For those unaware, Omnivore Recordings will release two sets of rare Laura Nyro music over the next few months: Trees of the Ages: Laura Nyro Live in Japan and the never-before-issued Go Find the Moon: The Audition Tape.

Both will be available on CD and Digital, with Go Find the Moon also available on vinyl (a 45-rpm LP). Each was restored and mastered by Grammy-winner Michael Graves and produced for release by Grammy-winner Cheryl Pawelski and George Gilbert with the approval of the Laura Nyro Trust.

A member of both the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the Songwriters Hall of Fame, Laura Nyro not only wrote songs that became hits for artists like 5th Dimension, Blood, Sweat & Tears, Three Dog Night, and Barbra Streisand, but has been cited as a major influence by artists as varied as Kate Bush, Elton John, Elvis Costello, Cyndi Lauper, Todd Rundgren, Broadway composer Stephen Schwartz (Godspell, Wicked), and countless others.

Born in the Bronx in 1947, she left us far too soon, at age 49 following a bout with ovarian cancer.

She recorded ten of her own studio albums (one released posthumously), but a live performance from Nyro was always a particularly special event.

Originally issued only in Japan as Live in Japan in 2003, the 16 tracks recorded at Kintetsu Hall, plus five recorded at On Air West return as Trees of the Ages: Laura Nyro Live in Japan, was released July 16th, 2021.

Go Find the Moon: The Audition Tape, due out September 10th, 2021, puts the listener in the room at the very beginning of Nyro’s legendary career.

Available now for the first time, it includes And When I Die as well as songs she never officially released, and her own versions of classics, all delivered with a deft and distinctive touch.

As journalist Jim Farber writes in the liners: “Here, Laura Nyro led the way with a performance that captured an artist who, however young, was, at root, already fully formed.”

Omnivore will offer a special bundle of the LP Go Find The Moon: The Audition Tape with a numbered litho print of the cover limited to 200.

1. And When I Die
2. Lazy Susan (False Start)
3. Enough of You
4. In and Out
5. Go Find the Moon
6. Luckie/Studio Talk
7. When Sunny Gets Blue (Fragment)/Kansas City (Fragment)/I Only Want to Be With You
8. Lazy Susan

Opening on the beautiful, upbeat balladry of And When I Die and then, weirdly, just a few precious seconds of Lazy Susan (False Start), we then get the ornate piano majesty of Enough of You which is itself backed by the short-but-sweet, cheerful storytelling of In and Out.

Next up is the delicate musings of the title track Go Find the Moon and the gently rambunctious Luckie/Studio Talk (complete with someone from the booth asking if Laura sang any other songs that weren’t hers, which leads to a lovely little chat, which then feeds into the next compilation track), with the album rounding out with small clips of Nyro singing off the cuff tracks such as clips of When Sunny Gets Blue (Fragment)/Kansas City (Fragment)/I Only Want to Be With You, the album coming to a close on the ornamented gossamer of the full version of Lazy Susan.

In the summer of 1966, an 18-year-old Laura Nyro auditioned for Milt Okun, one of the most respected music producers of the day, and Artie Mogull, a noted A&R man.

After the session, these eventual music business legends were so blown away that Mogull became her manager, and Okun signed on to produce her debut record, More Than Just a Discovery.

The first song she performed, And When I Die, became the opening track on Peter, Paul and Mary’s hit album, The Peter, Paul and Mary Album, and achieved even bigger success with the cover by Blood, Sweat, & Tears, which reached #2 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1969.

Quite a song with which to begin an audition!

Nyro certainly wrote other future smashes delivered to the charts by artists like Three Dog Night (Eli’s Coming), the 5th Dimension (Stoned Soul Picnic, Save the Country, and Wedding Bell Blues), Barbra Streisand (Stoney End), and more.

But it was Nyro’s heart, soul, songwriting brilliance and magnificent vocal talent that drove music fans to discover her own work.

Official Omnivore Laura Nyro Trailer

Official Purchase Link