Mothers: Mother's Spiritual

Laura Nyro – Mother's Spiritual

[purchase]

This song comes from one of Laura Nyro's later albums, recorded in 1984 when she was a single mother of a 2-year-old boy. By then, she'd moved away from the jazz and soul–drenched pop that often defined her earlier songs (and made big hits for artists like The Fifth Dimension, Barbra Streisand, Three Dog Night, and Blood, Sweat and Tears). Recorded in her Connecticut home studio and using only a piano and her compelling voice, the title song is a poetic ode to motherhood. And although I love her Brill Building pop sound (she did an entire cover album in 1971 with LaBelle just full of gems from the likes of Martha and the Vandellas, Curtis Mayfield, and Ben E. King), I also love her heartfelt ballads like this one.

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