Music
Laura Nigro was a sixteen-year-old musical prodigy who was trying on several last names, as creative types sometimes do. She happened to be "Nyro" when she finally started to catch on in the music industry, so Laura Nyro she became. Nyro was never a huge star in her own right. But she left behind a musical legacy in a bunch of songs that became big hits for other artists. That's a roster that would include Three Dog Night, the Fifth Dimension, Barbra Streisand and Blood, Sweat and Tears. Nyro wrote "And When I Die." Peter, Paul & Mary made it kinda-sorta famous. But it was Blood, Sweat and Tears that really brought it to the fore. David Clayton Thomas' voice, combined with Dick Halligan's arrangements made for a relatively light-hearted romp through the graveyard. And while BST's version is musically different from Nyro's, they never lost sight of that gospel feel that it had, even as they gave it the cowboy instrumental section. In doing the research for this show, I went down a little bit of a rabbit hole of listening to Laura Nyro's music. I may have to do a whole bunch of shows dedicated to her sometime soon. Nyro is definitely an under-appreciated talent. Click here to become a patron of the show. Click here for a transcript of this episode.