Customer Reviews

Walk the Dog & Light the Light

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Having only just discovered this remarkable woman's work I feel cheated I hadn't made the effort many years earlier. Laura Nyro was just a name behind many great hits and album cuts (eg "Flim Flam Man" for Streisand) until I heard these recordings. Her voice is soothing, thrilling and all things for all moods. On Walk the Dog.. songs such as "Art Of Love", "Broken Rainbow" and "Lite a Flame" express so many sentiments and emotions in beautiful, simple lyrics and sympathetic arrangements. From the first "Oh yeahs" of "Maybe Baby" to the closing epiphany of "Dedicated To the One I Love" Laura transports me into another time and place.

Released in 1993, this was Laura Nyro's final, fully constructed album released before her death in 1997.

It was produced by the famed Steely Dan producer Gary Katz (an old schoolmate of Nyro), and his attention to detail, tasteful touches and overall clean style mesh well with Laura's undiminished ability as a superb vocalist.

Laura was now 46 years old and no longer the fragile, black-gowned dramatist of the 1960s. While her songs of this late period generally lack the youthful "fire" of her early material, they now reveal a deeper, richer, more stable artist, secure in her legacy. Gone are the images of devils and heartbreaking lovers. In their place are songs about animal rights, the environment, the human condition, and a couple of rock / R& B oldies, which she performs with her marvelous trademark arrangements and chord changes. The title song is a sweet message to her son, who was 11 years old at the time. Oh yes, and there is one very amusing song about....well you'll find out.

A very, very respectable piece of work from one of America's great innovators in the autumn of her life.

If you have every other Nyro album, this is a good addition to your collection, but buy the others first. Nothing on this album screams GENIUS like her first four albums: More Than a New Discovery (retitled the First Songs), Eli and the Thirteenth Confession, New York Tendaberry, and Christmas and the Beads of Sweat.

Laura Nyro had seemingly disappeared from the music world after the covers album Gonna Take A Miracle, returning only for Smile, the long out of print "Nested" and "Mother's Spiritual".

In that time she had built up a poor reputation among critics, almost certainly because punk and then grunge were seen as making her sophistication look foolish.

Yet, when one moves beyond the pretension of critics who tend to regard musicianship as something alien to the popular music world, one can see that Nyro's early albums, despite never having sold in large numbers, had had a tremendous influence on the development of the eccentric female singer/songwriters of the following two decades. Their stylings had a major impact on more accessible pop music during this period. Her spiritual themes on New York Tendaberry and Christmas and The Beads of Sweat paved the way for Kate Bush and Jane Siberry during the 1980s.

Despite a live album from 1989, Nyro did not resume writing songs on any scale until 1993, and on "Walk The Dog And Light The Light", two of the songs were old cover versions.

Given that Nyro was forty-five when this album was recorded, it is not surprising that she lost the raucousness of her early masterpieces. This does have severe problems, given that "Lite A Flame" and "Broken Rainbow" were pure sentiment, and the ethnic voices on "Art Of Love" sounded utterly out of place. Moreover, Nyro had clearly lost the uplifting tone she and her successors had been able to utilise to such brilliant effect over the years since "New York Tendaberry", and songs like "Louise's Church" and "A Woman Of The World" sounded sad even if they were not intended to.

Yet, this album is still worthwhile listening because Nyro retained her wonderful voice to the fullest degree - indeed she sounded better than ever on "Louise's Church" and "To A Child". Moreover, though five of the songs were included on the "Stoned Soul Picnic" compilation, the remaining five include the two highlights of the album: "The Descent of Luna Rosé", which stands as Nyro's best song about the female body, and the title tune, which showed Nyro could pull off a brilliant piece even with a more mature sound. On this title tune, Nyro's sparse keyboard was accompanied by a beautiful, yet joyful acoustic guitar line - quite different from her early work. "The Descent of Luna Rosé" was a more traditional piece, yet it showed the mature Nyro at her best. "A Woman Of The World", despite sounding rather too sad, was still a fine and beautiful pop tune with Nyro showing once more her ability to write about the subjects that have dominated her life so well.

Despite being in parts sentimental and lacking the energy of her early work, this was a worthy comeback that should be heard by her fans.

