FIFTY YEARS SINCE EMMIE, POP’S “FIRST LESBIAN LOVE SONG”, WE LOOK BACK AT THE LIFE AND CAREER OF LAURA NYRO

WORDS MATTHEW BARTON,

REMEMBERING

PHOTO CREATIVE COMMONS

“Emily, you’re the natural snow, The unstudied sea, You’re a cameo…”

Bronx-born singer-songwriter Laura Nyro was one of the most musically accomplished, and criminally underrated, pioneers of 20th century pop music.

From auspicious beginnings as a piano-playing songwriting wunderkind in 1960s New York City to her untimely death from ovarian cancer in 1997, she paved the way for legions of singer-songwriters – of all genders – with her technically complex chord progressions, disavowal of regular song structures, passionate and unbridled performance style, and her unusual, poetic lyrics. She channelled the sweeping musicality of Bernstein and Sondheim alongside 60s protest singers, girl groups, and R&B/soul musicians, with the flavours of her Russian Jewish and Italian Catholic background, into a seamless and wholly unique sound all her own.

Nyro’s early records, written and recorded before her semi-retirement at the age of 24, exhibit a passion, originality and wisdom beyond her years in their performance and execution. But her bold inventiveness did not stop with her sonic accomplishments; her subject matter, too, shone a spotlight on murky depths usually associated with alternative fiction rather than pop music. Gibsom Street, for example, is a harrowing evocation of a backstreet abortion set against a harsh cityscape; Been On A Train details the descent of a friend into heroin addiction; and The Confession equates religious fervour with forbidden sexuality.