I want to start the week with a Laura Nyro song, “Blowing Away“, from her 1967 album “More Than a New Discovery”. The Fifth Dimension recorded this two years later, but I like Nyro’s version better. She was born in 1947, so the oldest she could have been when she wrote this song was twenty.
It’s not listed on the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’s “10 essential Laura Nyro songs,” which in the main is good (#1 and #3 are the best), but it brings back my college days, when only one friend and I even knew of her. In fact, I think I’ll start every day this week with one of her songs.
I remember this, too, from those years. She was more popular with my (then) girlfriend (later wife, later ex) than with me for some reason. Can’t quite put my finger on why because she was really good.
I like most of her tunes, but ‘Emmie’ is my favorite. “Emily, you ornament the earth/ for me.” I don’t know if anybody has ever covered it; hard to imagine a version better than her own.
Saw her live in Berkeley in 1970. Fantastic concert! Love Emmy, too, and Sweet Lovin’Baby etc. etc. she died way too young.
Thanks for this, Jerry.
I knew the name Laura Nyro but I had no idea she wrote some of those songs.