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Laura Nyro
Angel In The Dark
Rounder 116611-3176-2

1. ANGEL IN THE DARK
(Laura Nyro/Luna Mist Music, Inc., BMI)
Recorded by Wayne Yurgelin, assisted by Robert Smith, at the Power Station, New York, August 5, 1995.

Additional recording by Steve Rosenthal, assisted by Albert Leusink, at The Magic Shop, New York.

Laura Nyro - lead vocal, harmonies and electric piano
John Tropea - electric guitars
Freddie Washington - bass
Bernard Purdie - drums
Bashiri Johnson - percussion
Randy Brecker - trumpet
Michael Brecker - tenor saxophone
horn arrangement by John Tropea and Tommy Mitchell

2. TRIPLE GODDESS TWILIGHT
(Laura Nyro/Luna Mist Music, Inc., BMI)
Recorded by Dan Gellert, assisted by Robert Smith, at the Power Station, New York, April 28, 1995.

Laura Nyro - lead vocal, harmonies and acoustic piano

3. WILL YOU STILL LOVE ME TOMORROW
(Gerry Goffin-Carole King/Screen Gems-EMI Music, Inc., BMI)
Production assistance by Peter Gallway.
Recorded by Daryl Gustamaccio, assisted by Robert Smith, at the Power Station, New York, August 29, 1994.

Laura Nyro - vocal and acoustic piano
Jeff Pevar - guitar
Will Lee - bass
Chris Parker - drums
Carol Steele - percussion

4. HE WAS TOO GOOD TO ME
(Richard Rodgers-Lorenz Hart/Harms, Inc. Williamson Music Co., ASCAP)
Recorded by Wayne Yurgelin, assisted by T. Gonz, at River Sound, New York, October 22, 1994.

Laura Nyro - vocal and acoustic piano

5. SWEET DREAM FADE
(Laura Nyro/Luna Mist Music, Inc., BMI)
Recorded by Wayne Yurgelin, assisted by Robert Smith, at the Power Station, New York, August 5, 1995. Additional recording by Steve Rosenthal, assisted by Albert Leusink, at The Magic Shop, New York.

Laura Nyro - vocal and electric piano
John Tropea - electric guitars
Freddie Washington - bass
Bernard Purdie - drums
Bashiri Johnson - percussion
Randy Brecker - trumpet
Michael Brecker - tenor saxophone

horn arrangement by John Tropea and Tommy Mitchell

6. SERIOUS PLAYGROUND
(Laura Nyro/Luna Mist Music, Inc., BMI)
Recorded by Dan Gellert, assisted by Robert Smith, at the Power Station, New York, April 28, 1995.

Laura Nyro - lead vocal, harmonies and acoustic piano

7. BE AWARE
(Burt Bacharach-Hal David/Casa David-New Hidden Valley Music, Inc., ASCAP) Production assistance by Peter Gallway.
Recorded by Daryl Gustamaccio, assisted by Robert Smith, at the Power Station, New York, August 30, 1994.

Laura Nyro - vocal and acoustic piano
Jeff Pevar - guitar
Will Lee - bass
Chris Parker - drums
Carol Steele - percussion

8. LET IT BE ME
(G. Becand-Manny Kurtz/Gambi Music, Inc., Twenty Nine Black Music, BMI)
Recorded by Wayne Yurgelin, assisted by T. Gonz, at River Sound, New York, October 22, 1994.

Laura Nyro - vocal and acoustic piano

9. GARDENIA TALK
(Laura Nyro/Luna Mist Music, Inc., BMI)
Recorded by Wayne Yurgelin, assisted by Robert Smith, at the Power Station, New York, August 5, 1995.
Additional recording by Steve Rosenthal, assisted by Albert Leusink, at The Magic Shop, New York.

Laura Nyro - vocal and electric piano
John Tropea - electric guitar
Freddie Washington - bass
Bernard Purdie - drums
Bashiri Johnson - percussion

10. OOH BABY, BABY
(William Robinson, Jr.-Warren Moore/Jobete Music, ASCAP)
Production assistance by Peter Gallway.
Recorded by Daryl Gustamaccio, assisted by Robert Smith, at the Power Station, New York, August 30, 1994.

Laura Nyro - vocal and acoustic piano
Jeff Pevar - guitar
Will Lee - bass
Chris Parker - drums
Carol Steele - percussion

11. EMBRACEABLE YOU
(George Gershwin-Ira Gershwin/WB Music Corp., ASCAP)
Production assistance by Peter Gallway.
Recorded by Daryl Gustamaccio, assisted by Robert Smith, at the Power Station, New York, August 28, 1994.

