[Time] has proved Laura Nyro to be one of the best of the songpoets. (p. 122)

Of all the songwriters we have, she is the one who has shown herself capable of producing an endless stream of single hits, while at the same time moving off in musical directions that others have either given up on or failed to notice. She has faced up to the gamble of commerciality and prevailed; her music has consistently gone into modes of rock and songpoetry that no one else has either the ability or the will to explore.

No matter where her music takes her, New York with its dirt and its funk and its people is central to her work. She is like a lover to the city—which seems a miracle at a time when many hold the city a destructive force. But as an artist, Nyro perceives and captures...