Laura Nyro - Fillmore East, New York City, 12-22-1970

I'm not that big of a Laura Nyro fan, but I do particularly like her 1960s and early 1970s stuff. Unfortunately, there's no official live recording that documents that time period well. So this is an attempt to fix that. Also, for most of her albums from this time, her studio albums are done with a full band, but this is just her voice and her piano, so it's nice to hear the songs done in a different way.

There are seven official live albums of her as I write this (in early 2022), but only one of them comes from this period, "Spread Your Wings and Fly: Live at the Fillmore East, May 30, 1971." That's a fine album, but it's not fully representative of the time period because it was recorded around the time her album of soul covers "Gonna Take a Miracle" was recorded, so a big chunk of it consists of soul covers instead of originals.  

This recording is only from six months earlier, at the exact same venue. But the song list is significantly different, because it came before she really got into her soul music covers phase. There are two of those here, "Up on the Roof" and "Walk on By," as opposed to seven on the "Spread Your Wings and Fly" album. So I think if you want just one live album from her early years, this is a better one overall. It's also about ten minutes longer.

But the best thing of all is the sound quality. There aren't many Laura Nyro bootlegs from this time period, and most of them have average to poor sound quality. But this one sounds excellent, and it's definitely a soundboard. There was only one problem, and that was the loud parts were very loud and the quiet parts were very quiet. In fact, the quiet parts were so quiet that when I first heard this, I could barely even tell when she was talking between songs. However, volume is something that can be easily fixed without hurting the sound quality, so I gave this a better balance. I think it's a significantly better listen, and you can actually hear what she said between the songs (although she didn't talk much).

This concert is an hour and 15 minutes long.

01 talk (Laura Nyro)
02 He's a Runner (Laura Nyro)
03 Brown Earth (Laura Nyro)
04 When I Was Freeport and You Were the Main Drag (Laura Nyro)
05 talk (Laura Nyro)
06 Christmas in My Soul (Laura Nyro)
07 Poverty Train (Laura Nyro)
08 Emmie (Laura Nyro)
09 Gibson Street (Laura Nyro)
10 Captain for Dark Mornings - Treasure of Love (Laura Nyro)
11 Up on the Roof (Laura Nyro)
12 And When I Die (Laura Nyro)
13 Time and Love - Save the Country (Laura Nyro)
14 talk (Laura Nyro)
15 Walk On By (Laura Nyro)
16 It's Gonna Take a Miracle (Laura Nyro)
17 Tom Dooley - California Shoeshine Boy - Tom Dooley (Laura Nyro)
18 Timer (Laura Nyro) 

https://www.upload.ee/files/15262211/LauraNy_1970_FillmorEastNwYorkCity__12-22-1970_atse.zip.html

For the cover, I wanted a good color photo of her in concert from 1970, but I couldn't find one. However, I did find one of her on a TV in 1969, so I used that. I don't know the date or the name of the show.