Laura Nyro - vocal and acoustic piano

12. LA LA MEANS I LOVE YOU
(Thomas Randolph Bell-William Hart/Nickel Shoe Music Co., Inc.-Warner Tamerlane Publishing Co., BMI)
Production assistance by Peter Gallway.
Recorded by Daryl Gustamaccio, assisted by Robert Smith, at the Power Station, New York, August 29, 1994.
Additional recording by Steve Rosenthal, assisted by Albert Leusink, at The Magic Shop, New York.

Laura Nyro - vocal and electric piano
Jeff Pevar - guitar
John Tropea - guitar
Will Lee - bass
Chris Parker - drums
Carol Steele - percussion

13. WALK ON BY
(Burt Bacharach-Hal David/Casa David-New Hidden Valley Music, Inc., ASCAP)
Recorded by Peter Gallway at Gallway Bay Music, March, 1994.

Laura Nyro - vocal and electric piano

14. ANIMAL GRACE
(Laura Nyro/Luna Mist Music, Inc., BMI)
Recorded by Dan Gellert, assisted by Robert Smith, at the Power Station, New York, April 28, 1995.

Laura Nyro - lead vocal, harmonies and acoustic piano

15. DON'T HURT CHILD
(Laura Nyro/Luna Mist Music, Inc., BMI)
Recorded by Wayne Yurgelin, assisted by Robert Smith, at the Power Station, New York, August 5, 1995. Additional recording by Steve Rosenthal, assisted by Albert Leusink, at The Magic Shop, New York.

Laura Nyro - vocal, harmonies and acoustic piano
John Tropea - electric and acoustic guitars
Freddie Washington - bass
Bernard Purdie - drums
Bashiri Johnson - percussion

1938 Martin guitar courtesy of Artie Smith.

16. CODA
(Laura Nyro/Luna Mist Music, Inc., BMI)
Recorded by Wayne Yurgelin, assisted by Robert Smith, at the Power Station, New York, August 5, 1995. Additional recording by Steve Rosenthal, assisted by Albert Leusink, at The Magic Shop, New York.

Laura Nyro - lead vocal, harmonies and electric piano
Bashiri Johnson - percussion
Bernard Purdie - drums
___________________________________________________

PRODUCER: LAURA NYRO

EXECUTIVE PRODUCER: EILEEN SILVER-LILLYWHITE

Produced for release by Scott Billington & Eileen Silver-Lillywhite
Mixed by Steve Rosenthal, assisted by Dick Kondas, at Sorcerer Sound, New York, August, 2000.

Mastered by Tom Coyne at Sterling Sound, New York.

Photography by David Gahr.

Design by Jean Wilcox.

Notes by Eileen Silver-Lillywhite.

Thanks to Greg Guarino at Sorcerer Sound and Juan Garcia at the Magic Shop.

From Eileen Silver-Lillywhite:

This album celebrates Laura, whose spirit lives on in this music.

This recording is dedicated to my sons, Jacob and Andrew.

Special thank you to my husband Harvey, who has a "heart for the music." He helped Laura and me shape Luna Mist Records and supported us in every way. Thank you to my parents for their kindness and constant counsel. My dad was my companion throughout this difficult journey. And thanks to my brother for his encouragement.

These recordings would not exist without the help of Zoe Thrall. This music would not have been released without the efforts of Jim Cinque.

Thank you to the musicians who gave their hearts to this music. Thanks to Scott Billington for staying true to the music as Laura left it.
___________________________________________________



“I started Early – Took my Dog –
And visted the Sea –
The Mermaids in the Basement
Came out to look at me - …”

- from “I Started Early – Took My Dog” Emily Dickinson


“Angel In The Dark” is the last music Laura Nyro ever recorded. But it came to be so much more than that. It began as Laura experienced a rebirth with her music. She left her old record label and partnered with me to create Luna Mist Records, Inc., an independent label Laura and I planned to launch with three separate projects – a release of the original songs suddenly pouring from her; an homage album brimming with what Laura called the “primal heartbeat songs of my youth,” songs she grew up singing in the subway with street corner harmony groups; and a live album that would capture the powerful seduction of her live shows as she sang without a band, simply solo with her grand piano and with the women of her harmony group.

The first day in the studio to record solo, Laura placed photographs of her mother and her maternal grandfather on the piano to guide her. Both had died, and Laura said she felt so alone without them. Thee were her angels, the people she felt had raised her, the people she had depended on. Laura, at this time in her life, was facing many difficulties – her companion having departed indefinitely, her son now a spirited teenager, her finances in complication. She needed the solace of her music and felt a longing for her angels in the dark.

