Eli and the Thirteenth Confession

Infobox Album | Name = Eli and the Thirteenth Confession
Type = Album
Artist = Laura Nyro


Released = March 3 1968
Recorded = New York City, January 1968 - February 1968
Genre = Pop
Length = 46:15
Label = Columbia Records (UK)
Columbia Records (US)
Producer = Laura Nyro, Charlie Calello
Reviews = *Allmusic Rating|4.5|5 [http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=10:hc8o1vajzzpa link]
*Rolling Stone "Favourable" [http://www.rollingstone.com/reviews/album/_/id/298691/lauranyro?pageid=rs.ArtistDiscographyMainReleases&pageregion=mainRegion link] | Last album = "More Than A New Discovery"
(1966)
This album = "Eli and the Thirteenth Confession"
(1968)
Next album = "New York Tendaberry"
(1969) |

"Eli and the Thirteenth Confession" is a music album by New York-born singer, songwriter, and pianist Laura Nyro.

It was released in 1968 on the Columbia Records label and became one of the year's underground successes. One critic noted, "the hottest sounds of that summer were "Sgt. Pepper" and the Laura Nyro record." The album was written entirely by Nyro, arranged by Charlie Calello and produced by both.

The album's themes are of passion, love, romance, death, and drugs, and the songs are delivered in Nyro's distinctive brash neo-operatic vocals. Musically, it is a multi-layered and opulent work, with features including a band, multi-tracked vocals, jazz instrumentation and strings. The album's loose genre is pop, but it also incorporates elements of jazz, opera, soul, gospel, and rock.

It is generally considered to be Nyro's most accessible and most famous work, although it is arguably not the most commercially successful or critically favoured (both honours go to the follow-up, "New York Tendaberry"). The album was her first chart entry, reaching #189 on the Billboard 200, when it was known as "Pop Albums."

The album is second only to its predecessor, 1967's "More Than A New Discovery", in producing hit songs for other artists. Three Dog Night took "Eli's Comin'" to US #10, while The Fifth Dimension went to US #3 with "Stoned Soul Picnic" and US #13 with "Sweet Blindness."

"Eli and the Thirteenth Confession" is also recognised as the first part in a "holy trinity" of Laura Nyro albums Fact|date=August 2008, the others being "New York Tendaberry" (1969) and "Christmas and the Beads of Sweat" (1970).

The album was reissued in expanded and remastered format with bonus tracks in 2002 on the Legacy imprint of Columbia.

Track listing

All songs written by Laura Nyro.
#"Luckie" (3:00)
#"Lu" (2:44)
#"Sweet Blindness" (2:37)
#"Poverty Train" (4:16)
#"Lonely Women" (3:32)
#"Eli's Comin'" (3:58)
#"Timer" (3:22)
#"Stoned Soul Picnic" (3:47)
#"Emmie" (4:20)
#"Woman's Blues" (3:46)
#"Once It Was Alright (Farmer Joe)" (2:58)
#"December's Boudoir" (5:05)
#"The Confession" (2:50)

The 2002 remaster

"Eli and the Thirteenth Confession" was reissued in expanded and re-mastered format during the summer of 2002. The reissue was produced by Al Quaglieri, with Laura Grover as project director.

The reissue featured three previously unreleased demos recorded on November 29, 1967. The 20-year-old Nyro performed the spare, solo demos of "Lu," "Stoned Soul Picnic," and "Emmie" on piano and multi-tracked her own voice to add harmonies.

The accompanying booklet includes photographs and recording details, as well as liner notes by Rick Petreycik and a back-cover recollection by Phoebe Snow. The re-mastered version was issued alongside re-mastered/expanded editions of "New York Tendaberry" and "Gonna Take a Miracle".

Miscellanea

* On Nyro's insistence, the album's lyric sheet (which itself was a rarity for records in 1968) was perfumed and fans have reported that it still has a pleasant aroma Fact|date=August 2008.
* Nyro premiered some of the songs at the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival.
* The song "Luckie" was derived from an earlier composition Nyro had played at her audition for Verve in 1966.
* Before she signed to Columbia Records, Nyro's Verve label already planned to release the album as "Soul Picnic".
* No less than six "Eli" songs - more than any other Nyro record - feature on her 1997 retrospective collection "Stoned Soul Picnic: The Best of Laura Nyro".
* Six songs from this album are featured in the ballet "Quintet" performed by the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater.

amples

multi-listen item
filename=Laura Nyro-Sweet Blindness-1968.ogg
title="Sweet Blindness"
description=Laura Nyro, "Sweet Blindness" (Columbia, 1968)
format=Oggmulti-listen item
filename=Laura Nyro-Eli-1968.ogg
title="Eli's Comin"
description=Laura Nyro, "Eli's Comin"' (Columbia, 1968)
format=Ogg

References

[http://www.allmusic.com All Music Guide]

[http://www.LauraNyro.net Laura Nyro]

[http://lgbt.wikia.com/wiki/Emmie_(Laura_Nyro_song) Discussion of 'Emmie' as pop's first lesbian love song]

Michele Kort's biography "Soul Picnic: The Music and Passion of Laura Nyro" (ISBN 0-312-20941-X)