ROIO of the Week [Recordings of Indeterminate Origin]

Laura Nyro unplugged. This is just Nyro and her piano, intimate and friendly. We think this beats the officially released, Spread Your Wings And Fly, which was a more pop-oriented live album, five months after this show. On this night, the Vietnam War, poverty and racism are on her mind and it all pours out passionately in the music. It was 35 years ago and America was at war then as it is now.
- The Little Chicken

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Laura Nyro
Three Nights Before Christmas 1970 [no label 1CD]
Fillmore East, New York City, December 22, 1970.

Laura Nyro's Christmas concerts were legendary. She carried on this tradition till 1994. The next year, she was diagnosed with ovarian cancer. Only Laura Nyro Live: The Loom's Desire (on Rounder records) documents the 1993 and 1994 Christmas concerts. But this fan recording captures Nyro at her peak just after a trio of classic albums - Eli and the 13th Confession (1968), New York Tendaberry (1969) and Christmas and the Beads of Sweat (1970). Many of her most-loved songs are played solo with Nyro on piano - Emmie, It's Gonna Take A Miracle, And When I Die, Save the Country, Time and Love and When I Was A Freeport and You Were the Main Drag. Had Nyro lived, she would be right out front protesting the War on Iraq. In 1970, she performed her latest song, Christmas in My Soul, her peaceful soul anguished by the Vietnam War and the brutal toll on civil liberties and lives. Interestingly, on this recording, she reads it as a poem and perhaps it's important to read the lyric as well:

I love my country as it dies
In war and pain before my eyes
I walk the streets where disrespect has been
The sins of politics, the politics of sin
The heartlessness that darkens my soul
On Christmas.
Red and silver on the leaves
Fallen white snow runs softly through the trees
Madonnas weep for wars of hell
They blow out the candles and haunt Noel
The missing love that rings through the work
On Christmas.
Black panther brothers bound in jail
Chicago seven and the justice scale
Homeless Indian on Manhattan Isle
All God's sons have gone to trial
And all God's love is out of style
On Christmas.
Now the time has come to fight
Laws of book of love burn bright
People you must win the day
America your dignity
For all the high court world to see
Christmas in my soul
Christmas in my soul
Christmas in my soul.

Merry Christmas Laura. You are still in our souls. - Philip Cheah

Click on the highlighted tracks to download the MP3s (these are high quality, stereo MP3s - sample rate of 192 kibit/s). As far as we can ascertain, these tracks have never been officially released.

These tracks are no longer available for download. Kindly email us at singbigo@singnet.com.sg if you want to download these tracks at a later time.

Note: *As the song segues into Treasure Of Love there is a slight warp at 8:13m on the tape causing the song to seemingly skip.

There is also a 2004 Laura Nyro live album, Spread Your Wings And Fly: Live At The Fillmore East, that contains her performance in the same venue on May 30, 1971, five months after this show. You can buy Laura Nyro albums here:
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