What started with such joy and promise was cut short. But not before Laura triumphed. By June of 1995, she had completed many unsuccessful sessions in the studio, both solo and with the brilliant studio musicians who were so eager and honored to work with her. She had taped to live Christmas Eve concerts in New York City at the Bottom Line – the intimate club in her hometown where she loved to perform, surrounded by friends, family, and her ever-faithful following. And she had performed across the country, in England, and Japan, reinvigorating her connection with her live music and her devoted fans. Laura was on the west coast for a series of shows when she was diagnosed with ovarian cancer. In the long, emotional conversation we had, Laura asked me to help her “have completion with the music.” We planned studio sessions to get the project done. I sent Laura my son’s electric piano so she could practice, booked studio time, contracted with musicians from across the country for the sessions, and made flights to L.A. to walk the beach with her and sustain her spirits with talk of art and poetry and the music she would finish.

Laura had already been through two chemo sessions when she bravely flew east to work on her music. The last two days Laura ever recorded in a studio were August 4 & 5, 1995. Laura was in good voice. In her beret, with her “groove band,” she recorded “Angel In The Dark,” “Don’t Hurt Child,” “Gardenia Talk.” The band was finished by lunchtime on the second day. Those were the only charts we had prepared, the songs Laura had planned to record. I suggest to Laura that “Sweet Dream Fade” was complete and ready to record. Laura pulled out her journal with the words written down and played the song for the guitarist who wrote up a chart quickly. So “Sweet Dream Fade” could have ended up as so many of Laura’s new songs did, unrecorded, only alive in the memories of the few people who had heard her do versions of them in her living room. Luckily, Laura and the band were able to slide right into the song.

After these recordings, Laura and I felt amazed we had pulled it off, recording some of her new songs in spite of little money, and Laura’s illness. Laura was truly heroic to risk all that she did to record those songs.


I saw Laura in concert for the first time on Christmas Eve, 1970 at the Fillmore East in New York City. Through her music, she had an intensity and a romance with the audience, although she rarely spoke a word. And the audience’s response to Laura’s music never diminished. At the Birchmere Club in Virginia in January, 1995, I witnessed men, sitting at a table in front of mine, weeping when Laura sang “Let It Be Me.”

During Laura’s tour in the summer of 1988, we finally met. I stepped onto the blue bus she was traveling in with her band, after a ten-year hiatus from performing live, and I gave Laura my book of poems. She looked at the cover for a moment and gave me a startled look. Amazingly, she had already read it. She covered my hand with hers and told me I should be proud of myself, that she loved my poems. We ended up becoming friends.

Laura was a hero from the sixties. Completely courageous on stage, she sang her songs of shifting moods and rhythms, paradoxically singing her poetic soul songs with the power of her vulnerability. And for Laura, what she sang was all true. When I talked about the persona in one of her songs, she said to me, “My songs are all personal, all about me.” She denied the mask. She didn’t need it in her music. Laura’s recordings of her songs are “dark and edgy.” Laura said that she was a “soul singer” and that she sang soul songs with a jazz phrasing. But her songs were wide as the sky, and they allowed other singers in.

By 19, Laura recorded her first album, all of the songs well-crafted, some straight pop music, others the soulful, poetic Laura that was to blossom more fully on her coming albums. What followed were the avant-garde releases, Eli and the Thirteenth Confession, New York Tendaberry, and Christmas and The Beads of Sweat. In Laura’s first four albums, she explored a young girl’s initiation, her own urban odyssey. Her voice and musicality are astounding. She in unconventional in her use of musical genre, in her sense of time, shifting tempos, her voice omnipresent, able to carry the burden of all emotion it seems.

Many singers had giant hits with songs Laura wrote, particularly in the late sixties and early seventies. Her hits included: “And When I Die,” “Wedding Bell Blues,” “Stoned Soul Picnic,” “Sweet Blindness,” “Blowin’ Away,” “Lu,” “Eli’s Comin’,” “Stoney End,” “Time and Love,” and “Save the Country.” Laura’s songs have been recorded by a large roster of recording artists such as: Barbra Streisand; Frank Sinatra; Linda Ronstandt; The Fifth Dimension; Blood, Sweat and Tears; Peter, Paul & Mary; Carmen McRae; Melba Moore; Thelma Houston; Roseanne Cash; Maynard Ferguson; George Duke; Sweet Honey in the Rock; Chet Atkins; Junior Walker and the All-Stars; The Roches; Suzanne Vega, and many others. Alvin Ailey even created a dance, “Cry” around Laura’s stunning “Been on a Train.”

