Customer Reviews

Eli & The 13th Confession

5 star:		(38)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

In my journey to absorb the music of Laura Nyro, for whatever reason, this album (along with "New York Tendaberry") took the longest for me to understand...but when I did, I was captivated by the journey that takes place from the opening notes to the closing exclamation.

As we've all heard about this album, it melds the components of jazz, pop, gospel, soul, Broadway and rock into a tasty brew that has yet to be matched by any one artist.

The writing is unparalleled. Laura's creative use of words...and her own creation of words makes this album completely distinct.

The instrumentation and production, shaped by Laura and Charlie Calello, is top notch..and beautifully presented in this remastered edition. The remastering helps bring out the many vocal nuances that Laura established through multi-layering (Particulary on "Eli's Comin'") and the incredible instrumental ornamentation (The flute effects on "Poverty Train", the beautiful strings on "December's Boudoir").

Highly, highly, highly recommended...and essential listening for the true musical seekers.

Words cannot reflect the emotion generated in me by lauras work. I was raised on her first five albums. They are in my blood; they are in my soul. I learned music from this artist before I knew what music was. I credit her with much of my appreciation for music to this day, and never regret the hundreds and hundreds of hours I spent absorbing every lyric, and every note she composed and recorded. Lauras albums are put together to be played from beginning to end. You can never mix songs from one album with songs from another. They just dont go together. People I have introduced her music to felt her first album was a stronger composition, but I quickly point out how special this album is; how well it is written, composed, and performed; How very well it is seasoned, and simmered, much like a gourmet meal. How the music entwined with the lyrics bring you into the streets of New York where you can feel each cobble stone below the pavement; Feelings that real New Yorkers share. Each of her albums have a different flavor, a different feeling, and a different message. I know them all for their individuality and selective themes. Laura Nyro was the most important song writer of our generation, and her works will live with in us for a life time, only to be passed on to a new generation where it can live again.
When she passed away, I wept.

Laura Nyro (1947-1997) originally made her name as the author of a host of tightly written pop songs that hit big when covered by other artists--but she quickly evolved into an uncompromising artist who wrote without significant concern for popular taste. The result was a series of albums that proved too advanced for most listeners, and although she received tremendous critical attention and developed a powerful cult following, she would never be a commercial pop star in any sense of the phrase.

1968's ELI AND THE THIRTEENTH CONFESSION was her second release, and it shattered virtually every convention imaginable. Heard today, it is almost impossible to imagine this recording as a product of that decade; there is nothing of the still-popular do-wop, no trace of guitar-heavy baroque, not even the barest hint of psychedelia. And even now it remains a very, very difficult work to describe.

Essentially, Nyro fused several elements--pop, jazz, soul, folk, and show music--into a completely original sound. The opening track, "Luckie," is indicative: the first few bars set a fast pace in an almost do-wop style, but no sooner is this clearly established than Nyro suddenly shifts the entire tone of the piece, and no sooner do we adjust to the shift than she shifts again, playing with our ideas of tempo and style, stretching the music to see what she can make it do. It is a remarkable feat, and one that she will repeat in unexpected variations and to great success with virtually every cut.

This is one of those rare recording where absolutely everything in the collection works perfectly in both an individual sense and collectively in terms of the whole. You may think you know titles like "Sweet Blindness," "Eli's Comin'," and "Stone Soul Picnic" from covers by other artists, but once you've heard Nyro's originals the later versions simply blow away as if they never were. The original tracks have been beautifully remastered and the package includes three bonuses, demo cuts of "Lu," "Stone Soul Picnic," and "Emmie"--all of them very interesting to compare to the final versions.

This is really the beginning of what would become "alternative"--and even today, most "alternative" pales in comparison with what Nyro could do when working at the height of her skills. Strongly recommended.

