Rating: 
Summary: Very easy to read, though not perfectly detailed
Review: "Soul Picnic" was, in the words of author Michele Kort, written in an effort to keep the legacy of Laura Nyro alive after she succumbed to ovarian cancer at the age of 49. Nyro was an extremely private person, and Michele Kort is very careful about describing her intentions in writing "Soul Picnic".Nonetheless (or perhaps because of Nyro's privacy), "Soul Picnic" is by no means a difficult read at almost any point. The book is structured in a very clear chronological way, from Laura's beginnings to her last recordings in 1995. We see very clearly that Nyro was the child of some strongly left-wing immigrants and that this gave her an impressive social vision on her recordings, and later the example of her maternal grandfather Isidore Mirsky in avoiding meat. We then learn how Nyro grew up singing to the sounds of doo-wop and Motown in the early 1960s, beginning to write songs at a very young age before being discovered in the middle 1960s. In the following years, Laura Nyro developed incredibly with her music through the use of extremely complex chord shapes that were actually her own devising. However, though we see how her songs were altered by such artists as Three Dog Night and the Fifth Dimension to make them palatable to mass audiences, Nyro herself was determined, once a seemingly "edited" single version of "Save The Country" failed to chart, never to compromise again. Here, we see, though, many descriptions that cannot fit my impression of her work - I find Michele may not have what I would call an accurate perspective on it. The book is not as good in describing Nyro's actual recorded output as it is in giving a good impression of her life. [Actually, her post-"Christmas And The Beads Of Sweat" recordings were much more conventional than her seminal early albums, but the later albums were so ideologically stringent that she could never attract more than a tiny cult audience for them]. We see in detail the significance of her influence on generations of singer/songwriters beginning with the mystical "Sophia", Kate Bush and the enigmatic confessional Rickie Lee Jones, and there is a good discussion of how singer/songwriters eveolved while Nyro herself was out of the spotlight during her failed marriage. We also see a reasonable description of Nyro's romantic life, including several failed romances with men in the music business (including Jackson Browne) and an unsuccessful marriage to carpenter David Bianchini and a romance with "gypsy" Gregory Bennett before she returned to make "Smile" and "Nested" in the late 1970s. After this untimely comeback, we see that most of the rest of Laura Nyro's life was lived with her son (fathered by an Indian man whom she refused to marry) and painter Maria Desiderio. She recorded only occasionally during this time, but Kort very clearly shows how she was not a reclusive woman, frequently moving away from her quiet cottage in Danbury, Connecticut to more urban environs in Massachussetts and Ithaca (upstate New York). She even would stay for a month in places as far afloat as Florida, and we learn about her very sweet tooth and love of fancy food - even though she managed to become a vegan and quit smoking, she always has problems with her weight. We see that she became a working musician - though not recording much - before she was diagnosed with terminal ovarian cancer after Patti DiLauria had noticed she was not well in early 1995. In these days, she was not interested in much more than her "tribe", yet she got a few quite respectable reviews for "Walk The Dog And Light The Light" - after having moved away from Columbia due to its demand of a studio album back in 1988 when she toured for the first time in ten years. We also see how she created "Mother's Spiritual" while at home rearing Gil, her son, and how she devloped the material of her later albums. Michele Kort concludes with an impressive finale about the originality and importance of Laura Nyro, and the way in which her music has retained its relevance six years after she died. Yet, she does admit that her enduring originality as "the mother of all earth mothers" (the inventor of intensely feminine popular music) is not fully appreciated. On the whole, very easy reading even if you are not familiar with Nyro, but could do with more accurate song descriptions.
Rating: 
Summary: long awaited
Review: Book critics will focus on Kort's writing style. So what! No one else cared to write a long overdue biography of Laura Nyro. Nyro was a very private and protective of her life so we couldn't of expected it from her herself. Soul Picnic gives the story of her life and the facts, and that is well worth the effort. Over the years little articles and stories about Laura have been published & now I see that so much of that was told wrong. We now have her life story to read and enjoy...and continue to "wonder" about.
Rating:
Summary: An ace job.
