74-75: Night Life / Fighting UMR

London Shepherd’s Bush Empire

Black And Blue UMC/POLYDOR

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.”

Early Steps RHINO/WARNER BROS.

Having waited over 40 years to allow a glimpse into her vault, a sort-of expanded version of 1994’s Bedtime Stories arrives just four months after Ray Of Light’s messy offcuts collection, Veronica Ele