I always thought it was too-good-to-be-true serendipity that, when Laura was recording the album Mother’s Spiritual, two of the musicians she chose to work with were surnamed Silverlight and Sunshine. Say their names together and it sounds like a Nyro lyrical line.
If you’ve read my book, you might remember that drummer Terry Silverlight and bassist Elysa Sunshine, along with guitarist John Bristow, spent nearly two years, on and off, practicing, demo’ing and finally committing to vinyl (remember records?) the 13 songs that made up Laura’s 1984 album. I’ve interviewed each of them, and they’re all three lovely people who still occasionally keep in touch.
Thought I’d give a shout out to Terry today: He has a new CD and will be performing with his band in NYC on November 12. All the info is here. Continuing the network of Nyro connections, the top musicians backing Terry on his CD include Lew Soloff (of Blood Sweat & Tears fame), who performed that lung-busting, stratospheric trumpet part at the end of the album version of “Save the Country” (see page 78 of my book for that story), and bassist Will Lee (of David Letterman band fame), who played with Laura on both Smile and Nested. Will also plays in Terry’s band.
Of course I can’t help myself from YouTubing and Googling John and Elysa as well, and here are a few little gems I’ve come up with:
–John convincingly covers Pink Floyd.
–Elysa playing and singing behind soul singer Vinny St. Marten
–Elysa’s daughter Tiana, who toddled around with Laura’s son Gil way back when in Danbury, is now a sweet-voiced musician herself.
When will Mother’s Spiritual come out on CD???
It’s so hard to believe that it’s not been released yet!!!
XO,
Carol
There’s no release date yet from Iconoclassic Records, but a CD of Mother’s Spiritual is definitely in the works…
Yay!!! It really is such a beautiful album! Can’t wait to hear it again!
I love the packaging of the CD release of Nested. Your liner notes are excellent! Thanks for that! It was great to hear that again (especially The Sweet Sky!!!)
XOXO,
Carol
Carol,
You can get the vinyl on eBay for $5. I kept my copy. I’ll buy the CD when it comes out, but I have to say the vinyl has a great color back cover pic of Laura that needs to be large, plus lotsa artwork pics that also should be viewed large.
If you have a turntable, here is the eBay link:
http://cgi.ebay.com/LAURA-NYRO-LP-Mothers-spiritual-1984-Columbia_W0QQitemZ370101572775QQcmdZViewItemQQptZMusic_on_Vinyl?_trksid=p3286.m20.l1116
Yes, Tony,
I already have it on vinyl and yes the artwork and photos are beautiful.
Thanks for the info, though!
XO,
Carol
Hi All,
John Bristow here. I just sent the following e-mail to “Iconoclassic Records” (I didn’t know who else to send it to!). They currently have Laura’s “Nested” CD posted at their website as you may already know. 🙂 …
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Hi,
My name is John Bristow. I spent many a fine afternoon sitting with Laura Nyro on her porch or next to her pond, just talking hanging out. We became such great friends. I played electric guitar on her “Mother’s Spiritual” …”album”.
I was a late bloomer in that I became a parent 7 years ago (03/11/2001). I now have 2 beautiful boys; 7 and 5 years old. Lordy, I so wish Laura could have met my kids. How much fun we would have had. Though, my kids would have wanted to catch frogs and fish in her pond!!! 🙂 Anyway, recently, on-line, after seeing it here and there for well over $100 in some cases, I finally found a reasonably priced, Mother’s Spiritual CD and sent for it via the Japanese vendor. I’ve been totally enjoying listening to it again now, as a parent, and playing it for other new parents. They find it meditative and soothing and end up just loving it. I am seeing it grows on them each time they listen. I am also seeing how Mother’s Spiritual introduces a whole new, potentially huge, “untapped” audience to Laura. That audience being new Moms. Wow. No surprise to me at all. Mainly because I am now a parent, I understand the music so much better than when I recorded it with Laura, and especially having known her personally as I did. I now see so much more clearly, how this particular album by Laura was quite special and unique among ALL her works. It is timeless in that speaks to new Mothers (and Dads). And how many new mothers (parents) are there out there?
I think it is waaaay past time to make the Mother’s Spiritual cd available to them if it is at all possible and to direct its advertising accordingly! Trust me on this.
Thanks for listening,
John Bristow
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btw, a side note, if you’re interested; The Mother’s Spiritual CD can be obtained for $22.50 through a very nice Japanese vendor called “Otaku” via EBAY.
Oh, and while I’m at it…my noisy rock and roll pop cd is at….
http://cdbaby.com/cd/johnkbristow
🙂