GFT, Amazon Reviewer

This album was my first introduction to Laura Nyro, and it is still my favorite. The Beads of Sweat album is a close second. Of course, she had very few albums and a major gap in her career. There are few of her remaining albums that work for me. But this one does. Now I'm a man and I'm willing to bet most of her fans are women, which is understandable since many of her songs were about women or related. So be it. Music in the end is a personal thing. It either hits your inner note or doesn't. I can think of no singer over the last 30 years with such a beautiful, soulful, yet powerful voice. Unique for sure, and I can see why she never had major commercial success. Not a voice for the masses, especially in this day and age. But that's another story. In my view, Nyro was an exceptional singer and unique talent, and this album shows her at her best. She will be missed.

For me, this is the crown jewel in Laura Nyro's astounding body of work. Certainly it's the best starting point for anyone not yet familiar with her music!

How do I even begin to describe it?

First there's the sheer quality of the songwriting itself, from the songs made familiar by other artists, to the lesser-known album tracks. The hooks & melodies are seemingly effortless, utterly irresistable, impossible to get out of your head. She fuses pop, soul, folk, gospel, and Broadway into a dazzling, glorious stream. That alone would be enough to recommend her work!

And then there are her lyrics: impressionistic poetry, invented words, unexpected combinations that spark startling images. Her words are music themselves, emotional landscapes that evoke their moods with piercing power, shot through with teasing humor & dusky erotic beauty.

But ultimately there's her voice: soaring, aching, mingling anguish & joyful passion in one drawn-out, yearning note, twisting & pleading & alluring, an urban Siren calling from the rooftops of the city at night. Nobody has ever sounded like this, and nobody could ever come close to its naked honesty. If this doesn't shake you down to the depths of your soul, you're already dead!

If you're just starting with Laura, start here. If you're already a devotee, you'll return here again & again. I can't recommend this album highly enough!

One of the essential pieces of the madcap magic jigsaw here ... occupied dorm turntables as often as, say, S&G's Bookends or Judy Collins Wildflowers. "Sweet Blindness" and "Stoned Soul Picnic" are eternal uppers, pure sunshine honey; "Eli's Comin'" and "The Confession" are two of the most sensitive sexy songs, ever. Jeez, that telescopic pop sound - piano, session drums and brass, plus Nyro just belting poems outta the cosmos. She was a genius lady of the tallest stature. If you don't know this LP, you don't know the Sixties (yet).

You'll probably hear over and over from other musicians that this was and is a life-changing album. It is a suite of passion and pain, love and desire, devastation and redemption. To this day I still don't understand the meaning of all her poetry, but I feel every ounce of her story...

The music, rhythms, jazzy, gospel and unmistakeably at the root of pop.... ethereal...it is like no other album I have ever heard...just superbly original genius.. courageous and sublime in every way.

Nyro writes she is the "witness to the confession" on the album cover and the many "voices" resounding across the tracks confess this is true. Was there ever a record before "Eli" where a singer layered their voice in the "thought patterns" you hear here? It were as though Nyro was pealing herself away and opening up the inner-workings in a way only modernists could. This is a record with all of the elan of its time (I know that sounds like a critic's cliche, forgive me) and what I mean by this is Nyro's arrangements and vocals run a gamut from the thundering and protentous to nearly serene and still. Saul Bellow once remarked that if you opened up the modern mind everything from Shelley's poetry to litter would pour forth; in this record Nyro offers an array that is every bit as startling to the eye and ear and each offer is inverted to produce songs within songs. There is a surging of emotion here that is not differentiated track to track but within the movements of the songs themselves.

