By Jason M. Rubin

You can get away with being familiar with just an album or two, but Laura Nyro’s music always rewards repeated listenings, and following her mercurial career so thoroughly restores her to three-dimensional life.

It could be one of those late-night infomercials selling multi-CD sets of the greatest hits of all time. The voice-over could go like this: “You get such timeless classics as ‘Eli’s Coming’ by Three Dog Night, ‘Stoned Soul Picnic’ by the 5th Dimension, ‘And When I Die’ by Blood, Sweat & Tears, and ‘Stoney End’ by Barbra Streisand.” But, strip away all the gold record hype, and you’d find that those songs, and so many more, were originally the work of the late, great Laura Nyro. Which is why, in this era of massive boxed sets, a new one extensively chronicling Nyro’s 30-year career over the course of 19 CDs is one of the most essential you can buy.

Hear My Song: The Collection is part archeological dig and part biographical portrait. In addition to all 10 of her original studio albums (Eli and the Thirteenth Confession is represented by separate mono and stereo discs), the set includes six live albums (two previously unreleased), her 1966 demo tape, and a bonus disc of assorted rarities and live tracks. “And that’s not all!” the voice-over would say. “You also get a 94-page coffee table book with notes and reflections and tons of previously unseen photographs!” The reflections include that of Elton John, who called Nyro “one of my all-time idols,” and trumpeter Randy Brecker, who recalled during a recording session that she asked him to make his solo “more orange.”

Surprisingly, there is no testimonial from Todd Rundgren, who has been vocal throughout his career about how influential Nyro was to him as a songwriter. Regardless, her impact is universal even if her own career as a recording and touring musician was only modestly successful compared to the cover versions named above that brought riches to those acts and royalties to Nyro.

What made Nyro — who was diagnosed with ovarian cancer in late 1996 and died of the disease in April 1997 at the age of 49 — so unique and impactful was a confessional style of writing more tuneful than Joni Mitchell and more lyrically unforgiving (my favorite song of hers is called “You Don’t Love Me When I Cry”) than Carole King. Listening to her 1966 demo tape (when she was only 18), she seems to have appeared on the scene fully formed, her recognizable sound and style intact from the beginning. The session even included the existential “And When I Die,” which she claimed was the first song she’d ever written. And then there was her voice, a probing and powerful instrument that she used like Tim Buckley to soar over and around her melodies, piercing the listener’s soul and raising goosebumps at the same time.

A controversial appearance at the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival painted Nyro as too sensitive and delicate for live performance, yet the live recordings collected here, spanning from 1971 to 1994, show the exact opposite: a confident and effective performer gleefully feeding an adoring audience. Most of her earliest recordings and live and rare tracks just feature Nyro’s voice and piano, and that is where she is at her best. That’s not to denigrate her lusher arrangements on several other albums, but in this writer’s opinion, when it comes to Laura Nyro, the starker the better.

As good a writer as she was, Nyro could make magic with other people’s works just as they did with her songs. She loved the pop and soul recordings from the late ’50s/early ’60s, the proof provided by her album Gonna Take a Miracle, produced by the Philly soul team of Gamble and Huff and featuring the vocal talents of Labelle. A great example of her making others’ songs her own is the last track from Spread Your Wings and Fly, a live recording from the Fillmore in 1971. A medley begins with the Nyro original “Timer” and then slides into crowd pleasers “Ooh Child” and “Up on the Roof.”

As with all these supersized boxed sets, which are presumably of most interest to dedicated fans who already own much of the material collected therein, the question is always the same: Is it worth it? Yes, there are multiple live sets from 1993 and 1994 that feature pretty much the same set list. Does one need all of them? Maybe not, but they exist, so why not include them? One could certainly cop out and proclaim that the set’s value is in the eyes and ears of the beholder. But in this writer’s opinion, Laura Nyro, despite being a 2012 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductee, remains too little known and too little appreciated. Because she died young, there is a finite universe of recordings by her, and they’re pretty much all here. You can get away with being familiar with just an album or two, but Nyro’s music always rewards repeated listenings, and following her mercurial career so thoroughly restores her to three-dimensional life. In other words, Hear My Song is a title you should take literally.

Jason M. Rubin has been a professional writer for 40 years. He has written for Arts Fuse since 2012. His books include Villainy Ever After (2022), a collection of classic fairy tales told from the villains’ point of view; and Ancient Tales Newly Told (2019), a pairing of two historical romances: The Grave & The Gay, based on a 17th-century English folk ballad; and King of Kings, about King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba, told primarily from the Ethiopian tradition. In addition, Jason teaches journaling workshops and is a member of the New England Indie Authors Collective. He holds a BA in Journalism from the University of Massachusetts Amherst. He can be reached at http://www.jasonmrubin.com.