Customer Reviews

Soul Picnic: The Music and Passion of Laura Nyro

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From the first time I heard her on the radio singing "Save The Country", I have been enamored with Laura Nyro. I loved her voice, piano and songs, and thought her work on New York Tendaberry was some of the best and most unique work I had ever heard. I also liked her looks and her demeanor. I liked her so much, I wrote her an affectionate letter via Columbia Records in 1969, but, to my regret, she never answered.

Michele Kort, in her outstanding biography of Laura, has made me feel like I did get a chance to meet her, afterall. Her writing pulled me in from the first page, and I felt like I was right along side of Laura as I relived her ascendancy to musical greatness. Ms. Kort informs the reader of many interesting facts, such as Ms. Nyro having been named by her musician father after the song from the classic movie, Laura, and that she had lots of training in voice but had fairly limited piano training.

Ms. Kort takes us through all Laura's albums, what was going on in her life when they were being conceived, developed and recorded, who produced and engineered them, who the other musicians and vocalists were, and the various negotiations Laura engaged in with the record companies to get the result she wanted. I found this information of great interest and I would not have minded at all if the book had been another three hundred pages.

Most gratifying was that Michele Kort has written a quite detailed book which gives the reader a very good sense of Laura and some of her idiosyncrasies, but she always treats her with the greatest respect. Over and over, through the many people who knew Laura and are quoted, one realizes that Laura was a genuinely sweet, kind person who was steadfastly more interested in the integrity of her music than any commercial success that others may have urged her toward.

I fully recommend this book to anyone, particularly to those who are Laura Nyro fans. After reading it, I feel even more sad that she passed on so early, but I at least feel like I got to know her a bit. While she never answered my letter those many years ago, I feel like I finally got to meet her and know her, and I'm even more enamored with her than before.

This is an engrossing and extremely well written account of the life of mysterious and mythic singer/songwriter Laura Nyro. Baby Boomers who came of age in the latter Sixties and early Seventies will love this wonderfully balanced account of Nyro's tragically short life. The author, not by artificial construction, but by simply telling the story by way of the many authoritative and definitive sources available to her, captures the excitement that Nyro's stunning music created. Younger readers, who are comfortable with their favorite female singer/songwriters of today, will also benefit tremendously by reading this biography. Nyro paved the way for the female singer/songwriter and it was not an easy path to walk. Readers will also be intrigued by the latter part of Nyro's life which, to some, is shrouded in mystery. Without giving anything away to spoil the fun, one is deeply impressed by just how true Nyro was to herself, how uncompromising she was when it came to her music. Despite the fact that Nyro died tragically of cancer at the age of only forty nine, this biography reveals a life of the deepest integrity and beauty. Anyone who reads this book will never forget it.

Reading this book finally gave me that special "secret key" into a world no one was privy to until now. Laura Nyro's mysterious persona was always very compelling. She was someone you never could get too much of, because there never was much we were allowed to know. So, those of us who fell in love with her amazing music always were forced to read into the lyrics, to wonder, to get lost in a trance while listening as we saw visions of New York streets and imagined the people in her songs. I was 17 years old the first time I escaped into Laura's music, and that was decades ago. My reaction as I listened to each song, was that I was literally stunned. It was that melding of jazz, gospel, Broadway and how every note she played on the piano was purposeful and significant. How her voice captured all the raw emotion of real life. She was the pioneer, a woman whose creative abilities were, in my opinion, up until that time, unsurpassed by anyone, male or female. That's why the book is such a treasure. It unlocks so many of the mysteries that many of us had resigned ourselves to. Unlike the other reviewer, I relished the details of the recording sessions and everything else. At the risk of sounding snobbish, I suppose you have to be the following to truly appreciate what is offered here: 1) an absolute die-hard Laura Nyro follower and fan from the 70s, and 2) probably a songwriter and musician yourself in order to understand what it takes to create the kind of work she created. (I am both).
I suppose to sum it up it just felt really great to finally have the real Laura, unshrouded and revealed to us. The great thing is that--it was so refreshing to know that she really was just a regular girl, not someone who particularly wanted that dark aura, just someone who had a real life and didn't go for the showbiz thing very much. And, even better: someone very wonderful in her personal life as far as her generosity and kindness--and full of laughter and loving friendships. I took away the details of a woman who had an unparalleled musical gift, many friends, and a generally nice life. After all these years, and with her death, it is nice to know that she could have just been one of us. I guess you might say this book gave me some "closure". And, I felt happier as a result of reading AND re-reading it, for its endearing, real-life stories about this lovely human being.