The beauty of Marvin Gaye's "What's Goin' On?" -which this record appears to lay the groundwork for- is his multi-tracked vocal projecting an inner landscape threatening to crumble or be distorted beyond recognition by turns both euphoric and despondent. But this album, the work of a barely 20 year old Laura Nyro(!), precedes Gaye's effort by a 3 full years! She seems to have no trouble relating to us the degradation of drug addiction and poverty on the body in "Poverty Train" or the fragile and delicate intimacy of a relationship with a dear friend in "Emmie." But this is not meant as social commentary in the way "What's Goin' On?" would later be. Nyro offers a corner of a little, unknown world whose only familiarity is its fervidity of feeling and its hint of refined tragedy; is the euphoria that of the not-yet world weary adolescent finding love for the first time and nearly being paralyzed by it? Or is this the song of a poet wandering through fields of despair and knowing the darker side of beautiful things? Who wouldn't recognize the intoxication of "Sweet Blindness" or the rainy-night misery of lonely women? There need not be a particular setting for this work, it is as ethereal as that unknown paramour in "Eli's Comin' ".

The album ends on a haunting note with the lyric "love is surely gospel", a line she delivers as a litany and seems to be both a strong statement and a plea . There is never one moment in this record when Laura Nyro is not tugging at some emotion in your upper or lower register and she delivers her lyrics with arrangements that are blues, gospel, soul, pop and nearly broadway theatrics. She is bound neither by style nor substance and it is almost impossible to believe all of these bold and naked statements were made by someone so young. Where is she now? Where is her successor?

Five stars. Superb.

Three great singer-songwriters of the late 1960's are Joni Mitchell, Carole King, and Laura Nyro. At a time when Joni's music was acoustic guitar-based and before Carole King's Tapestry, there was Laura Nyro's recording of Eli and the Thirteenth Confession. Unlike any music during its time(and even today), it is a complex, wild journey through thirteen songs. Each song builds upon the child to adulthood themes of anticipation, teen anguish, reflection and conscience, and eventually triumph over one's own fears.

Laura Nyro simply heard music differently than most people, combining eclectic styles and instruments into a unified whole. She orchestrated a screaming electric guitar, soulful flute, and drums to convey the sorrow of "Poverty Train", then just her piano and an airy scratchy sax begins and ends "Lonely Women". In "Lonely Women" Zoot Sims' blues saxophone intertwines and breaks free from Nyro's voice like a conversation of despair between the two.

As Nyro intuitively knew which instruments would create the blues, she also used piano, electric bass, trombones, cymbals, and trumpets to create upbeat songs of sheer joy, "Luckie", "Lu", and "Sweet Blindness". When listening to "Luckie", you can actually visualize a young teen walking down a street. She captured the rhythm of a person's footsteps perfectly through the music.

What really holds this song cycle together is Nyro's voice. It is honest, soulful and of great range and expression. When joined together with lyrics which are ebullient, disturbing, and mesmerizing, the human voice is the greatest instrument of all. This brings us to the pivotal song in this cycle, "Emmie". It celebrates the eternal feminine, as Nyro herself has commented. Songs previous to it are the expressions of a teen. Songs after "Emmie" are those of a young adult, each leading to the brilliant, searing, conclusive, "The Confession".

Laura Nyro was courageous in a time when women rarely published their own lyrics and music. She revealed like never before, the ecstatic and turbulent truthful experiences of a young woman. Some say this is the perfect recording; it is regarded by many as the outstanding artistic creation from Laura Nyro.

If you had any association with the local NYC music scene in the late 60's you could not have overlooked Laura Nyro. This album had hits, but it also had depth. Certainly, not a top ten for recording values, she still lays down some amazing riffs that predict latter day Traffic, fusion jazz--pop covers aside, "It looks good and dirty, this shining night strip, if you don't get beat, you got yourself a trip" to this day describes so completely the feeling of stepping onto a NYC sidewalk with no particular destination in mind.
The fact that snippets of this concept album became hits for other acts--somebody was listening--should suggest there's more here than 'Stoned Soul Picnic' and 'Eli's Comin'--excellent as they are when Laura does them, there's better stuff here, and it's the whole of the album that sells the pieces.
This was never a hit but it had an impact. Back then, I knew a lady who owned two albums so she could listen to it without getting up to turn it over (record changer) and an AOR deejay who snuck in 'Once It Was Alright Now (Farmer Joe)' to tweak his listeners. He told me they tweaked right back, wondering who the hell she was. This is a gem.