Before Teena Marie there was Laura Nyro

            The tributes following the unexpected death last week of r&b star Teena Marie invariably brought up how she successfully crossed racial boundaries in a career that began at Motown Records with an album (Wild And Peaceful) that purposely left her picture off--"to give the music an opportunity to stand on its own merit," as she told Essence.com.

            In his Atlantic essay “The Indomitable Blackness of Teena Marie,” Ta-Nehisi Coates wrote, "I'm sure some of the old-heads here, can come up with a corollary, but I'm having trouble thinking of a white artist whose relationship to black music mirrored Teena Marie's. More specifically, I can't think of a white artist who was more beloved by such a large swath of black people than Teena Marie."

            One old-head would like to remind everyone that while she may not have been beloved by as large a swath of black people as Teena Marie, Laura Nyro, whose accurately titled debut album More Than A New Discovery (1967) preceded Marie's by 12 years, had a relationship to black music every bit as significant, if not more so.

            True, Nyro didn't have Marie's commercial success as a singer-songwriter, but towered over most everyone as a songwriter. Like Marie, her music was steeped in black sources--jazz, gospel, doo-wop, r&b--and also had major appeal to black artists, if not audiences.

            Her breakthrough came with her first album, which included four songs soon to be big pop hits for others in Barbra Streisand's "Stoney End," pop-r&b group Blood Sweat and Tears' "And When I Die," and black pop group the 5th Dimension's "Wedding Bell Blues"--which topped the charts--and "Blowin' Away." That group also had hits with Nyro's "Stoned Soul Picnic,", "Sweet Blindness," "Save The Country" (also a hit for Thelma Houston) and "Black Patch," while Three Dog Night scored big with "Eli's Coming" and Streisand hit again with "Time And Love" and "Flim Flam Man."

            But Nyro's own best-selling single was her cover of The Drifters' pop-r&b classic "Up on the Roof," which peaked at No. 92 in late 1970. Her earlier gospel-driven single of "Save The Country," produced by the 5th Dimension's producer Bones Howe, didn't even chart.

            Still, it's impossible to overestimate her significance and influence. Everyone from Elton John and Elvis Costello to Alice Cooper and Todd Rundgren have cited her as a model, and while she didn't make the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame after being nominated last year for the second time, she was rightfully inducted posthumously into the Songwriters Hall of Fame, for her songs have also been covered by everyone from country legend Chet Atkins to traditional pop icons like Frank Sinatra and Carmen McRae--and black music heroes including Aretha Franklin, Junior Walker and Sweet Honey in the Rock.

            For her part, Nyro paid her debt to black music both in stark subject matter like that of "Poverty Train," and in novel pop compositional structures owing as much to her acknowledged jazz heroes Miles Davis (he reportedly declined her invitation to play on her album New York Tendaberry after deciding he couldn't improve upon it) and John Coltrane (she gave him a shout-out in "Roll Of The Ocean" from her Live At The Bottom Line album: "I want Coltrane in the moon") as r&b cover sources (besides "Up On The Roof," she covered the Motown classics "Ain't Nothing Like The Real Thing" and "Dancing In The Street"). And in this regard, she recorded one of the greatest ever vocal albums in Gonna Take A Miracle, the 1971 Gamble & Huff-produced masterpiece made up of Motown and other r&b covers and sung with Labelle.

            Most recently, Kanye West built his song "The Glory" around speeded-up samples of the much-covered "Save The Country."

            "The only reason I've heard of Laura Nyro is because Kanye West sampled her," commented one YouTube viewer of a vintage Nyro performance of the song. "Though as a lover of music, I can see that she is the truth!"

            Another viewer wrote: "This brings tears to my eyes. She was a genius."

            A huge fan, Sandra Bernhard started her New Year's shows at Joe's Pub last week with "Time And Love."

            "Laura had the soul of a woman who had seen much, from this life and many others," says Bernhard. "She had the depth of a woman who carried on her shoulders the pain of others; she took on the burden and threw it in the rushes and in her melodies and the great beauty of her voice she released the hurt and sorrow and carried everyone away to heavenly heights. This is why everyone across the board, white and black, could connect--and still all these years later no one has truly taken on her mantle. Maybe no one should try."

            Laura Nyro died April 8, 1997. She was 49, same as her mother when she succumbed to the same ovarian cancer. She is missed sorely by all who continue to cherish her music.

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