Laura Nyro (1947 – 1997) was an American songwriter, singer, and pianist. She achieved considerable critical acclaim with her own recordings, particularly the albums Eli and the Thirteenth Confession and New York Tendaberry, and had commercial success with artists such as Barbra Streisand and The 5th Dimension recording her songs. Her style was a hybrid of Brill Building-style New York pop, jazz, gospel, rhythm and blues, show tunes, rock and soul. Through the years Laura’s albums have reflected various musical explorations from simple, down-home singing, to wild orchestrations resembling abstract art. Robert Hilburn of The Los Angeles Times, wrote about Laura, “Her contributions have paved the way for the rise of the urban female singer-songwriter.” And Jon Pareles amplified this in The New York Times: “If not for Laura Nyro the music of Rickie Lee Jones, Joni Mitchell, and Teena Marie might have been very different. When she released her first album in 1966, Nyro was a nineteen-year old who linked high flown poetry to the ecstatic emotions of soul music, and her singing mixed the pure tones of a soprano with the throbs and swoops of gospel and jazz.”

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