Laura Nyro: ‘Soul Picnic’ Author Michele Kort Takes a Look at the Music Legend

May 22, 2002

Laura Nyro: 'Soul Picnic'

Author Michele Kort Takes a Look at the Music Legend

Michele Kort will be reading at Barbara's Bookstore June 1 and Women and Children First Bookstore June 3.

by Richard Knight, Jr.

"Laura Nyro you can lump me in with, because Laura exerted an influence on me. I looked to her and took some direction from her," Joni Mitchell once commented to an interviewer. Back in the late 1960s, Joni and Laura seemed to have the female singer/songwriter genre covered. Just out of her teens, Nyro wrote hit songs like "And When I Die, "Stoney End," "Stoned Soul Picnic," "Eli's Coming," that became million sellers for Barbra Streisand, The Fifth Dimension, Three Dog Night, Blood, Sweat & Tears, yet remained and remains a cult figure.
About the time Carole King and Carly Simon were breaking through in the early '70s, Nyro was already in the midst of her first self-imposed retirement. Though she never again wrote a hit song for others to cover, the shy singer with the piercing soul soprano and fiery piano style who described herself as having a "radical feminist bent" continued to perform and record almost until her death at 49 from ovarian cancer in 1997.
The bisexual, enigmatic Nyro has often been described as "the J.D. Salinger" of music. Michele Kort, who I first met online at a music posting conference for fans of Laura's music, has just published the first biography of Nyro, Soul Picnic: The Music and Passion of Laura Nyro (St. Martin's Press $25.95). A Los Angeles-based free-lance writer of 25 years, Kort has written numerous cover stories for The Advocate.
With Soul Picnic Kor has at last lifted Nyro's veil of secrecy and gives the reader a look at the woman behind the musical artistry.
RKJ: Why do you think Laura Nyro is relatively unknown to the larger public and yet has an almost mythical reputation with other singer/songwriters?
MK: She didn't maintain an audience. The people that loved her had kinda lost touch with her in 1972 [when she pulled away from the limelight] and didn't get on the train again [when she returned]. They still remember her for that early time and still love her for that. I was just in a college class the other day and I said, "How many of you kids know Laura Nyro?" and not one hand goes up, "Janis Joplin?" all the hands go up, "Joni Mitchell?" all the hands go up.
RKJ: Why is that?
MK: Joni keeps getting revived and honored and Janis, well, I don't know why the history of rock-n-roll is stronger and the history of singer/songwriters is weaker because I think of them as being in kind of different genres. It was one of the reasons why I wanted to do the book.
RKJ: Which leads me to ask, you've written profiles of everyone from k.d. lang, Pierce Brosnan, Martina Navratilova, to Betty Friedan...all these people...what made Laura Nyro stand out to the point where you wanted to spend years of your life researching and writing about her?
MK: I decided to do the book right after she died...I wanted to keep her alive. It was very painful that this person who had been a part of my life for 30 years was somehow gone just like that, you know, it's so shocking ...
RKJ: So there was some kind of personal connection that you felt with her that you haven't necessarily felt with some of these other people? I'm guessing that you wanted to go further.
MK: My connection with her was really deep. I mean, it started when I was 16 years old. Anyone that knew me knew that Laura was real primary to me.
RKJ: You met Laura didn't you?
MK: Only as a fan. Backstage at the Troubador.
RKJ: Did you ever attempt to write about Laura while she was alive?
MK: I didn't because I'd read all these stories about her over the years and I knew how intensely private she was and I thought, "I don't want to ask her just about her music, I want to ask her about life and she's probably not going to answer those questions" so why try to pursue it. I decided to write a book about her having NOT gotten to interview her.
RKJ: How hard was it to write about a subject that has died?
MK: The hardest part of biography I found was making the decision on what's accurate and what isn't and how much validation you need in order to do that.
RKJ: So, if someone just happens to say, "Well I remember Laura doing this and this" and somebody else says, "No, that didn't happen" then you decide who to believe?
MK: You cover your butt by saying, "according to so and so" or you put both in and say there's a dispute over that. You learn to trust your instincts of what feels right and accurate. What I found was that if something somebody says was corroborated by somebody else then something else they say is probably accurate.
RKJ: One thing I love so much about Soul Picnic is having all these wonderful things collected...it's an incredible reference work. You found out all these great, quirky things about Laura. What's the most surprising thing you found out?
MK: How funny she was. She was so serious onstage and hardly even smiled...maybe a little Mona Lisa smile and certainly, I never heard her laugh. Maybe she was more open with New York audiences where she was more comfortable. I had no idea that she was a really rollicking, funny person who liked to really get down with people and have a good time.
RKJ: Why do you think Laura has such a devoted following with lesbians and gay men?
MK: I think that it's probably a different answer for both categories. Maybe for lesbians...well, I guess I have to speak personally about it. She evoked this feeling of knowingness and unabashed sexuality and a sort of ambiguous sexuality. Even though she was so overtly heterosexual in her early music. Nevertheless, there was something that really drew women who were going to love women to her.
