My favorite Christmas record is the Waitresses’ "Christmas Wrapping".\u00c2\u00a0 But it’s not the song I hear in my head every holiday season.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s Laura Nyro’s "Christmas In My Soul".<\/p>\n
The decade from 1964-1974 represents the musical Renaissance.\u00c2\u00a0 There was only one Renaissance in painting.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s not like artists dropped their brushes and drills thereafter, it’s just that never again was there such concentrated artistic fervor, never again was art at the center of public focus to such a degree.\u00c2\u00a0 People have been making records for decades since the sixties, but they just don’t stick in the same way.\u00c2\u00a0 "Thriller" may be the second best selling record of all time, but it has none of the raw energy, it lacks the cultural impact of "Meet The Beatles".\u00c2\u00a0 "I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For" is a great track, but it pales in comparison to "Satisfaction". In the sixties and early seventies music drove the culture.\u00c2\u00a0 If you wanted to know which way the wind blew, you turned on the radio.\u00c2\u00a0 The radio was an Internet built solely for us, the baby boomers.\u00c2\u00a0 It featured not only music, but hip news too.\u00c2\u00a0 The deejays were not beholden to corporate masters, we felt they truly belonged to us.\u00c2\u00a0 If you wanted to make a statement in the fifties you wrote a book, if you had something to say in the sixties and seventies, you cut a record.\u00c2\u00a0 Which the audience waited in rapt attention for.\u00c2\u00a0 We truly believed what was contained in the grooves was the essence of life.\u00c2\u00a0 We needed to get closer.\u00c2\u00a0 To not only the Top Forty gems, but records that were the beneficiary of no airplay at all.\u00c2\u00a0 We had an underground railroad, passing these gems along.\u00c2\u00a0 They still make music today, but it’s not the same. Hell, before the Beatles no one knew you could make this much money, no one bothered to cut album length opuses, we invented it as we went along, which is why we can’t relate to Live Nation and the rest of the corporations serving product up to us.\u00c2\u00a0 We thought music was best presented by Bill Graham, at his vaunted Fillmores East and West.<\/p>\n
Those were buildings that rocked no matter who appeared.\u00c2\u00a0 Going to the Fillmore East was like going to shul.\u00c2\u00a0 With its high ceiling and free program.\u00c2\u00a0 And light show. No one was cutting costs, no one was getting fabulously rich, the Fillmore was a shrine where you went to experience the music, in all its glory.\u00c2\u00a0 Not only what was successful financially, but what Bill thought we should hear.\u00c2\u00a0 Reading the ad in Sunday’s "New York Times" was an educational experience unto itself.\u00c2\u00a0 Not only blues legends, but the Grateful Dead.\u00c2\u00a0 They were featured right next to the stars of the day.<\/p>\n
The first triple-header I saw at the Fillmore East was in the fall of ’68.\u00c2\u00a0 Iron Butterfly was the headliner, Canned Heat opened, and if I thought really hard, I could remember who the middle act was.<\/p>\n
But that was not the best show I saw at the Fillmore East.\u00c2\u00a0 That was the Who performing "Tommy" the following year.<\/p>\n
But the most memorable shows I saw at the Fillmore featured Laura Nyro.\u00c2\u00a0 She played there during the holiday seasons of both ’69 and ’70.\u00c2\u00a0 One time prefaced by Jackson Browne, the other by Miles Davis.\u00c2\u00a0 I was there, I had to be there, I needed to be there.\u00c2\u00a0 Because I felt if I met Laura Nyro she’d understand me.\u00c2\u00a0 She’d understand all the disappointment, the rage…and the hope.<\/p>\n
She was famous for the hits.\u00c2\u00a0 Performed by the Fifth Dimension and Three Dog Night.\u00c2\u00a0 But she was legendary for her albums.\u00c2\u00a0 The definitive statement being "New York Tendaberry", bookended on either side by "Eli and the Thirteenth Confession" and "Christmas and the Beads of Sweat".<\/p>\n
Laura Nyro didn’t dance.\u00c2\u00a0 She wasn’t built for stardom.\u00c2\u00a0 But she had the talent.\u00c2\u00a0 Which was ultimately recognized by David Geffen.\u00c2\u00a0 She was his first protege.\u00c2\u00a0 David Geffen allowed Laura Nyro to be Laura Nyro.\u00c2\u00a0 We have to thank him.<\/p>\n
Ultimately Geffen’s business head interfered with his heart.\u00c2\u00a0 Laura could not leave Columbia for Warner.\u00c2\u00a0 She couldn’t abandon those in Black Rock who’d been her team.\u00c2\u00a0 This is the conundrum of Geffen.\u00c2\u00a0 He’s the number one artist friend, but deep inside burns the heart of a businessman.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s about the deal, it’s about what’s right financially as opposed to emotionally.\u00c2\u00a0 But when the two were together, when Laura Nyro and David Geffen worked side by side, they made beautiful music.\u00c2\u00a0 Which was sui generis.\u00c2\u00a0 No one like her before, no one like her since.\u00c2\u00a0 You don’t get it on the first listen.\u00c2\u00a0 But on a late wintry night, alone in the dark, her records penetrate you, you’re converted, you never let go.<\/p>\n