I confess. I belong to the tribe of souls who have long worshiped at the altar of Laura Nyro. Most of us were there back in 1967 at the beginning of her career, when her voice and piano first tore through our consciousness, awakening us, and it forever altered our relationship to music and melody. Her music has been the central soundtrack to our lives, but not just as background sound, we cared about her music as art, it reached us at the deepest levels of our hearts and souls and it transfigured and healed many of us. Indeed, we experienced it as religion, and it has never left us. We are a unique breed of fans in that Laura Nyro is more than our favorite singer/songwriter. We believe we were "saved" by her music. Michelle Kort understands this essential nature of those us in the tribe, and we have waited a long long time for someone as capable as she to write Laura's story. She has done an absolutely fantastic job with this biography, especially given the difficulty of the task. Difficult because no other figure in popular music remained as mysterious and elusive and unpenetrable as Laura did throughout her life. She firecely protected her privacy at the expense of her career, and she so singularly, uncompromisingly pursued her craft without a thought to self-promotion, that consequently very little about either her personal or professional life was ever revealed to the public. We who have loved and listened to Laura for over 30 years had to settle for the occasional rare interview, or little scraps of news and gossip, often inaccurate, passed down through the tribe and endlessy debated among ourselves. Michelle Kort's miracle of a book corrects this long silence and finally tells the story we have breathlessly waited for most of our lives. The book is filled with revelations and surprises as Kort lifts the veil and illuminates a life so long hidden in shadow. I suspect Kort herself is a tribe member but this is not the adoring gushings of a star struck fan. It is a balanced, meticulously researched and objective portrait, and with the full cooperation of Nyro's friends, family and the musicians she worked with, Laura Nyro the girl, the woman and the artist, finally is given life and we are able to see and know her in a way impossible until now. That is the true wonder of this marvelous book and the stunning achievment of this mesmerizing biography. That it is Kort's first book is remarkable and she should be very proud. And for those of us who still carry the torch for Laura, we are so grateful to Michele Kort for telling us this story we so longed and needed to hear.

Laura Nyro is one of the most underrated artists in music. As each new generation of female musician knowingly or unknowingly carries on her legacy, Ms. Nyro's story is long overdue. Michelle Kort has done a superb job of bringing alive Nyro's music, as well as providing a perspective on her life and times in the music industry over 3 decades. It is fascinating to consider that at one time, Nyro was thought to be the "it" girl of the music industry. Though superstardom never came her way, her influence continues to be felt (something that undoubtedly would please Nyro). Ms. Kort does an incredible job of collating previous reviews and articles into a coherent narrative.

While I would have loved to read a lengthier biography, Ms. Kort is to be commended for being the first to attempt to tell Ms. Nyro's story. I believe any other authors who will follow in her footsteps and try to present a more definitive biography, will use this as a template. Though Laura would perhaps initially be less than thrilled with a biographer's invasion of her privacy, I think ultimately she would approve of this book, which focuses largely on her music, and provides anecdotes from family, colleagues and friends, without resorting to gossip or heresay.

Listen to Laura's music as the soundtrack to this book. Then thank our gods and goddesses that we were blessed with the talent that is Laura Nyro.

I was very impressed by this thoughtful, detailed book about one of the most wonderful, influential songwriters of our time. Michele Kort presents Laura's "story" in a way that shares insights about the significant people in her life, and the way she (and they) viewed her life and career, in a tasteful way which does not seem to violate the very privacy she so coveted. The book is very detailed about each of the tracks on each of her albums; in fact, the detail about each recording is so scrupulous that it can at times become tiresome. But here, too, Ms. Kort perhaps mirrors some of the perfectionism she describes in Laura Nyro herself. Reading this book made me miss Laura Nyro and her music all the more, made me hope that her young son is faring well without his mother, and brought back much of the sadness and shock of her untimely death at just 49 from ovarian cancer five years ago.

