASIN: B0000024YT

Release Date: 1990-10-25

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Listmania:

Calm Storm : The Rock Poet
Laura Nyro on CD
Best albums: 1967
Great Random Selections
Favorite Recordings (varying and time-tested)
The Purrfect Record Collection 1 - 20
Undiscovered treasures,my reccomendation:
Stoned Soul Afternoon

Tracks:

Wedding Bell Blues
Billy's Blues
California Shoeshine Boys
Blowing Away
Lazy Susan
Good By Joe
Flim Flam Man
Stoney End
I Never Meant To Hurt You
He's A Runner
Buy And Sell
And When I Die

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Customer Reviews:

Someone Sleeping in the control room.......2007-01-02

My first exposure to Laura Nyro was in early 1967 when she appeared on Dick Clark's "Where The Action Is". There was this incredible young barefooted girl singing "Wedding Bell Blues" and "Goodbye Joe". I couldn't believe my ears, she was so good. I owned a copy of this album in vinyl when it was released by Verve/Forecast. I literally wore the album out listening to it over the years. I couldn't believe my eyes when I found that this album was again available.

Having said all that, why the low rating? Simply because of the incredibly bad sound quality of this cd. It sounds like Sony transferred it directly from a 30 year old worn out cassette. That an album of this quality could be so badly released on cd is absolutely criminal. I keep hoping for a remastered version, but I seriouly doubt if that will ever happen. I will continue to listen to this audio travesty simply because the music is so good, but every time I listen I become angry at corporate America. There should be a law against such callous disregard for musical genius.

Absolutely wonderful.......2006-12-04

Before Joni Mitchell, before Sarah McLachlan, there was Laura Nyro. This album was her first, and remains her most compelling and polished album in terms of writing, performing, arranging and producing. It's simply excellent in every respect. It sounds as beautiful, sophisticated and modern as it did nearly 40 years ago, much like Sinatra's Reprise archive. In this album, Laura shows off her awesome talent, whether it be pop, ballads, or upbeat rhythm and blues. There will only ever be one Laura Nyro, and if you are one of the lucky and the few, you will come to know and love this extraordinary and soul-inspiring singer and songwriter.

An unfairly forgotten early masterpiece by Nyro.......2003-03-16

Laura Nyro's debut album for Verve in 1966 entitled "More Than A New Discovery" was acquired and re-released years later by CBS as "First Songs" after she had attained fame and established herself as the genius singer-songwriter of three devastatingly powerful and introspective soul albums in the late 60s/early 70s. Yet to those unfamiliar with Laura and her career defining works, she was simply the writer of some of the most definitive and joyously sung pop tunes of the late 60s era by artistes ranging from the Fifth Dimension to Barbra Streisand and Blood, Sweat and Tears. So, it is doubly ironical and galling to fans to find this debut album of Nyro's, which spawned many of her most famous songs, being constantly glossed over and consigned to the footnotes whenever pop historians consider Laura's place in pop music history.

The fact that "First Songs" wasn't conceived as a concept album the way Laura's three masterpieces that followed obviously were should not detract from the fact that cut for cut, "First Songs" was equal to the best of the genre that was just beginning to emerge in the late 60s. If you loved the Fifth Dimension's "Wedding Bell Blues" and "Blowing Away" or Streisand's "Stoney End" and "Flim Flam Man", - and I still do - you will find these originals by Nyro before they became pop fodder even more inspirational and stunning for the purity of their expression. Nyro literally gives me goosebumps when I hear her emotional and soulful soprano on songs like "Billy's Blues", "Goodbye Joe" and "Lazy Susan". Her "I Never Meant To Hurt You" and "He's A Runner", incidentally also covered by Streisand and the Fifth Dimension respectively, are two other highlights on this album. In fact, the album is so jam packed with Grade A songs with nary a filler it's not surprising that most of them were subsequently covered by artistes on the hunt for great material to record.

"First Songs" is such a mature piece of work, yet so fresh and gorgeous even today it's a wonder critics give it only a 3-star rating when they're obviously admirers of Nyro's music. I urge these and others who haven't discovered "First Songs" to put aside any preconceptions they may have that this is a lightweight album because it preceded Nyro's serious artiste phase to go check it out. I guarantee it will blow you away.

Underappreciated.......2002-12-20

I must say that Laura Nyro was a powerful writer and performer. If you were fortunate to see her in concert, she had the power to enthrall an audience with just her voice and piano. She was a product of New York's High School Arts system, and unfortunately was dropped by Verve Records, and this album was from those Verve sessions. It seems that she was one of those artists that record company executives did not know how to categorize. Was she pop, folk, jazz, soul or, at times, broadway? She was all of these, plus she had a 5 octave vocal range. Too bad she was lost to ovarian cancer. All of her works are work investigating and investing in to your home audio collection.

The Early Work of an Under Appreciated Great.......2002-08-11

Like her contemporary Carole King, Laura Nyro had a knack for writing songs that hit big when interpreted by other artists--but unlike Carole King she herself never quite made the leap into personal stardom, and although both her songs and her recordings were enormously influential she is still largely unknown outside the core of fans that consistently responded to her work throughout her lifetime. THE FIRST SONGS gives us Nyro at her youthful best, and lets us hear her own interpretation of several pieces that would be smash hits for the likes of The 5th Dimension, Barbra Striesand, and Blood, Sweat, and Tears.

The arrangements are very much of their place and time: piano, harmonica solos, and the sort of polyharmonic brass and back-up vocals typical of late 1960s and early 1970s glossy pop. And the songs are an eccelectic lot: a touch of pop, a touch of blues, a sprinkling of folk, some of them tightly wound pop hits (such as "Wedding Bell Blues,") but most very free-style (such as "Lazy Susan.") And then there is Nyro's voice.

Nyro did not really have a uniquely memorable voice, but it was very strong, very clean, and very unpretentious, and therein lay its ultimate power: you feel that if the girl next door had the talent to lay bare her soul through writing and singing her own music, this is what it would sound like. Nyro easily bests the artists who covered her on "Wedding Bell Blues," "Stoney End," and "And When I Die," but perhaps her most uniquely personal work (and to my mind most satisfying on the recording) are the the spiraling, breezy "Blowing Away," touching "Billy's Blues," and sadder-but-wiser "He's a Runner."

Nyro eventually evolved into a truly remarkable artist who combined great delicacy of voice and lyric with unexpected melodies, in some ways anticipating such artists as Kate Bush and (in her vocal stylings) the currently popular Maria Carey, albeit without the latter singer's glossy-funk feel. And she did considerably more interesting work than this particular recording. But even so, THE FIRST SONGS is an enjoyable introduction to her work, and recommended to established and new fans alike.

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