She’s gone.\u00c2\u00a0 Almost forgotten.\u00c2\u00a0 She gets tributes from Elton John, others, but her music is not topping the holiday chart in the U.K.\u00c2\u00a0 But those of us who lived through her career, who always believed she could deliver again, we hold a special place in our hearts for her.<\/p>\n
Laura Nyro was unvarnished honesty.\u00c2\u00a0 Straight emotion.\u00c2\u00a0 She didn’t worry about the corporation footing the bill.\u00c2\u00a0 It was directly from her heart to you.<\/p>\n
We sat upstairs at the Fillmore East.\u00c2\u00a0 We sent for tickets to the P.O. Box listed in the "Times".\u00c2\u00a0 We weren’t connected, we couldn’t get any closer.\u00c2\u00a0 But when the act is truly legendary, you’re thrilled just to be in the building.\u00c2\u00a0 Those in the rafters are often the biggest fans.<\/p>\n
I’d bought "Christmas and the Beads Of Sweat" as soon as it had been released, less than a month before.\u00c2\u00a0 I played it again and again, knowing I was going to see her live.\u00c2\u00a0 "Christmas In My Soul" was not my favorite track then.\u00c2\u00a0 But it is now.<\/p>\n
I love my country as it dies<\/span> We’re all Americans.\u00c2\u00a0 Patriotic.\u00c2\u00a0 We don’t want to move.\u00c2\u00a0 We just want things to be better.\u00c2\u00a0 Because they’re not good enough.<\/p>\n We hire people to watch our money, our country.\u00c2\u00a0 Both Democrat and Republican, Christian and Jew.\u00c2\u00a0 We have faith they’re working in our best interest, as we pursue our own personal goals.\u00c2\u00a0 But while we weren’t watching, our country started sinking down the rathole.<\/p>\n Too many people have too much and too many don’t have enough at all.\u00c2\u00a0 Injustice is promulgated in the name of religion.\u00c2\u00a0 And we’ve got no one to turn to, no one we can trust.\u00c2\u00a0 We hope our new President will shepherd us through this crisis, but we feel nakedly alone.\u00c2\u00a0 We felt this way once before, in the sixties.\u00c2\u00a0 But we truly believed the artists were on our side, that they’d lead us through, they’d express our pain and show us a way out of the mess, soothing our souls along the way.\u00c2\u00a0 But those days are gone.\u00c2\u00a0 Artists are beholden to the corporation, doing it for the bucks.\u00c2\u00a0 Instead of performers being at the top of the pyramid, unknown gatekeepers decide what we can see or hear.\u00c2\u00a0 And then there are the teeming masses yelling for our attention on the Internet.\u00c2\u00a0 Telling us to listen to them, spamming us, telling us they’ve got the answers.\u00c2\u00a0 All seemingly false prophets, because does a real messiah have to market himself this way?<\/p>\n Facebook is bigger than any act.\u00c2\u00a0 Bruce Springsteen creates a special package for Wal-Mart, a corporation that locked its employees inside.\u00c2\u00a0 Money trumps vision, artistry.\u00c2\u00a0 Our whole nation shrugs and says that what sells, what makes the most money, is best.\u00c2\u00a0 Our values are hollow and suddenly we’re all a whole lot poorer.<\/p>\n Money won’t keep you warm.<\/p>\n But music will.<\/p>\n Come young braves<\/span> Know it’s your world.\u00c2\u00a0 Know that we, the baby boomers, your elders, fucked it up.\u00c2\u00a0 We didn’t mean to, but we couldn’t resist temptation.\u00c2\u00a0 Only you can save us.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s your time.\u00c2\u00a0 Make money, but don’t let it get in the way.\u00c2\u00a0 Know that we’re looking for honesty.\u00c2\u00a0 And truth.\u00c2\u00a0 They’re immutable.\u00c2\u00a0 As easy to locate and relate to as the greatness of a Laura Nyro record.<\/p>\n <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" My favorite Christmas record is the Waitresses’ "Christmas Wrapping".\u00c2\u00a0 But it’s not the song I hear in my head every holiday season.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s Laura Nyro’s "Christmas In My Soul". The decade from 1964-1974 represents the musical Renaissance.\u00c2\u00a0 There was only one Renaissance in painting.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s not like artists dropped their brushes and drills thereafter, it’s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1543","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-music"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p96vPs-oT","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1543","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1543"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1543\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1545,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1543\/revisions\/1545"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1543"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1543"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1543"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
In war and pain before my eyes<\/span>
I walk the streets where disrespect has been<\/span>
The sins of politics, the politics of sin<\/span>
The heartlessness that darkens my soul<\/span>
On Christmas<\/span><\/p>\n
Come young children<\/span>
Come to the book of love with me<\/span>
Respect your brothers and your sisters<\/span>
Come to the book of love<\/span>
I know it ain’t easy<\/span>
But we’re gonna look for a better day<\/span>
Come young braves<\/span>
Come young children<\/span><\/p>\n