Laura was always true to her music. It was a sacred gift from the muse, and Laura would not sell it out. So Laura did not change her own versions of her songs to fit into the Top 40 format of the times. Her vision of her music in on her albums. Laura, having written incredibly wise songs in her teens, was proclaimed a prodigy, and touted for her musicality by Leonard Bernstein, Stephen Sondheim, and Miles Davis, musicians from the worlds of classical music, Broadway and jazz. Laura was a singer’s singer, a songwriter’s songwriter. She had the hook, the formula for a pop song, and her first album showed off her ability to write sweet confections. But when Laura sang her songs they also carried the tornado of her voice, of her personality, of her immense soul. And as Laura wrote, her music continued to shift, to change with her life. Laura saw writing as a playground, and she wrote avant-garde music, artistic music. By age 24 she married and retired for a while.

When Laura brought her music back to the world in 1976, she came back even more clearly the fusion artist, her passion and poetry unabated but tempered by her twenties, her life experience. Laura first heard her voice in the street corner harmony groups that sang  in the cities in the early sixties. She saw her piano as an ocean to explore and her voice as the instrument for which she wrote. And in Laura’s music was the music she grew up on, Miles and Coltrane, Billie Holiday, the Girl Groups, Smokey and the Miracles. But like any artist, Laura made a frisson-nouveau of her own. And Laura is the mother of the singer/songwriters who have followed her, as influential for Todd Rundgren, Sheryl Crow, Suzanne Vega, Rickie Lee Jones, Tori Amos, Chryssie Hynde and many others, as Coltrane was for the jazz musicians who were inspired by his music.


Laura and I began Luna Mist Records, an independent record company, an art label. Weary of enduring the prominence “business” played in the “music business,” and the backseat art now took at the major record labels, Laura was excited to work on our new company, a company based on art, vision, and friendship. Laura loved poetry and read avidly. With our new label we would record and release Laura’s records as well as poetry recordings and music by other musicians. Our first record was to be Laura’s cover songs that she thought about juxtaposing with poems. Laura and I continued to work on the cover songs in the studio until the spring of 1995.

The “heartbeat” song that seemed to matter the most to Laura was “You Were Too Good To Me.” It was the song she had heard on a Nina Simone album when she was 14. On the first day of recording, Laura sang many takes, each one sounding soulful, each perfect in its own way. And each time we were in the studio without a band, Laura sang that song over and over. She would say, “I know I can get it better.” Finally in December, 1994, Laura put down her final version.

Mostly I remember Laura being kind and generous to everyone on our first day in the studio and being focused on the songs “You Were Too Good To Me,” “Be Aware,” “Ooh Baby, Baby,” “Let It Be Me,” and “Embraceable You.” Laura put a chair for me beside her piano before she began to record. As she would do from then on in the studio, when there was down time we would talk. Laura had her suitcase on wheels propped up against a wall of Studio A at Power Station. The room was a cathedral – covered in wood, large for tracking. But that first day in the studio, Laura worked solo. Typically Laura would sing three takes of a song and come into the control booth to listen with her “dog ears.” If she was satisfied, she would choose the master copy to keep. That day she asked me how I liked different endings for “You Were Too Good To Me.”

In the next two days we had a band come in. Laura worked well with them, and Will Lee, the bass player, helped Laura arrange the songs with the band. Laura knew the song was working when people in the control booth were dancing. “Ooh Baby, Baby” became Laura’s favorite of the band cover songs she sang. “Be Aware” was important to Laura, a song that reflected her feelings about the world, about people. “La La Means I Love You” and “Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow” Laura recorded with only with the band. Laura’s covers of both songs are uniquely Laura, her free-form piano, her hypnotic voice. The songs are bright as jungle flowers.

When we were recording in New York, Laura and I would eat a late dinner at a Mexican restaurant on Columbus Avenue. Later we would go to a café and split a piece of chocolate mousse cake. Before we went to the studio, Laura had told me she couldn’t talk, that she had to save her voice for singing.  So at dinner she asked me to talk solo, and I did. But she would always join in the conversation soon.

By fall, 1995, Laura began to write more than she had written in years. We were together a great deal, and when we weren’t together Laura would take her telephone to the piano and play me what she was working on. When we were together, I was astonished at how she was writing fifteen songs at once. She would work at one song and move on to the next effortlessly. Though she had never collaborated with anyone on her music, we shared a love of poetry and a love of language. Laura would sing me lyrics and ask me for other possible words and lines. At her cottage, Laura made me watch the movie, Ishtar, with Warren Beatty and Dustin Hoffman. She joked that we were like those shiftless songwriters as we kept trying out phrases from the ridiculous to the sublime. Her composing was hypnotic, almost compulsive, playing the melody line, changing it a little here and there, making notes in her notebook, trying out combinations of words until the feeling among all the elements was just right. It was like seeing her soul take shape.