Review: Considering the lengths Laura Nyro went to to keep her private life out of the public eye, it's amazing that we have this book at all, let alone that it's as well put-together as it is. Michele Kort does a first-rate job in showing the evolution of Nyro, her music and her outlook on life, which was always key to how her muse took hold. What you end up with is a portrait of a woman steadfastly true to herself, no matter the cost to her career. I'm left with admiration for her, admittedly tempered by a feeling that not every choice she made was a good one. No matter; this is a well-drawn biography of an interesting and uniquely talented person who made some unforgettable music.
Rating:
Summary: I Feel Like I know Laura
Review: From the first time I heard her on the radio singing "Save The Country", I have been enamored with Laura Nyro. I loved her voice, piano and songs, and thought her work on New York Tendaberry was some of the best and most unique work I had ever heard. I also liked her looks and her demeanor. I liked her so much, I wrote her an affectionate letter via Columbia Records in 1969, but, to my regret, she never answered.
Michele Kort, in her outstanding biography of Laura, has made me feel like I did get a chance to meet her, afterall. Her writing pulled me in from the first page, and I felt like I was right along side of Laura as I relived her ascendancy to musical greatness. Ms. Kort informs the reader of many interesting facts, such as Ms. Nyro having been named by her musician father after the song from the classic movie, Laura, and that she had lots of training in voice but had fairly limited piano training.
Ms. Kort takes us through all Laura's albums, what was going on in her life when they were being conceived, developed and recorded, who produced and engineered them, who the other musicians and vocalists were, and the various negotiations Laura engaged in with the record companies to get the result she wanted. I found this information of great interest and I would not have minded at all if the book had been another three hundred pages.
Most gratifying was that Michele Kort has written a quite detailed book which gives the reader a very good sense of Laura and some of her idiosyncrasies, but she always treats her with the greatest respect. Over and over, through the many people who knew Laura and are quoted, one realizes that Laura was a genuinely sweet, kind person who was steadfastly more interested in the integrity of her music than any commercial success that others may have urged her toward.
I fully recommend this book to anyone, particularly to those who are Laura Nyro fans. After reading it, I feel even more sad that she passed on so early, but I at least feel like I got to know her a bit. While she never answered my letter those many years ago, I feel like I finally got to meet her and know her, and I'm even more enamored with her than before.
Rating:
Summary: Interesting bio; great tuna fish recipe!
Review: I am not this book's demographic: I can't own up to being a Laura Nyro fan beyond those hit covers by the Fifth Dimension et al; nor have I any birthright to claim Laura as a role model or soul sister. But I was captivated by this engaging and well-documented look at the career arc of a pop icon as she became the darling of the music world and an adoring fan base and then broke free to follow her ever-meandering muse. Michele Kort does a masterful job of detailing Laura's work; clearly a fan, she doesn't shy away from stressing Laura's reputation as an acquired taste and gives us equal doses of critical kudos and raspberries. The bio is a little short on personal detail, likely because the author did not have access to her subject and because Nyro was guarded and reclusive. The book does offer a very even-handed assessment of an artist's artist whose major contribution has been her influence. It also offers interesting glimpses into the workings of the music biz (Nyro's break with David Geffen is the stuff of legend); again, Kort is to be commended for giving us the evidence and letting us draw our own conclusions. Last but certainly not least: the world finally learns Ms. Nyro's fabled recipe for tuna fish! I tried it, and it's great!
Rating:
Summary: Gonna Take A Miracle To Read A Better Biography
Review: I confess. I belong to the tribe of souls who have long worshiped at the altar of Laura Nyro. Most of us were there back in 1967 at the beginning of her career, when her voice and piano first tore through our consciousness, awakening us, and it forever altered our relationship to music and melody. Her music has been the central soundtrack to our lives, but not just as background sound, we cared about her music as art, it reached us at the deepest levels of our hearts and souls and it transfigured and healed many of us. Indeed, we experienced it as religion, and it has never left us. We are a unique breed of fans in that Laura Nyro is more than our favorite singer/songwriter. We believe we were "saved" by her music. Michelle Kort understands this essential nature of those us in the tribe, and we have waited a long long time for someone as capable as she to write Laura's story. She has done an absolutely fantastic job with this biography, especially given the difficulty of the task. Difficult because no other figure in popular music remained as mysterious and elusive and unpenetrable as Laura did throughout her life. She firecely protected her privacy at the expense of her career, and she so singularly, uncompromisingly pursued her craft without a thought to self-promotion, that consequently very little about either her personal or professional life was ever revealed to the public. We who have loved and listened to Laura for over 30 years had to settle for the occasional rare interview, or little scraps of news and gossip, often inaccurate, passed down through the tribe and endlessy debated among ourselves. Michelle Kort's miracle of a book corrects this long silence and finally tells the story we have breathlessly waited for most of our lives. The book is filled with revelations and surprises as Kort lifts the veil and illuminates a life so long hidden in shadow. I suspect Kort herself is a tribe member but this is not the adoring gushings of a star struck fan. It is a balanced, meticulously researched and objective portrait, and with the full cooperation of Nyro's friends, family and the musicians she worked with, Laura Nyro the girl, the woman and the artist, finally is given life and we are able to see and know her in a way impossible until now. That is the true wonder of this marvelous book and the stunning achievment of this mesmerizing biography. That it is Kort's first book is remarkable and she should be very proud. And for those of us who still carry the torch for Laura, we are so grateful to Michele Kort for telling us this story we so longed and needed to hear.