RKJ: You just felt that with songs like "Emmie" she was open to anything. As a gay man I felt, boy she would accept me. She's all about love.
MK: Desmond Child said that "Emmie" for him invoked this very confusing, intense feeling that even though he wanted to be with men, there was something about the intensity of the friendship between the two women that evoked some sort of revolution inside of him. I think that before coming out myself I had this confusion, "Do I want to be Laura or be with Laura?" She just had this incredible sensuality that reached you and as an adolescent it was wanting to attain that for ourselves, wanting to have that mystery come alive for ourselves. She knew the arcane of mysteries of romance and passion and I really wanted to know that!
RKJ: What do you want readers to take away from Soul Picnic?
MK: I want people to go to the record player or the CD player. For the people who know her, it's neat for them to go deeper into the music. For the people who don't know her, I want them to go, "Oh, there are people who came before Sarah McLaughlin and Alicia Keyes" and whoever the singer/songwriter of the moment is and here's someone who carved the path for these other people. I feel that Laura has been extraordinarily overlooked and under represented.
RKJ: Did you listen to Laura when you wrote?
MK: I only listened when I was writing about each album. I found myself not wanting to listen to Laura too much when I was working on the book. I had to have some professional detachment because I didn't want the book to be seen as a gushing fan tribute.
RKJ: This was your first book that took how long?
MK: Almost exactly five years from the idea to its coming out.
RKJ: Were there people that you wanted to interview that you weren't able too?
MK: Not that many. Of course, Maria Desiderio, Laura's lover who I refer to as her widow. Maria considered cooperating with the project but then decided no. She cooperated with an article in The New York Times and then didn't like it. I had nothing to do with that but I think it just turned her off. When I first decided to do the book I was really worried that even though Laura was gone I was going to betray her privacy. That's really why I wanted the support of Maria and by the time it came about that I didn't get that support I would say that one of the reasons that I went on anyway was because I felt so strongly how much the fans wanted this book. You know, I was one of those fans and I wanted the book, too, even if I was writing it.
RKJ: Have you heard from Laura's inner circle about their reaction to the book, Laura's son, Gil?
MK: I haven't heard from Gil but Jan Nigro [Laura's brother] read the galley copy and was very complimentary and Lou [Laura's grandfather] was very complimentary and I haven't heard from Patti Di Lauria [Laura's close friend and executor of her estate after Maria's death] but I think that it's very emotional for them. It's five years since her death and I think it's a little hard having all those feelings evoked.
RKJ: How's the book being received? I know that it's just hit the market. Is it selling OK?
MK: Yes, it's sold out its first printing and it's almost sold out its second printing. I feel that the fans have been very, very eager for it and I'm getting a tremendous response from them. But to go beyond the fans it's going to have to get more mainstream publicity. People who don't know Laura are going to have to become intrigued by her and that remains to be seen.
RKJ: Is it coincidence the book appeared while all these other things are happening? [The Loom's Desire, a double CD of live shows, has recently been released; a sheet music book with rare material is scheduled; and remastered recordings (each with bonus tracks) of three of her Columbia albums are due shortly]
MK: I don't know if all those places thought, "Oh, we're going to ride the coattails of the book" because the book has certainly been in process a lot longer than they have. Cherry Lane [publishers of the music book] tried to get the music book out at the same time.
RKJ: Who's going to play Laura when they make the miniseries from your book for the new all-gay-all-the-time Showtime channel?
MK: (Big Laugh) A miniseries, eh? Well my idea for the young Laura is Jamie Lynne Siegler from The Sopranos.
RKJ: Yeah, great choice.
MK: I've had different ideas for the older Laura over the years. One of my ideas recently...and this is very off the wall...is Annette Bening. The worst, of course, would be to have a BAD Laura. Better to have no Laura than a bad one.
RKJ: Yeah, like Jennifer Love Hewitt. You've now co-authored a book with Chastity Bono, The End Of Innocence, how does that compare with writing Soul Picnic?
MK: Night and day. That's really Chastity's book. I think of myself more as a facilitator for her to tell her story. It's not my writing. It's more of me as the "as told to" person. I helped structure it.
RKJ: Have you found a subject as compelling as Laura for a next project?
MK: No I have not. While I was working on the book I actually thought that my next book would be on Dusty [Kort wrote an Advocate cover story on Springfield after her death] but then there was a book done so I think Dusty's worn out as a subject matter right now.
RKJ: What are you going to do at your readings?
MK: I usually read about Laura performing at the Monterey Pop festival.
RKJ: Could you read the whole book?
(BIG LAUGHS)

