The Cavalier daily :: Thursday, December 17,1970 :: University of Virginia Library

After a year's wait Laura Nyro
has finally put out a new album.
Just in time for the holidays, the
new album is called "Christmas and
the Beads of Sweat."

The new album is good, very
good, but it is not as dynamic as
"New York Tendaberry." It is an
album more of images, situations,
and people. Gone is the devil and
the carefree pleasantness of drinkin'
daddy's wine.

Some of the old Laura Nyro is
there. Probably the only song of
the album that the Fifth Dimension
might record is "When I Was
Freeport and You Were the Main
Drag." Conceivably, they could also
record a song called "Blackpatch,"
but they would have to change the
words (lipstick on her
reefer/waiting for a match.) before
singing it on the Ed Sullivan Show.

The drug references are a new
feature in her songs. In "Been on a
Train" she "say a man take a needle
full of hard drug/ and die slow;" and
in "Map to the Treasure" she sings
"My pretty medicine man/ got
pretty medicine in his hand." If this
suggests what she has been doing
for the past year since she last
recorded an album is anyone's
guess.

Like "New York Tendaberry" it
is an album of moods. She goes up
and down, wails and whispers. The
music is complex. She changes
rhythms and keys several times
during a song. Songs like "Beads of
Sweat" begin and end with
whispering vocals backed with
piano, and in between break into
driving hard rock. Two of your
all-time favorites, Felix Cavaliere
and Dino Danelli, help out on organ
and drums.

To sum up Laura Nyro, at the
chance of sounding chauvinistic,
one could say that she is a whole
lot of woman. Her music is some
kind of big-city gospel and blues.
Whether wailing or whispering, she
really pours it out; her doubts,
convictions, loves, loneliness, good
times and bad. She lets out a lot of
her emotion in her songs, and
comes out with a life-affirming
message of love.

A pleasant surprise on the
album is her version of the Drifters
classic "Up on the Roof." It is the
only song on the album that she
didn't write. "Up on the Roof" was
written by a girl named Carrol
King, who probably no one has
heard of.

I hadn't heard of her until last
weekend when I went to see James
Taylor in concert. She plays piano
now for Taylor, and as an extra
attraction she did a set before
Taylor came on. Having grown up
near Philadelphia, and danced my
teens away on American
Bandstand, I was familiar with most
of the songs she did. But they were
HER songs ("Will You Love Me
Tomorrow," "Natural Woman,"
"Up on the Roof") and she did
them her way; not the Phil
Spectorized "la la la" versions.
What a difference.

Laura Nyro's version is just as
good as Carrol King's. She makes
"Up on the Roof" sound like a real
song; not an adolescent firehall
dance monstrosity.

One of the better single songs
(and this album should be talked
about as a whole) is "Upstairs by a
Chinese Lamp." It is more simple,
coherent, and pleasant than most of
the album. Unfortunately there is
no single song with the magnitude
of "Save the Country," on the
album.

As a Christmas album,
"Christmas and the Beads of
Sweat" probably won't replace
Mitch Millers Xmas album, or even
the Beach Boys Xmas album, but
one will be more apt to play this
album in July than any of the
others.

And while your decking the
boughs or something, think about
these words:

Now the times has come to
fight.

Laws in the book of love burn
bright.

People you must win
for thee America
Her dignity
For all the high court world to
see on Christmas.

Christmas in my soul.