[.ca] 1971 Spread Your Wings And Fl

intense:
Though I much prefer Laura live with a band as on Season Of Lights and the later period Live At The Bottom Line, this is live Laura in her early days when she performed intensely and giving it all to the audience. The later solo piano live recordings, Live On Mountain Stage, The Looms Desire, Live In Japan were more Laura just playing her songs & moving on to the next one compared to this. American Dove is a stand out and one wonders why she never recorded it on a studio album. I Am The Blues shows early development of a song and a different take on the character. Save The Country and Map To The Treasure are virtuoso performances and listen closely to hear the piano boards literally shaking from her pounding the keys. Having never seen Laura live but hearing about her legendary performances, this is a welcome addition.

Worthy addition to a Nyro library:
"Spread Your Wings And Fly" stands as the first live documentation of the late Laura Nyro in her pre-eminent years between the release of her two greatest masterpieces: the raucous, dramatic, catchy "New York Tendaberry" and the soft, uninviting, but amazingly powerful "Christmas And The Beads Of Sweat" (when will they give it the remaster "Tendaberry" has had??). However, the sound of Nyro live in that era, whilst possessing the amazing power of her best studio recordings from that era, actually turns out to resemble the dramatic pop of "Eli And The Thirteenth Confession" or "Gonna Take A Miracle". The opener "American Dove" really recalls the dramatic pop of "Luckie" with a plea for world peace she was to repeat on "Brown Earth", whilst the next few pieces show her in an accessible piano-based mood that conveys her willingness to create in a surprising way, notably on the improvised early version of "I Am The Blues" that offers a remarkable taste of a songwriter at work trying to perfect lyrics. The second half of the album changes direction somewhat, with a beautiful, minimalist version of "Emmie" where the silence appears almost to covey regret, and surprising versions of "Map To The Treasure" and "Christmas In My Soul", the former of which really sounds like the beautiful epic of "Christmas And The Beads Of Sweat". Even more passionate and no less moody than the "Christmas" version, this is the definitive version of one of Nyro's least appreciated masterpieces. The closer, "Mother Earth" is a new song never recorded in the studio. It starts almost like "Brown Earth", but evolves into a minimalist-type ballad with Laura's voice rarely rising above a whisper. Nonetheless, the song really is so touching, just like a folk hymn. "Spanish Harlem" and "Save The Country" do not have a radically different mood from their studio equivalents, but the numerous medleys, though none are as good as "Monkey Time"/"Dancing In The Street", offer a great insight into the way Nyro performed hers and others songs on stage - none of them sound in any way disjointed because she flawlessly joins the songs. A most impressive document, showing Nyro's ability to vary mood and style in its absolute peak.

Live from New York, Laura as pure as you'll ever hear her:
I've been listening to Laura Nyro since 1970. This is a near-bootleg of a concert she gave in the last days of Bill Graham's Fillmore East, cleaned up by Columbia engineers but still occasionaly a little rough, just Laura and her terrific piano. Stylistically and thematically this album is very close to "Christmas and the Beads of Sweat" and a foreshadowing of "Smile". Six years or so were to pass between the release of those two albums. For the die hard fans, the main reasons to buy this are the two otherwise unobtainable songs "American Dove" and "Mother Earth" which bookend the album; the CD's title comes from a lyric of the former. Neither of these is going to add much to Laura's luster, though each is a lovely song. There is also a beta version of "I Am The Blues", very interesting historically but inferior to the versions on "Smile" and the wildly expensive Japanese CD of "Season of Lights". Even so, I am very glad I bought this disk. On this disk, Laura is a little hoarse, and while her phrasing and delivery are tremendous, her voice is not at its best. (You can hear this especially in brief remarks to the audience after "Save the Country"; maybe she had a sore throat.) On the other hand, I have never heard her play better piano than on this CD. There are at least three simply wonderful renditions of classics: "Spanish Harlem", "Map to the Treasure", and "Save the Country". The rapturous piano interlude in "Map" produces an ovation mid-song, and "Save the Country" brings the house down. On "Christmas", "Upstairs by a Chinese Lamp" bleeds into "Map to the Treasure", and on this CD, Laura begins with the last few haunting bars of "Chinese Lamp" before seguing into "Map". Very cool. "Map to the Treasure" alone justifies the purchase, but this is an unusually generous disk: more than 65 minutes of music. (Parts of two medleys appeared earlier on the remastered "Gonna Take a Miracle".) As this concert amply demonstrates, Laura Nyro loved New York, her hearth and her home.

Don't Start With This One:
If you're new to Laura Nyro -- one of the great voices of her time, a wonderful songwriter and a fine pianist -- please don't begin your collection with this CD. It appears that a lot of effort went into the remastering of these old tapes, but the unfortunate truth is that, for whatever reason, her voice sounds strained and even rather grating on this recording. There are so many better releases, live or studio, for those who want to begin a Laura Nyro collection.

A legend lives on:
What a tragedy that we've lost such a great voice. But at least this previously unreleased live recording recaptures some of the magic that was Laura Nyro. She just sang with such passion, and her voice was so sweet and her songs so powerful... this is superb stuff. And while the several cover tunes from this concert are fine, it's on Laura's own songs where she really shines. The liner notes describe how the tape of this performance was restored during the mastering process, and they did an excellent job. Certainly a few sound quality flaws remain, but overall the sound is more than adequate. There are also some performance flaws -- a few places where her voice breaks, the occasional mic feedback, etc. -- but those all just serve to make it sound more real. I'm just grateful for the chance to hear this music, including two songs making their recorded debuts! By the way, I had to do a "title search" at the store to find this CD. I finally found it in the "folk" section. I guess I don't think of Laura as a folk singer. To me her music is more universal than that.

• American Dove \o#\c
• Medley: Ain't Nothing Like the Real Thing/(You Make Me Feel Like) ...
• Spanish Harlem \o#\c
• I Am the Blues \o#\c
• Medley: Walk on By/Dancing in the Street \o#\c
• Emmie \o#\c
• Map to the Treasure \o#\c
• Christmas in My Soul \o#\c
• Save the Country \o#\c
• Medley: Timer/O-O-H Child/Up on the Roof \o#\c
• Medley: Lu/Flim Flam Man \o#\c
• Mother Earth \o#\c