Over three years after the release of its 8LP vinyl box set American Dreamer 1967-1978, the Madfish label is returning to the discography of late singer-songwriter Laura Nyro for the December 6 release of Hear My Song: The Collection 1966-1995.  Whereas American Dreamer chronicled Nyro's first decade of music, the 19CD Hear My Song is a career-spanning appreciation of the artist who influenced such talents as Elton John, Barry Manilow, Todd Rundgren, Stephen Schwartz, Rickie Lee Jones, Melissa Manchester, and Jenny Lewis.

While Nyro as an artist only notched one Hot 100 hit - ironically, a cover of Carole King and Gerry Goffin's "Up on the Roof" - her hits as a songwriter were prodigious including "Wedding Bell Blues," "Stoned Soul Picnic," "Sweet Blindness," "Blowin' Away," and "Save the Country" for The 5th Dimension; "Stoney End," "Time and Love," and "Hands Off the Man (Flim Flam Man)" for Barbra Streisand; "Eli's Coming" for Three Dog Night; and "And When I Die" for Blood, Sweat & Tears.  Nyro's songs were also recorded by Peggy Lee, Frankie Valli, Thelma Houston, Peggy Lipton, Bobbie Gentry, The Supremes, Cass Elliot, and countless others.  As an album artist, her towering early works - More Than a New Discovery, Eli and the Thirteenth Confession, and New York Tendaberry - revealed a powerful voice both deeply personal and utterly universal.

Melding pop, soul, jazz, gospel, R&B, and Broadway theatricality, Nyro opened up new doors for female singer-songwriters while redefining the craft for all.  Stephen Sondheim, Alice Cooper, and Bette Midler were among her fans.  Laura's 1971 collaboration with Labelle (and Kenny Gamble, Leon Huff, Thom Bell, and the musicians of MFSB) was a simultaneously raw and lush journey through the soul music that inspired her, and though her later albums were often more experimental and less conventionally melodic, they were unfailingly original. Rundgren ruminated in an interview with puremusic.com, "I think there is that more sophisticated R&B thing or the Burt Bacharach side of pop music that involves not just chords that are richer, major and minor sevenths and suspensions and things like that, but the sort of melodic movement and the classical counterpoint elements--that's one of the things that attracted me. But I know for a fact that her influences were the more sophisticated side of R&B, like Jerry Ragovoy and Mann & Weil and Carole King. That is Laura Nyro's lineage. She was a source for that, in a sense, and she also had her own very original and very jazz-influenced way of seeing things. It was that extra layer that made her influential."

Hear My Song includes the following studio albums released during Nyro's lifetime (1947-1997):

• More Than a New Discovery (1967, Mono and Stereo on 1 CD);
• Eli and the Thirteenth Confession (1968, Mono and Stereo on 2 CDs);
• New York Tendaberry (1969);
• Christmas and the Beads of Sweat (1970);
• Gonna Take a Miracle - with Labelle (1971);
• Smile (1976);
• Nested (1978);
• Mother's Spiritual (1984); and
• Walk the Dog and Light the Light (1993).

Additionally, the set includes:

• The posthumously-released Angel in the Dark (2001);

and a host of live albums, including two previously unreleased sets:

• Spread Your Wings and Fly: Live at the Fillmore East - May 30, 1971 (2004);
• Season of Lights: Laura Nyro in Concert [Expanded Edition] (1977);
• Live / The Loom's Desire: The Bottom Line, New York, NY, December 24, 1993 (2002);
• Live in San Francisco, New Orleans Room, Fairmont Hotel, April 28, 1994 (previously unreleased);
• Live in San Francisco, New Orleans Room, Fairmont Hotel, May 7, 1994 (previously unreleased); and
• Live / The Loom's Desire: The Bottom Line, New York, NY, December 24, 1994 (2002).

The box is rounded out with a reprise of Go Find the Moon: The 1966 Audition Tape, comprising Nyro's earliest recordings as originally released by the Omnivore label in 2021, and a disc of 18 rarities - both non-LP singles and bonus tracks added to subsequent album reissues.

