Laura Nyro’s New York Tendaberry still sounds like a private storm in the city

Laura Nyro’s New York Tendaberry received a fresh 24 May classic-album spotlight, making it a meaningful 25 May heritage carryover. Originally released in 1969, the album remains one of the great strange monuments of singer-songwriter history. Nyro had already proven that other artists could turn her songs into hits, but New York Tendaberry was something else entirely: intimate, theatrical, urban, spiritual and almost allergic to conventional pop smoothness.

Much of the record centers on Nyro’s piano and voice, but the emotional scale is enormous. Songs seem to pause, surge, collapse and start again according to their own inner weather. That is what makes the album still relevant to an indie audience. Nyro’s work was independent in spirit even when operating inside the music business, because she trusted her own rhythms more than the marketplace’s expectations. New York becomes both place and pressure on this record: a city of longing, bruised tenderness, private prayer and street-corner intensity. For a 25 May digest, the renewed attention is worth including because heritage is not just nostalgia. Sometimes an old record returns to remind everyone how strange, free and uncompromising songcraft can be when the artist refuses to behave. Source: https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/laura-nyro-new-york-tendaberry