On Christmas Eve, 1994, we recorded Laura live with her Harmony Group at the Bottom Line. We planned to release the live album after the album of originals. (This performance turned out to be Laura’s last concert in New York City – a concert she scheduled expressly for recording and eventual release. It will be part of a forthcoming CD from Rounder Records).

By April, 1995, Laura recorded solo versions of the new original songs, “Don’t Hurt Child” had come to Laura all at once in a one day. She changed the lyrics a bit, but the song remained as she first created it. “Triple Goddess Twilight,” which carries major themes of the new music, we thought of as the title song for our album of originals. “Triple Goddess Twilight” seems to complete “Angel In The Dark” in a more specific way. “Serious Playground” was the other contender for the title track. Laura always told me she felt that writing was a playground, so the song was not only the completion of that idea, but a mystical connection to her music, to the source of creativity. In the spring of 1995, Laura’s beloved dog Ember died. Laura had raised Ember since he was a puppy, and he slept by Laura’s bed. She used to tell me that she enjoyed “serenading him” during the day when she played her music at the piano. “Animal Grace” shows Laura’s love for Ember and her vision of how we all fit into the universe.

During Laura’s chemotherapy, her son Gilly came to live at my home and to attend a high school nearby. After Laura’s treatments ended, on the last day of January, 1996, Laura joined Gilly in my home, where they lived together for the last time. Each night they played Scrabble in Laura’s room. During the day Laura attended the poetry classes I taught at the university. She was surprised at the quiet in college, not like the noisy classrooms in high school that she remembered. And Laura talked about enrolling and taking more courses.

Laura and I spent May through August 1996 choosing songs and rewriting the booklet for The Best Of Laura Nyro: Stoned Soul Picnic. By summer 1996, Laura’s cancer returned. She opted for exhaustive days filled with alternative treatments, while here cancer continued unabated.

On my January, 1997, visit to Laura, who had been bed-ridden since mid-December, we spent the days in the main room of her cottage, where she had a large bed she rested on. Laura was throughout most of the last four months, in terrible pain. The alternative therapies she was using were not availing her of medication needed to endure the pain. During my visit we talked a lot, Laura saying she was writing notes to Gil that he could open at other times in his live, if she weren’t around. She continued to have hope though. We watched silent movies on t.v. so that we could talk while they played, as well as one of Laura’s favorite old movies, “The Rose Tattoo.” At night she couldn’t sleep, and she would call me to her bedside and read positive, spiritual passages, what Laura called “prayers” from Selected Writings of Ernest Holmes.

During my last visit with Laura, she went to the piano and played “Don’t Hurt Child,” and the complained about her hoarse voice, how she couldn’t sing anymore. But the songs were still important to her, part of the beat of her heart. Laura had told me since the fall that she had asked someone she trusted in the music business to find a record label to release our recordings.

From the time Laura’s cancer recurred, we had discussed what we should do with the music. I asked Laura if she felt comfortable with the music coming out, if she didn’t get better. Laura said she wanted the music released “no matter what happens.” On my last visit to Laura’s, she told me to take the master tapes from the recording studio, which was closing up, and to keep them safe until I found a record company to release them.

During my last visit, uncharacteristically, Laura told me a hilarious jokes, not wanted either of us to cry. When I left her cottage, Laura hugged me and pulled the hood from my blue raincoat over my head. Rain was falling all around us.

Laura died on April 8, 1997, right before the crocus trumpeted from the earth. And I have worked since that day to have this music released. Laura felt that it was meant to be that she and I would become friends, share poetry and music, and come together to allow Laura to record her last work. For without Luna Mist Records, Laura would not have recorded any of this music. This music rises above the squalor of disease and disappointment, of what Laura used to call “the human drama,” and celebrates the spirit. Laura had given me roses, tight as fists, and asked me to place them in a vase, so they could open their red hearts.

Like the woman who ventures out in Emily Dickinson’s “I Started Early-Took My Dog,” Laura found her true self in the imagination. Through music, Laura was able to get in touch with the “Mermaids In The Basement,” with her woman’s voice, her inner life. And what I found on my journey with Laura was that life was full of all the colors when we “visted the Sea,” the site of our imaginations. For Laura, the imagination was the ultimate, the center of spirituality. These recordings are Laura’s last gift, her roses.

Eileen Silver-Lillywhite
Executive Producer
November 10, 2000