Is this everything?  Not quite.  Hear My Song doesn't include 1989's Laura: Live at the Bottom Line (recorded in 1988), 2000's Live from Mountain Stage (recorded in 1990), or 2003's Live in Japan (recorded in 1994).  There are still odds and ends out there, including the 1983 Kenny Rankin duet "Polonaise," Laura's duet with Manhattan Transfer on Thom Bell and Linda Creed's Delfonics hit "La-La Means I Love You," and a cover of Stevie Wonder's "Creepin'" included on CD with a printed songbook.  Happily, though, Hear My Song liberates the many bonus tracks from various, hard-to-find (and expensive) CD reissues and also includes the original mono versions of More Than a New Discovery and Eli and the Thirteenth Confession, both of which were first brought to CD by Second Disc Records and Real Gone Music on 2017's A Little Magic, A Little Kindness: The Complete Mono Albums Collection.

All albums have been remastered especially for this collection, and all discs (housed in replica jackets) are stored in a lift-off-lid box.  A 90-page hardcover "coffee table"-style book is included, featuring liner notes by Vivien Goldman and forewords from Elton John, Laura's brother Jan Nigro, and her son Gil Bianchini.  Commentary is provided by friends, fans, and collaborators such as Charlie Calello, Will Lee, John Sebastian, Jackson Browne, Clive Davis, Lou Adler, Randy Brecker, Bernard "Pretty" Purdie, Scott Billington, and Gary Burden.  The book also contains previously unpublished family photographs.

This deluxe and comprehensive tribute to one of pop's most enduring artists arrives from Madfish on December 6.  You'll find the track listing and pre-order links below.  As an Amazon affiliate, we earn from qualifying purchases. (Amazon links aren't yet live.)

Laura Nyro, Hear My Song: The Collection 1966-1995 (Madfish SMABX1284 (U.K.), 2024) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada / Madfish)

CD 1: More Than a New Discovery (mono, 1-12; stereo, 13-24 - released as Verve Folkways LP FT/S-3020, 1967)

1. Goodbye Joe
2. Billy's Blues
3. And When I Die
4. Stoney End
5. Lazy Susan
6. Hands Off the Man (Flim Flam Man)
7. Wedding Bell Blues
8. Buy and Sell
9. He's a Runner
10. Blowin' Away
11. I Never Meant to Hurt You
12. California Shoeshine Boys

CD 2: Eli and the Thirteenth Confession (mono promo edition of Columbia CS 9626, 1968)

1. Luckie
2. Lu
3. Sweet Blindness
4. Poverty Train
5. Lonely Women
6. Eli's Comin'
7. Timer
8. Stoned Soul Picnic
9. Emmie
10. Woman's Blues
11. Once It Was Alright Now (Farmer Joe)
12. December's Boudoir
13. The Confession

CD 3: Eli and the Thirteenth Confession (stereo - released as Columbia CS 9626, 1968 - same track list as above disc)

CD 4: New York Tendaberry (released as Columbia KCS 9737, 1969)

1. You Don't Love Me When I Cry
2. Captain for Dark Mornings
3. Tom Cat Goodbye
4. Mercy on Broadway
5. Save the Country
6. Gibsom Street
7. Time and Love
8. The Man Who Sends Me Home
9. Sweet Lovin' Baby
10. Captain Saint Lucifer
11. New York Tendaberry

CD 5: Christmas and the Beads of Sweat (released as Columbia KC 30259, 1970)

1. Brown Earth
2. When I Was a Freeport and You Were the Main Drag
3. Blackpatch
4. Been on a Train
5. Up on the Roof
6. Upstairs by a Chinese Lamp
7. Map to the Treasure
8. Beads of Sweat
9. Christmas in My Soul

CD 6: Gonna Take a Miracle (with Labelle - released as Columbia KC 30987, 1971)

1. I Met Him on a Sunday
2. The Bells
3. Monkey Time/Dancing in the Street
4. Desiree
5. You've Really Got a Hold on Me
6. Spanish Harlem
7. Jimmy Mack
8. The Wind
9. Nowhere to Run
10. It's Gonna Take a Miracle

