New York Tendaberry – LAURA NYRO****

You Don’t Love When You Cry/Captain For Dark Mornings/Tom Cat Goodbye/Mercy On Broadway/Save The Country/Gibsom Street/Time & Love/The Man Who Sends Me Home/Sweet Lovin’ Baby/Captain Saint Lucifer/ New York Tendaberry

The tracks on New York Tendaberry presented a darker more pessimistic outlook from singer-songwriter Laura Nyro. It was her most commercially successful album. (US:32)

“A tough listen from a tough singer. I always get the impression that she set out to write happy songs, but ultimately they grow sadder the more she worked on them, both with her singing and lyrics. Occasionally there is a Broadway show stopper feel to some of the songs, like she is trying to pour hope into a bad situation, but ultimately these songs are down and dispirited, and the energy of Nyro’s voice can do little to pull them through. Well worth checking out though.”

“New York Tendaberry possesses some of the most personal, and painful, moments in music. Laura Nyro was not happy when she completed this record. And she would become even less so. But the staggering thing about it is that she bared herself emotionally to make this record with no holds barred, and consequently her vulnerability is glaring even, at times, desperate.”

“This took a whole year to record owing to Nyro's extraordinary perfectionism. It represents the same values as Eli but in a much more pure, stripped fashion. Gone are the opulent arrangements and vocal harmonies, or even the optimistic, joyful melodies. The vocal style remains, as does the love of change in rhythm and tempo, but this is an altogether darker and less immediate record.”

“It is odd that New York Tendaberry ever made it into the charts to begin with - even by today's standards it is alternative with a capitol 'A', a strange mix of jazz, blues, rock, pop, urban edges, and folk flourishes created largely by Laura and her piano, with little in the way of musical back-up, and still less in the way of vocal back-up."

“It is dramatic, intense, at times painfully quiet and more often than not bewilderingly freeform, almost expressionistic. Minimalist arrangements and the naked solitude of Nyro's voice made me reluctant to come back to the album. But come back I did, and every time something delicious emerges that makes me wonder how carefully I'd been listening the first time through.”