ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, April 10, 1997 TAG: 9704100045
SECTION: NATL/INTL PAGE: C-5 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: DANBURY, CONN.
TYPE: NEWS OBIT
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
The songs she wrote became hits for other artists and influenced singers for decades.
Laura Nyro, a singer-songwriter who influenced a generation of women artists with songs such as ``Eli's Coming'' and ``Stoned Soul Picnic'' and her intimate blend of pop, folk and jazz, has died at 49.
Nyro died Tuesday at her home of ovarian cancer.
She gained fame as a teen-ager in the 1960s writing songs that became big hits for other artists, including ``And When I Die,'' recorded by Peter, Paul and Mary and later by Blood, Sweat and Tears; ``Wedding Bell Blues'' and ``Stoned Soul Picnic,'' both hits for the Fifth Dimension; ``Eli's Coming,'' a hit for Three Dog Night; and ``Stoney End,'' a hit for Barbra Streisand. She was 17 when Peter, Paul and Mary popularized ``And When I Die.''
In her heyday in the late '60s and early '70s, her music could be heard from college dorm rooms across the country. She and Joni Mitchell were among the leading female exponents of the genre.
While her albums never sold as well as those of the other singers who recorded her work, they influenced singers for decades to come, including Rickie Lee Jones, Rosanne Cash and Suzanne Vega.
Her most celebrated album, ``Eli and the Thirteenth Confession,'' came out in 1968.
``When I write my music I see all the rivers flowing - sensual, spiritual, religious, animal, intellectual,'' she said in an interview with The Association Press in 1969. ``I see songs in shapes and in terms of color and texture.''
LENGTH: Short : 40 linesby CNB