Blue Eyed Soul: Part 3

Born Rosemarie Timotea Aurro, Timi Yuro had the voice of a big black man trapped in the body of a petite Italian-American woman and was known as "the little girl with the big voice" for her powerful pipes. She had a string of hits in the early 60s starting with the melodramatic "Hurt" in 1961 which is probably her best-known number. Her recordings are a bit all over the map stylistically, while her record company kept trying to push her into adult easy listening she hopped around from girl-group pop to uptown soul and even country music. On the Phil Spector-produced "What's A Matter Baby (Is It Hurting You)" from 1962 she turns in a powerhouse performance that crushes all before it like Godzilla on a rampage in Tokyo. It's a pity she didn't make any other records with Spector as her chandelier-shaking vocals were a perfect match for his Wall of Sound. She was a hell of a talent and you really should check out the excellent The Lost Voice of Soul! compilation, and if you want more The Voice That Got Away gathers up the rest of her output.

Laura Nyro was another white chick with a whole lot of soul packed into her body. A true original who was probably too original at times for her own good, she's best known as a writer of songs that were hits for other people like "Wedding Bell Blues" and "Stoned Soul Picnic" (The Fifth Dimension) "And When I Die" (Blood, Sweat & Tears) and "Eli's Coming" (Three Dog Night). Her love of gospel and soul is evident on the fabulous "Stoney End" from her 1966 debut album The First Songs (originally titled "More Than a New Discovery") This was a big hit for Barbra Streisand in 1971 but Nyro's version just stomps Babs' into the ground. The whole album is a sterling example of classic Brill Building pop songwriting that's amazing for someone who was only 20 at the time. Nyro probably could have gone on to become another Carole King but she went down a far more idiosyncratic road on subsequent albums like Eli and the Thirteenth Confession and New York Tendaberry. I'd file these under "brilliant but difficult" with their often defiantly uncommercial, jazz-influenced arrangements and Nyro's emotionally unrestrained vocals which even Björk would find a little jarring at times. On her 1971 album Gonna Take a Miracle she returned to her roots with a collection of covers of classic soul songs recorded in collaboration with a then-unknown vocal group called Labelle and produced by a then-virtually-unknown Gamble & Huff. If you don't want to get the original albums there's a couple of compilations available: Stoned Soul Picnic: The Best of Laura Nyro is a pretty comprehensive 2-CD set but Time & Love: Essential Masters is probably a better place to start.

Sadly both of these ladies died of cancer recently, Nyro in 1997 and Yuro in March of this year.

[Download]
What's A Matter Baby (Is It Hurting You) - Timi Yuro
Stoney End - Laura Nyro