CD 7: Smile (released as Columbia PC 33912, 1976)

1. Sexy Mama
2. Children of the Junks
3. Money
4. I Am the Blues
5. Stormy Love
6. The Cat-Song
7. Midnite Blue
8. Smile

CD 8: Nested (released as Columbia JC 35449, 1978)

1. Mr. Blue (Song of Communications)
2. Rhythm & Blues
3. My Innocence
4. Crazy Love
5. American Dreamer
6. Springblown
7. The Sweet Sky
8. Light-Pop's Principle
9. Child in a Universe
10. The Nest
11. Emmie/The Nest

CD 9: Mother's Spiritual (released as Columbia FC 39215, 1984)

1. To a Child...
2. The Right to Vote
3. A Wilderness
4. Melody in the Sky
5. Late for Love
6. A Free Thinker
7. Man in the Moon
8. Talk to a Green Tree
9. Trees of the Ages
10. The Brighter Song
11. Roadnotes
12. Sophia
13. Mother's Spiritual
14. Refrain

CD 10: Walk the Dog & Light the Light (released as Columbia CK 52411, 1993)

1. Oh Yeah Maybe Baby (The Heebie Jeebies)
2. A Woman of the World
3. The Descent of Luna Rose
4. Art of Love
5. Lite a Flame (The Animal Rights Song)
6. Louise's Church
7. Broken Rainbow
8. Walk the Dog & Light the Light (Song of the Road)
9. To a Child
10. Medley: I'm So Proud/Dedicated to the One I Love

CD 11: Angel in the Dark (released as Rounder 11661-3176-2, 2001)

1. Angel in the Dark
2. Triple Goddess Twilight
3. Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow
4. He Was Too Good to Me
5. Sweet Dream Fade
6. Serious Playground
7. Be Aware
8. Let It Be Me
9. Gardenia Talk
10. Ooh Baby, Baby
11. Embraceable You
12. La La Means I Love You
13. Walk On By
14. Animal Grace
15. Don't Hurt Child
16. Coda/Come and Get These Memories

CD 12: Spread Your Wings and Fly: Live at the Fillmore East, May 30th, 1971 (Columbia/Legacy CK 92493, 2004)

1. American Dove
2. Medley: Ain't Nothing Like the Real Thing/(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman
3. Spanish Harlem
4. I Am the Blues
5. Medley: Walk On By/Dancing in the Street
6. Emmie
7. Map to the Treasure
8. Christmas in My Soul
9. Save the Country
10. Medley: Timer/O-o-h Child/Up on the Roof
11. Medley: Lu/Flim Flam Man
12. Mother Earth

CD 13: Season of Lights...Laura Nyro in Concert

1. Money
2. Sweet Lovin' Baby
3. And When I Die
4. The Morning News
5. Upstairs by a Chinese Lamp
6. I Am the Blues
7. When I Was a Freeport and You Were the Main Drag
8. Captain St. Lucifer
9. Smile
10. Mars
11. Sweet Blindness
12. The Cat-Song
13. Emmie
14. The Confession
15. Timer
16. Midnite Blue
17. Timer (Alternate)
18. Emmie (Alternate)

All tracks recorded live in 1976. Tracks 1-16 released as Columbia promo JG 34331, 1977. Tracks 1, 3, 5, 7-8, 11-15 released in different order as Columbia PC 34786, 1977. Tracks 17-18 released on Sony Japan SICP 1957, 2008 and Track 17 released on Iconoclassic Records ICON 1002, 2008

CD 14: Live / The Loom's Desire: The Bottom Line, New York, NY, December 24, 1993 (released as first disc of Rounder 11661-3186-2, 2002)

1. Oh Yeah, Maybe Baby (The Heebie Jeebies)
2. Dedicated to the One I Love
3. The Wind
4. Lite a Flame (The Animal Rights Song)
5. Walk the Dog & Light the Light (Song of the Road)
6. To a Child
7. And When I Die
8. Japanese Restaurant Song
9. My Innocence/Sophia
10. Wedding Bell Blues
11. Art of Love
12. Emmie
13. Let It Be Me

