Laura Nyro's importance in pop music is undeniably precarious. Long considered one of the genre's brilliant songwriters, her music has been covered by myriad artists from Streisand to Blood, Sweat and Tears. The sheer diversity of musicians drawn to her compositions speaks volumes of her greatness.

Nyro's own recordings, in terms of selling power, fared less well than the various cover versions. Criticized for their unbridled abandon, melodrama, self-indulgence and spontaneous mood, meter, dynamic and tonal changes, proponents of her music laud these same characteristics. New York Tendaberry is not an album for the faint of heart or the casual listener.

It makes demands, from the understated opening of You Don't Love Me When I Cry to the furious, taunting Tom Cat Goodbye. Its stresses and swells exhilirate. With a musicologists ear and a sociologists eye, she catalogues her beloved New York City, from the balcony of a Manhattan roof top to gritty Gibsom Street, seamlessly merging Broadway, Tin Pan Alley, Gospel, Folk, Jazz into an avant-garde opus of terrifying magnitued. The scope of her compositions, the bare instrumentation, the fury of her vocals and inspired piano playing reek havoc on pop music, trembling its core, shattering its mirrors and clamboring from the debris to recast the mold of music.

This album should be required listening for the human race.

Well............... since 1970 my sister gave me this LP... not since then has any female artist come close to speaking to our goddess soul.. I had to call all my sisters with one brief message to say it was out on CD, what more can I say? She is ours!

I remember the first time I heard Laura Nyro. I was an alienated teenager in the 1960s, and her musicjust grabbed me, even though it was nothing I'd ever heard before. This was straight-from-the-heart gospel that spoke to me. Even as a teenager she could express the deepest fears and emotions imaginable.

I own all her CD (and the LPs before that, too) but these new remastered CDs add a dimension to the sound- particularly on the quietr, more intimate pieces like "You Don't Love Me When I Cry". This album is much more introspective and personal than her earlier "Eli and the Thirteenth Confession", and for some listeners, harder to approach. But it has what I think are her two finest songs: "Time and Love" and "Save the Country". The first is an emotional, heartfelt and joyous celebration of the healing power of time and love, and the other, a celebration of life and a plea for peace and love.

Back in the day, when the New York airwaves were full of all kinds of music and FM radio had such notables like Rosco and Allison Steele (the Nightbird) the songs lifted me up and carried me away from the drudgery of High School in Newark, NJ. Instead of tracing geometric figures in Mechanical Drawing class, a friend and I would swap tales about the music and the great labels that had the courage to put all kinds of music in the public's ear. Atlantic, Elektra/Nonesuch, Motown, Warner Bros. and Columbia all come to mind. But a few singer/songwriter's efforts stand out: Van Morrison's Astral Weeks and Laura Nyro's New York Tendaberry are notable in their honesty. Tendaberry is such a New York album. Granted, Dylan, Joni Mitchell, the Velvet Underground and others have invoked Gotham, but Tendaberry truly takes you on a journey to a neighborhood fraught with peril and vulnerability.

When Tendaberry came out, I rushed home and put it on my record player and waited. And waited. I was shocked by this quiet gem. Where were the sons and daughters of Eli? I had to stop, quiet myself, read the liner notes and then, when I had the time to listen, it made perfect sense.

My only criticism of the work is that, for me, the order of songs should be reversed. Let me explain. Side one of the LP starts with "You Don't Love Me When I Cry" and ends with "Save the Country" - bold, brash and brassy. Side two starts with "Gibsom Street and ended with "Sweet Lovin' Baby". Much too quiet after the ending of Side One. So, before the advent of CD's and programmable CD players, I decided to reverse the order and tape Side Two first and then Side One. On playback, the emotional journey and mood are, to me, much more sustainable and rewarding. Give it a chance. Enjoy the journey.

You can listen to the extra cuts later.

I bought the remastered version based on an earlier customer review which said much off the distortion of the earlier CD is gone. The remastered CD sounds just as distorted to me. Because this new CD is slightly brighter, I think it masks some of the distortion, but only some. The other difference is the new CD has a louder overall volume, but it doesn't sound more compressed than the old one, I think the transfer is just louder.

If you don't have this album you could get either the old or new cd, the new one is perfectly acceptable, I don't consider it too bright on it's own. But when A/B'd with the old CD, I give a slight edge to the original (due to a slightly warmer sound). I always thought the original NY Tendaberry was much better sounding than the original Eli CD, which I find tinny. I look forward to hearing the remaster of Eli.

For those who have the original CD already: the new CD does have the great mono single version of Save the Country (recorded a year earlier than the album version, different arrangement with drums) and a few cute pictures of Laura I've never seen before.