! WELL THE LITTLE LADY HAS DONE IT AGAIN. Pruduced another AMAZING CD as MESMERIZING as always.the music on this cd seems to put me at peace with myself.The way she sings (A WOMAN OF THE WORLD) really shows off her very (GIFTED TALENTS) Plus the up tempo of (ART OF LOVE) seems to make you feel HAPPY ALL OVER,plus the talent of her (VOCALS) really comes thru on (LOUISE"S CHURCH). OVERALL the beauty of this CD,plus on most of her recordings is that you just turn it on RELAX,and let this wonderful WRITER,AND COMPOSER take you into another realm of !! PEACE AND SOLITUDE. PLUS you have to check out her version on (I"M SO PROUD, plus DEDICATED TO THE ONE I LOVE, ITS GREAT AS ALWAYS. SO for all you LAURA NYRO FANS, add this cd to your COLLECTION, YOU WONT BE DISAPPOINTED.

I've heard nothing that Laura Nyro did before her "Smile" CD, which probably makes me one of the wierdest Laura Nyro listeners in the world! Anyway, I find her work simply beautiful even though she's totally out of place on my CD player - sitting next to Goldie, Ultra Nate, Superstar DJ Keoki, Grooverider, and Bjork.

While this CD doesn't hold a candle to "Mother's Spiritual" or "Nested", Nyro's trademarks are intact: jazzy, soul vibe paired with relaxed performances. Unlike her commercial counterparts (Joni Mitchell, Steely Dan, Rickie Lee Jones), Laura Nyro never sounds forced, stilted, or self-conciously hip. Even when singing overtly political lyrics, she sounds like she's singing about what she feels. This sincerity allows you to swallow some of her stronger opinions without gagging too much. It's part of who she is.

Much the credit goes to her sensitivity as producer and writer. Sonically, she gives these songs such intimate arrangements that you feel like she's sitting in your house playing the songs for you herself. Songs like "A Woman of the World" and "Louise's Church" straddle pop, jazz, and soul and yet are none of these. She covers some old style songs ("Dedicated to the One I Love") but makes them thoroughly her own.

I don't mind that some of her CDs are short. If the quality is there, I'm not going to complain. This time out, though, I think there's some filler: "To A Child" was way better on Mother's Spiritual and "Lite a Flame" pales compared to the similarly-themed "Wild World". The other flaw I see is Gary Katz; I felt his presence a little too strongly for my taste. Some of the songs' endings ("Louise's Church" and "Luna Rose") have horn arrangements that get way too Steely Dan-ish and slick.

Overall, though, I love this CD. The soul this woman puts into everything I've heard from her thus far is what makes her music worth the bucks you pay to buy it. Now how about getting "Nested" re-released on CD, huh?

With the exception of Angel in the Dark,which was released after Nyro's death, this is the last album from an artist who deserves to be re-discovered by anyone who is into female artists of great integrity like Joni Mitchell, Kate Bush, Björk and Regina Spector. On Walk the Dog . . . Nyro has come a long way from the breathtaking tempo changes, the contrasts and the sometimes brutal intensity of her early masterpieces Eli and the 13th Confession and New York Tendaberry. This is mature, relaxed music,yet with the accuracy and precision typical of Nyro - and of producer Gary Katz. Katz helped create the sound of Steely Dan, and Walk the Dog . . . has the same fresh, timeless quality, apart from the drums, which have a typical 80s quality.

To Laura Nyro fans, all her albums are essential. WALK THE DOG & LIGHT THE LIGHT is no exception. It's perhaps the most essential of her post-SMILE studio albums, as it's the final one of her career, not counting the 2-disc STONED SOUL PICNIC collection. Some of Laura's most soulful vocals and songwriting are here, on tracks like "A Woman of the World" and "Art of Love". "Louise Chuch", Laura's rollicking tribute to women artists, is another highlight. And the closing track, a cover of "Dedicated to the One I Love", has to be counted among the most beautifully sung performances of her career. It demonstrates how much Laura had grown as a singer and interpreter since her whole album of covers, GONNA TAKE A MIRACLE, was released two decades earlier. A fine farewell effort from an artist who never received her due during her lifetime.

- but still way below what Laura was really capable of. I feel she got very lazy later in her career.