CD 15: Live in San Francisco, New Orleans Room, Fairmont Hotel, April 28, 1994 (previously unreleased)

1. Dedicated to the One I Love
2. A Woman of the World
3. Gardenia Talk
4. Save the Country
5. Oh Yeah Maybe Baby (The Heebie Jeebies)
6. Lite a Flame (The Animal Rights Song)
7. Walk the Dog & Light the Light (Song of the Road)
8. Japanese Restaurant Song
9. To a Child
10. The Descent of Luna Rose
11. Broken Rainbow
12. And When I Die
13. The Wild World
14. Louise's Church
15. The Wind
16. Blowin' Away
17. Trees of the Ages
18. Emmie
19. It's Gonna Take a Miracle
20. Let It Be Me

CD 16: Live in San Francisco, New Orleans Room, Fairmont Hotel, May 7, 1994 (previously unreleased)

1. Dedicated to the One I Love
2. A Woman of the World
3. Gardenia Talk
4. Save the Country
5. Oh Yeah Maybe Baby (The Heebie Jeebies)
6. Lite a Flame (The Animal Rights Song)
7. Walk the Dog & Light the Light (Song of the Road)
8. Japanese Restaurant Song
9. To a Child
10. The Descent of Luna Rose
11. Broken Rainbow
12. The Wild World
13. Louise's Church
14. The Wind
15. Blowin' Away/Wedding Bell Blues
16. Trees of the Ages/Emmie
17. It's Gonna Take a Miracle/Ooo Baby Baby
18. Let It Be Me

CD 17: Live / The Loom's Desire: The Bottom Line, New York, NY, December 24, 1994 (released as second disc of Rounder 11661-3186-2, 2002)

1. Angel in the Dark
2. Gardenia Talk
3. Save the Country
4. Louise's Church
5. Wild World
6. A Woman of the World
7. The Descent of Luna Rose
8. Broken Rainbow
9. Blowin' Away/Wedding Bell Blues
10. Trees of the Ages/Emmie
11. Ooo Baby Baby

CD 18: Go Find the Moon (The Audition Tape)

1. And When I Die
2. Lazy Susan (False Start)
3. Enough of You
4. In and Out
5. Go Find the Moon
6. Luckie/Studio Talk
7. When Sunny Gets Blue (Fragment)/Kansas City (Fragment)/I Only Want to Be with You (Fragment)
8. Lazy Susan

CD 19: Rarities and Live Recordings

1. Stoney End (Mono Single Version)
2. Eli's Comin' (Mono Single Version)
3. Save the Country (Mono Single Version)
4. Lu (Demo)
5. Stoned Soul Picnic (Demo)
6. Emmie (Demo)
7. Save the Country (Single Version)
8. In the Country Way
9. Someone Loves You (Demo)
10. Get Me My Cap (Demo)
11. Coffee Morning (Demo)
12. Man in the Moon (Live)
13. Let It Be Me/The Christmas Song
14. He Was Too Good to Me
15. Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow
16. Angel in the Dark (Alternate Version)
17. Ooh Baby, Baby (Alternate Version)
18. Don't Hurt the Child (Alternate Version)

Track 1 released on Verve Folkways single KF-5024. 1966
Track 2 released on Columbia single 4-44531, 1968
Track 3 released on Columbia single 4-44592, 1968
Tracks 4-6 released on Eli and the Thirteenth Confession reissue - Columbia/Legacy CK 85763, 2002
Track 7 released on Columbia single 4-45089, 1969
Track 8 released on New York Tendaberry reissue - Columbia/Legacy CK 85764, 2002
Tracks 9-11 released on Smile Japanese reissue - Sony Records Int'l SICP 1956, 2008
Track 12 released on Mother's Spiritual Japanese reissue - Sony Records Int'l SICP 1959, 2008
Tracks 13-15 released on Walk the Dog & Light the Light Japanese reissue - Sony Records Int'l SICP 1960, 2008
Tracks 16-18 released on Angel in the Dark Super Audio CD - Rounder 11661-3176-6, 2001