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ABOUT BLEEDIN’ TIME! NYRO FINALLY IN THE HoF!!

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It’s finally happened! Along with Guns N’ Roses (groan), the Red Hot Chili Peppers (semi-groan), the Beastie Boys (grin), the Small Faces (broad smile) and Donovan (enigmatic expression), the great – the very great – Laura Nyro (inspiration to all from Joni and Todd to Rickie Lee J) will be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame at the 27th annual US ceremony in April. Me very happy.

About Barney Hoskyns

Barney Hoskyns co-founded and editorially directs Rock’s Backpages. He is the author of, among other books, Across the Great Divide: The Band & America (1993), Waiting for the Sun: Strange Days, Weird Scenes & the Sound of Los Angeles (1996), Hotel California: Singer-Songwriters & Cocaine Cowboys in the LA Canyons (2006), the Tom Waits biography Lowside of the Road (2009) and Trampled Under Foot, the oral history of Led Zeppelin (2012). Formerly US correspondent for MOJO, he resides in London's leafy East Sheen, the birthplace of rock and roll.

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2 Responses to ABOUT BLEEDIN’ TIME! NYRO FINALLY IN THE HoF!!

  1. Rob Steen says:

    Me very happy too! Quite why/how she didn’t make it before G’n'R, let alone the Peppers and the Beasties, is quite beyond my ken.

  2. Jim Kneubuhl says:

    Perhaps foolishly, I persist in believing that if an artist produces really good work, even if at first they sink in undeserved obscurity, eventually they’ll get discovered/re-discovered. Laura could be really accessible when the mood struck her (as on my favorite track by her, “Blowing Away”), but a lot of the time she chose to be “challenging” and this undoubtedly cost her in terms of overall popularity. In her time, most people “in the know” would say she was exceptional, but this didn’t necessarily mean that many people actually listened to her. The Fifth Dimension, Three Dog Night and Blood, Sweat and Tears obviously listened to her, and proved her songs could have commercial appeal, but Laura herself never recorded a proper hit single. I wonder what kind of world i’tll be when Laura Nyro finally gets rediscovered?

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