Mother's Spiritual

Mother's Spiritual is the eighth studio album by New York-born singer, songwriter, and pianist Laura Nyro and her ninth original album in total, including the 1977 live album Season of Lights.

The album was released at the beginning of 1984 after a year of difficult and expensive recording sessions, and came more than five years after its predecessor, 1978's well-received but poor-selling Nested. Thanks to a small buzz surrounding Nyro's return to the spotlight after her second period of semi-retirement (the first came from 1972-1975), Mother's Spiritual became Nyro's last US chart entry, reaching #182 on the Billboard 200 chart.

Musically, Mother's Spiritual is the most serene and easygoing of all Laura Nyro albums, and was criticised in some quarters for being too sedate and maternal in comparison to her wild, adventurous, and experimental albums such as Eli and the Thirteenth Confession and New York Tendaberry.

Thematically, Nyro's concerns turned from passion and love towards subjects of a more political and sociological nature, including environmentalism, motherhood, and feminism. It met with mixed reviews, and Nyro was lambasted in some quarters for "turning into a tree-hugger."

Mother's Spiritual, like its predecessor, is a Laura Nyro rarity and remains out of print. It was her last studio album for nine years, and she returned only in 1988 to stage a tour. The album represents Nyro's sole original output of the 1980s, during which time she concentrated mostly on raising her son Gil, born in 1978.

1 Overview
2 Track listing
3 Miscellanea
4 References

[edit] Overview

The recording of Mother's Spiritual was punctuated by several difficult incidences. Nyro intended to record the album, as with predecessor Nested, at her Danbury home and laid down solo demos of the songs as early as the spring of 1982. Then, Nyro and co-producer Roscoe Harring could not find a suitable recording place and spent three weeks recording at The Boogie Hotel on Long Island, NY - but Nyro was not satisfied with the outcome of the music.

Instead, she spent between $150,000 and $200,000 building a proper studio at her home as opposed to the mobile studio where Nested was recorded.

The album's arrangements are soft and wistful, but Nyro also desired a more fiery edge to the songs as well. One of her famous fans, Todd Rundgren, however, was not particularly encouraging about Nyro's new sound.

Although there is some quite upbeat material ("Sophia", "Talk to a Green Tree", "The Brighter Song"), Mother's Spiritual is dominated by slow piano-driven songs. These were seen by some critics as close to New Age music. Nyro would perform them live in concert for the rest of her career.

[edit] Track listing

All songs by Laura Nyro.

"To a Child" – 3:53
"The Right to Vote" – 3:02
"A Wilderness" – 2:56
"Melody in the Sky" – 3:45
"Late for Love" – 2:57
"A Free Thinker" – 3:15
"Man in the Moon" – 2:55
"Talk to a Green Tree" – 3:44
"Trees of the Ages" – 3:39
"The Brighter Song" – 2:30
"Roadnotes" – 3:18
"Sophia" – 4:39
"Mother's Spiritual" – 3:12
"Refrain" – 1:08

[edit] Miscellanea

Two of the songs' handwritten lyrics, "The Right to Vote" and "Mother's Spiritual," along with "Child in a Universe" from Nested, were exhibited in Chicago museum in 1983 and 1984 as part of Give Peace a Chance, an exhibition showing artists' responses and contributions to the peace movement.
Two songs are included on 1997's retrospective Stoned Soul Picnic: The Best of Laura Nyro.
"To a Child" is also included on the studio follow-up to this album, 1993's Walk the Dog and Light the Light.
Musicians who performed with Laura on Mother's Spiritual; John Bristow (electric guitar), Elisa Sunshine (bass), Terry Silverlight (drums), Jan Nigro (acoustic guitar).