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.”

From The Bottom Of An Old Grandfather Clock (reissue, 2004) DEAD OCEANS

This month…

Inside the US singer-songwriter’s path from early DIY explorations to modern country-folk force

Black And Blue UMC/POLYDOR

It was a cruel midwinter in January 1985 when Fra Lippo Lippi stepped into ABBA’s Polar Studios to record their third album, Songs. Flamboyantly named after Robert Browning’s poem about 15th century p