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May 22, 2002

Laura Nyro: 'Soul Picnic' *Author Michele Kort Takes a Look at the Music Legend*
Michele Kort will be reading at Barbara's Bookstore June 1 and Women and Children First Bookstore June 3. by Richard Knight, Jr. "Laura Nyro you can lump me in with, because Laura exerted an influence on me. I looked to her and took some direction from her," Joni Mitchell once commented to an interviewer. Back in the late 1960s, Joni and Laura seemed to have the female singer/songwriter genre covered. Just out of her teens, Nyro wrote hit songs like "And When I Die, "Stoney End," "Stoned Soul Picnic," "Eli's Coming," that became million sellers for Barbra Streisand, The Fifth Dimension, Three Dog Night, Blood, Sweat & Tears, yet remained and remains a cult figure. About the time Carole King and Carly Simon were breaking through in the early '70s, Nyro was already in the midst of her first self-imposed retirement. Though she never again wrote a hit song for others to cover, the shy singer with the piercing soul soprano and fiery piano style who described herself as having a "radical feminist bent" continued to perform and record almost until her death at 49 from ovarian cancer in 1997. The bisexual, enigmatic Nyro has often been described as "the J.D. Salinger" of music. Michele Kort, who I first met online at a music posting conference for fans of Laura's music, has just published the first biography of Nyro, Soul Picnic: The Music and Passion of Laura Nyro (St. Martin's Press $25.95). A Los Angeles-based free-lance writer of 25 years, Kort has written numerous cover stories for The Advocate. With Soul Picnic Kor has at last lifted Nyro's veil of secrecy and gives the reader a look at the woman behind the musical artistry. RKJ: Why do you think Laura Nyro is relatively unknown to the larger public and yet has an almost mythical reputation with other singer/songwriters? MK: She didn't maintain an audience. The people that loved her had kinda lost touch with her in 1972 [when she pulled away from the limelight] and didn't get on the train again [when she returned]. They still remember her for that early time and still love her for that. I was just in a college class the other day and I said, "How many of you kids know Laura Nyro?" and not one hand goes up, "Janis Joplin?" all the hands go up, "Joni Mitchell?" all the hands go up. RKJ: Why is that? MK: Joni keeps getting revived and honored and Janis, well, I don't know why the history of rock-n-roll is stronger and the history of singer/songwriters is weaker because I think of them as being in kind of different genres. It was one of the reasons why I wanted to do the book. RKJ: Which leads me to ask, you've written profiles of everyone from k.d. lang, Pierce Brosnan, Martina Navratilova, to Betty Friedan...all these people...what made Laura Nyro stand out to the point where you wanted to spend years of your life researching and writing about her? MK: I decided to do the book right after she died...I wanted to keep her alive. It was very painful that this person who had been a part of my life for 30 years was somehow gone just like that, you know, it's so shocking ... RKJ: So there was some kind of personal connection that you felt with her that you haven't necessarily felt with some of these other people? I'm guessing that you wanted to go further. MK: My connection with her was really deep. I mean, it started when I was 16 years old. Anyone that knew me knew that Laura was real primary to me. RKJ: You met Laura didn't you? MK: Only as a fan. Backstage at the Troubador. RKJ: Did you ever attempt to write about Laura while she was alive? MK: I didn't because I'd read all these stories about her over the years and I knew how intensely private she was and I thought, "I don't want to ask her just about her music, I want to ask her about life and she's probably not going to answer those questions" so why try to pursue it. I decided to write a book about her having NOT gotten to interview her. RKJ: How hard was it to write about a subject that has died? MK: The hardest part of biography I found was making the decision on what's accurate and what isn't and how much validation you need in order to do that. RKJ: So, if someone just happens to say, "Well I remember Laura doing this and this" and somebody else says, "No, that didn't happen" then you decide who to believe? MK: You cover your butt by saying, "according to so and so" or you put both in and say there's a dispute over that. You learn to trust your instincts of what feels right and accurate. What I found was that if something somebody says was corroborated by somebody else then something else they say is probably accurate. RKJ: One thing I love so much about Soul Picnic is having all these wonderful things collected...it's an incredible reference work. You found out all these great, quirky things about Laura. What's the most surprising thing you found out? MK: How funny she was. She was so serious onstage and hardly even smiled...maybe a little Mona Lisa smile and certainly, I never heard her laugh. Maybe she was more open with New York audiences where she was more comfortable. I had no idea that she was a really rollicking, funny person who liked to really get down with people and have a good time. RKJ: Why do you think Laura has such a devoted following with lesbians and gay men? MK: I think that it's probably a different answer for both categories. Maybe for lesbians...well, I guess I have to speak personally about it. She evoked this feeling of knowingness and unabashed sexuality and a