Next month, Laura Nyro will be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. It's a great honour for a singer and a songwriter who never achieved the smash success of her peers, even though she wrote many of their best-known hits.
And When I Die, which would be come a big hit for Blood, Sweat and Tears, appeared on Nyro's debut album in 1967, the year that she turned 20. Given her age, the maturity of the song, like her other tunes, was something else; she used jazz orchestrations (she was devoted to John Coltrane and the jazz masters she heard growing up in the Bronx) and the harmonies of the girl groups and doo-wop singers she also admired. The album was not a hit: it was reissued not once, but twice.
Nyro died of cancer in 1997. It's nice to see that she's still remembered, and respected.
And When I Die - the opening notes of which made my eyebrows pop when I first heard her version - is the song of the day for today.
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