Those of us who have lived with Laura's music know HOW much she means to us and HOW deeply we have been affected by her music. She spoke for the emotional soul of a generation, able to reach the height of ecstacy and the pit of despair within a few brief measures. For me, her later work is as valuable. "Woman of the World," "Free Thinker" and the gem "Sweet Dream Fade" are also part of my personal soundtrack.

Michele Kort's book is excellent because it is well researched, thorough, and brimming with information. It's weakness is that it does not read like a nice little story; so we have to work a bit to move through it. But the trip is worth the effort. As ardent of a fan as I have been, for some reason I was unaware of the Japanese release of "Season of Lights." To hear that Santana-like jam her band breaks into on "Timer" was worth the price of both "Soul Picnic," the book, & the Japanese CD!

One of the comments I most appreciated in the book came near the end, and is so true. Richard Herrington of the Washington Post says, "Lots of people were later compared to Laura Nyro. Nyro herself was never compared to anyone." Nyro's music was the benchmark of artistry, integrity, passion and wit. This book succeeds in bringing that struggle to attention. For whatever other shortcomings the book may have, for that I am grateful.

In my opinion, Laura Nyro continues to be one of the most underrated songsmiths in the history of American Music. While some record stores still file her under "Folk Music", Nyro's primary musical inspirations were pop, jazz and the vocal R & B and doo-wop stylings of the 50's. She also had an affinity for show music and her circle of friends included Broadway Icons Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim. Her poetry was unique, as well. No woman before her had explored so many controversial and personal issues in their lyrics as Nyro did. Since little has been written about this Great American Artist, Kort's book is a welcome read and fills in alot of the spaces that fans have been wondering about regarding this very private person. The book is a little light on depth, however, and it reveals itself as more of a record of rememberings by people that were part of her personal and music business worlds, either fleetingly or for long periods of time. Kort treats her subject with great respect and reverance, however, and her affection for Nyro as an artist and as a person is reflected throughout this book. Although this book will, mainly, be of interest to Nyro's longtime supporters, hopefully people who are curious about who this woman was, and the art that she created, will go out and buy her music. If you have never heard her before, nothing can prepare you for CD's like New York Tendaberry or Christmas and the Beads of Sweat. She was a shining star, a visionary, and a pure artist who paid dearly for her musical vision. We will never see the likes of her again. Love you, Laura, RIP.

Yes I'm biased, but Laura Nyro was THE greatest singer/songwriter of her generation. She remains unrecognized,underrated,and unappreciated by the general public. Ask anyone over the age of 40 if they've heard of Nyro and chances are they haven't. Then start listing the songs she's written that others have had hits with,and a recognition begins. Michele Kort has written a thoughtful book that reveals why Ms. Nyro was never meant for superstardom. She was uncompromising, and unwavering when it came to the production of her music. It was the vision she had for her music and her refusal to cave in to the commerciality of the music industry, which gives her a cult, rather than household name status. For example, listen to the single version of "Save the Country" (on the remastered "New York Tendaberry"), and then listen to the superior album cut.
Kort paints a portrait of a woman who did things her way, without overglorifying this artist. I'm sure if Ms. Nyro was alive she would not want a biography to be written. However, Kort has done a masterful job of describing recording sessions, the mixed reviews of Nyro's work, and an overall sense of the humaness of Ms. Nyro. This is not easily done, considering Ms.Nyro's need for privacy. Read this book and if you've never heard her music you will want to, and if you're a fan, you will want to listen to Laura's compositions and her angelic voice, over and over.

Book critics will focus on Kort's writing style. So what! No one else cared to write a long overdue biography of Laura Nyro. Nyro was a very private and protective of her life so we couldn't of expected it from her herself. Soul Picnic gives the story of her life and the facts, and that is well worth the effort. Over the years little articles and stories about Laura have been published & now I see that so much of that was told wrong. We now have her life story to read and enjoy...and continue to "wonder" about.