Laura Nyro

New York Tendaberry

COLUMBIA 1969, DOWNLOAD £7.99 You say: “There weren’t any hits, but its wonders are endless.” Stephen Garcia, via e-mail

Eli And The Thirteenth Confession and Christmas And The Beads Of Sweat could conceivably top this list but New York Tendaberry, the album released between those two releases, shades it. It’s partly the thematic depth (a haunted love song to New York City and the men who hurt her) and partly the dynamic: Nyro recorded voice-and-piano tracks for producer Roy Hallee to add chiaroscuro effects. For a record that often sounds bathed in candlelight, it’s often scary, opening with the peak diva lament You Don’t Love Me When I Cry, through a galloping Captain Saint Lucifer and the manically shifting Gibsom Street, “where the devil is hungry, the devil is sweet”. The euphoric triumphs Time And Love and Save The Country provided the ballast against the bloodletting.