Rating:
Summary: The book Laura Nyro fans have been waiting for for decades
Review: I first got intensely into Laura Nyro in 1984, and was surprised to find 0 books about her. Well 18 years later and 5 years after her passing comes her 1st biography. Many of the blanks are now filled in in this heavily researched story of Laura's life.
It takes you from her family history and her Bronx childhood to the intricacies of one of the most influential (but underappreciated) musical careers of the 20th century. We see her evolve toward music from day one with a musician father, freethinking grandfather, compassionate mother, and the beauty of New York City chaos for inspiration. She came to fruition in the 1960s; in my opinion she was not ahead of her time, not timeless, but OF her time, the perfect time for self-actualizing artists. And her 1960s work is a vital tap into the collective consciousness of that mind-expansive decade.
Here all the details are covered of the recording sessions, the relationships, the politics. And hers is also a post-1960s story that shows what not selling out really means. As the author says, the most important thing we should know about her is already there in her music, for us to discover.
Rating:
Summary: A Loving Tribute to a Lasting Artist
Review: I have been a fan of the writing of Michele Kort in The Advocate magazine for years. I share at least some of her same passions---the imperial Dusty Springfield and the fiery Aretha Franklin to name just two. Now Kort has turned her perfect prose to one of the most gifted musician/composers of the last 40 years, Laura Nyro. This book, like Nyro, is soulful and searing and honest and breathtaking. Also like Laura, Kort hits all the right notes. The section dealing with Nyro almost leaving Clive Davis and Columbia Records for David Geffen's newly-hatched Asylum is hypnotic and ultimately sad. This book is insightful not just about Laura Nyro but also what the biz part of the music industry was like for a strong-willed, supremely-gifted female. I know that right now Laura is smiling up there in that great nightclub in the sky. I can just see her happily passing the single red rose from her piano top to the richly-deserving author of this book.
Rating:
Summary: A must-read for anyone interested in pop-music
Review: I have read a great number of "rock/pop" star bographies and have almost always been disappointed. So I was nervous when I started to read "Soul Picnic" because Laura Nyro has always been a huge personal favorite. My trepedations were quickly allayed. Michelle Kort has done an extraordinary job. As someone who knows every word on every album and has read every word about Laura Nyro that I could get my hands on, I was constantly impressed with how thorough and organized this book was. I never felt ripped-off or let down -- she covers everything beautifully. She also has great musical taste and offers very helpful opinions. I couldn't be happier with this book and hope that many, many people read it and discover the brilliance of this under-rated singer/songwriter.
Rating:
Summary: Breezed Past Page 65 Two Times!!!!
Review: I must say I identified with a fellow reviewer who struggled with this book and was unable to get past page 65. I two struggled at the beginning ,as I was so excited to have this long awaited biography of my favorite composer in my hands. My eyes seemed to race down the page, my brain hungry for information. I have been a nyro fan since the beginning, and I was starved for information as most "nyrotics" know, there hasn't been much information out there but plenty in this book. The author has well researched her subject and weaves a interesting tale of a born musician, daughter, sister, friend, mother, wife and lover via the muse. If your looking for a "Kitty Kelly tell all," forget it folks but if you want to get an insiders view of this complex and talented woman and feel Laura come alive for a little while, please read past page 65, relax and enjoy a most and luscious and soulful journey. This book was even better the second time!!!!
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