sort of ambiguous sexuality. Even though she was so overtly heterosexual in her early music. Nevertheless, there was something that really drew women who were going to love women to her. RKJ: You just felt that with songs like "Emmie" she was open to anything. As a gay man I felt, boy she would accept me. She's all about love. MK: Desmond Child said that "Emmie" for him invoked this very confusing, intense feeling that even though he wanted to be with men, there was something about the intensity of the friendship between the two women that evoked some sort of revolution inside of him. I think that before coming out myself I had this confusion, "Do I want to be Laura or be with Laura?" She just had this incredible sensuality that reached you and as an adolescent it was wanting to attain that for ourselves, wanting to have that mystery come alive for ourselves. She knew the arcane of mysteries of romance and passion and I really wanted to know that! RKJ: What do you want readers to take away from Soul Picnic? MK: I want people to go to the record player or the CD player. For the people who know her, it's neat for them to go deeper into the music. For the people who don't know her, I want them to go, "Oh, there are people who came before Sarah McLaughlin and Alicia Keyes" and whoever the singer/songwriter of the moment is and here's someone who carved the path for these other people. I feel that Laura has been extraordinarily overlooked and under represented. RKJ: Did you listen to Laura when you wrote? MK: I only listened when I was writing about each album. I found myself not wanting to listen to Laura too much when I was working on the book. I had to have some professional detachment because I didn't want the book to be seen as a gushing fan tribute. RKJ: This was your first book that took how long? MK: Almost exactly five years from the idea to its coming out. RKJ: Were there people that you wanted to interview that you weren't able too? MK: Not that many. Of course, Maria Desiderio, Laura's lover who I refer to as her widow. Maria considered cooperating with the project but then decided no. She cooperated with an article in The New York Times and then didn't like it. I had nothing to do with that but I think it just turned her off. When I first decided to do the book I was really worried that even though Laura was gone I was going to betray her privacy. That's really why I wanted the support of Maria and by the time it came about that I didn't get that support I would say that one of the reasons that I went on anyway was because I felt so strongly how much the fans wanted this book. You know, I was one of those fans and I wanted the book, too, even if I was writing it. RKJ: Have you heard from Laura's inner circle about their reaction to the book, Laura's son, Gil? MK: I haven't heard from Gil but Jan Nigro [Laura's brother] read the galley copy and was very complimentary and Lou [Laura's grandfather] was very complimentary and I haven't heard from Patti Di Lauria [Laura's close friend and executor of her estate after Maria's death] but I think that it's very emotional for them. It's five years since her death and I think it's a little hard having all those feelings evoked. RKJ: How's the book being received? I know that it's just hit the market. Is it selling OK? MK: Yes, it's sold out its first printing and it's almost sold out its second printing. I feel that the fans have been very, very eager for it and I'm getting a tremendous response from them. But to go beyond the fans it's going to have to get more mainstream publicity. People who don't know Laura are going to have to become intrigued by her and that remains to be seen. RKJ: Is it coincidence the book appeared while all these other things are happening? [The Loom's Desire, a double CD of live shows, has recently been released; a sheet music book with rare material is scheduled; and remastered recordings (each with bonus tracks) of three of her Columbia albums are due shortly] MK: I don't know if all those places thought, "Oh, we're going to ride the coattails of the book" because the book has certainly been in process a lot longer than they have. Cherry Lane [publishers of the music book] tried to get the music book out at the same time. RKJ: Who's going to play Laura when they make the miniseries from your book for the new all-gay-all-the-time Showtime channel? MK: (Big Laugh) A miniseries, eh? Well my idea for the young Laura is Jamie Lynne Siegler from The Sopranos. RKJ: Yeah, great choice. MK: I've had different ideas for the older Laura over the years. One of my ideas recently...and this is very off the wall...is Annette Bening. The worst, of course, would be to have a BAD Laura. Better to have no Laura than a bad one. RKJ: Yeah, like Jennifer Love Hewitt. You've now co-authored a book with Chastity Bono, The End Of Innocence, how does that compare with writing Soul Picnic? MK: Night and day. That's really Chastity's book. I think of myself more as a facilitator for her to tell her story. It's not my writing. It's more of me as the "as told to" person. I helped structure it. RKJ: Have you found a subject as compelling as Laura for a next project? MK: No I have not. While I was working on the book I actually thought that my next book would be on Dusty [Kort wrote an Advocate cover story on Springfield after her death] but then there was a book done so I think Dusty's worn out as a subject matter right now. RKJ: What are you going to do at your readings? MK: I usually read about Laura performing at the Monterey Pop festival. RKJ: Could you read the whole book? (BIG LAUGHS)