In 1976, the revolutionary singer-songwriter LAURA NYRO returned from self-imposed exile. But her comeback confounded expectations, shifting away from the impassioned intimacies of her early albums to embrace more radical perspectives. Fifty years on, Nyro’s collaborators revisit her striking second act. “She was a hip American from the Bronx,” one friend and producer tells Rob Hughes. “But her soul was old.”

London Shepherd’s Bush Empire

Black And Blue UMC/POLYDOR

Mike Patton and the Avett Brothers join forces to create a work of immense beauty.

As she prepares to return to the stage and screen, Jane McDonald, 62, tells us how she’ll spend her Christmas

Fondly remembered this month...