Coming on Jan 29 2008 from Rev-Ola UK is a reissue CD of Laura Nyro's first album, More Than A New Discovery (Verve/Forecast 1967), which subsequently evolved into The First Songs (Columbia 1973) with a different cover and song order. This reissue, according the Rev-Ola website, features the original cover and song order. Though there ain't no mention of whether these recordings are remastered (ugh)...

http://www.revola.co.uk/

http://wm04.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=a ... fqxqe5ldke

However, The First Songs as well as Eli, NY Tendaberry, & Gonna Take A Miracle supposedly just came out in Japan, remastered, mini-LP sleeves, on Christmas Day.

(Alas Sony/Legacy US have not proceeded beyond their 2002 remastered/bonus track reissues of Eli, NY Tenda, & Miracle...)

Thank you for the heads-up on this, Robin!



Rev-Ola proudly re-presents the album which introduced to the world the wonderful talent of Laura Nyro! More Than A New Discovery (aka The First Songs) is openly informed by the styles of Laura's youth. She had just turned 19 when she recorded the album in early 1966, and the songs retain a youthful exuberance and glisten with beautiful pop melodies and then-fashionable, sturdy 1960s New York arrangements. Laura's lyrics are already as poetically-charged and mature as at her peak, from the wise "And When I Die" to the observational approach of "Buy and Sell." Musically, the album was obviously tailored to fit the prevailing landscape of 1960s female pop singers and it often has the same soulful atmosphere of Dusty Springfield and Evie Sands or the brash, bravura pop of Barbra Streisand, who was to take "Stoney End" to the charts three years later.

1. Goodbye Joe
2. Billy's Blues
3. And When I Die
4. Stoney End
5. Lazy Susan
6. Hands Off The Man
7. Wedding Bell Blues
8. Buy And Sell
9. He's A Runner
10. Blowin' Away
11. I Never Meant To Hurt You
12. California Shoeshine Boys

Amazon USA:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0010X70WW/?tag=imwan-20

Amazon UK:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0010X70WW/?tag=imwan-21

Gotta get this, even though I have First Songs. I hope it's been remastered well.

Laura Nyro was a goddess.

I'm running into mass confusion regarding the recent Laura Nyro reissues, both the Japanese mini-LP paper sleeves and the Revola UK "More Than A New Discovery". Can anyone help?

My questions:
1. Are the 4 Japanese mini-sleeve CD's all remastered? The Eli, NY Tendaberry, and Miracle mini-sleeves have the same bonus tracks as the US remastered releases from a few years ago. However, The First Songs was not reissued and remastered in the US. Is this Japanese mini-sleeve of The First Songs indeed remastered?

2. A curious look at Amazon US for Japanese paper sleeve The First Songs shows yet another different track listing, where the previous 4th song Blowin' Away has been pulled out and tacked onto the end so that it's now track 12. Amazon UK shows this as well for what appears to be a non-Japanese version, as does All Music Guide. Can anyone who bought this Japanese mini-sleeve confirm this?

3. FYI, the NY Tendaberry alternate cover mini-sleeve is the one that also came out on the US LP. That is to say, there were 2 LP covers of NYT, the alt sleeve wasn't just a promo. I don't know the exact history of it, but I bought the LP with the alt cover in a mall chain record store in Roanoke VA in 1980, at a regular retail price.

4. A 2-11-08 review on Amazon US says Revola UK has made a huge goof with their reissue of More Than A New Discovery. According to Glyn Styler (hope it's OK to quote him here), "Revola really screwed this one up. We now have the original artwork and title, but the tracklisting doesn't match the CD. We get tracks 6-12 first (side 2 of the LP) and then tracks 1-5 (side one). It credits the "sound recreation" to some joker, but I'll be damned if this CD sounds any better than the old "First Songs" CD I replaced it with. What a waste of $30!" So it appears this music now has yet another (4th?) sequencing order, and it has not been remastered here. Has anyone else bought this Revola UK More Than A New Discovery, and can they confirm the track listing is not as the original More Than LP, and that it has not been remastered? Plus I'm also seeing another release date for this on some web sites as being sometime in March. (Is Revola pulling this, fixing it, and rereleasing it again?)

Oh what a world, what a world...

Thanks a buncho...

Robin,

Rev-Ola's release is out and it's available for immediate shipment from both of the Amazon links above. The tracklist order conforms to the original 1967 release, not the 1973 First Songs re-working which itself had the changed track order.

I can't vouch for the sound quality (although I've always liked Rev-Ola's remastering in the past), but the label doesn't have any arrangement with Japanese companies ATM so the mini-sleeve First Songs might be better, might be worse, but will definitely be a different mastering. It's probably the same quality as the USA remasters ... the other ones in the Japanese series are the same remasters as the American pressings.

There is going to be a encore release of 4 Nyro's in Japan and they are listed as DSD remasters although they only show NY Tendaberry (2 bonus tracks) and Gonna Take A Miracle (4 bonus tracks) as the discs with bonus tracks. I'm going to list other encore releases in the collector's corner thread if anybody is interested.

Thanks Linda & Roxanne!! I've just discovered some additional info from a Laura Nyro discussion group on Yahoo. According to witnesses there, the Rev-Ola UK CD reissue of "More Than A New Discovery" shows the original "More Than A New Discovery" LP song order on the CD jacket, BUT the actual song order on the disc is that of "The First Songs". So you get 1 through 12 on the jacket, and 7-2-12-10-5-1-6-4-11-9-8-3 on the disc. Rats!!

Also from the Yahoo Laura group experts, the 1967 LP of MTAND on Verve was the original master. In 1969, Verve reissued the LP with the same cover art, but changed the song sequence and renamed it "The First Songs". They also played with the mastering, flopping the left and right channels, adding echo, the horns/strings channel was boosted slightly to match the volume of the other channel, and it was mastered hotter & brighter. This mastering is probably what's been used for every reissue of "The First Songs" since, the Columbia reissue in 1973, and now this Rev-Ola version. The Yahoo Laura experts also say we won't be disappointed with the Rev-Ola sound, even if it's not remastered.

Our IMWAN friend 'eelkiller' says under a different post that the Japanese mini-LP of "The First Songs" is a new DSD mastering, with the other 3 Japanese mini-LP's supposedly being the exact same as the USA discs from a few years ago.

And while I'm here, I'll mention that Amazon UK and Amazon US are showing 2 issues of "More Than A New Discovery", different stock numbers, one already released and one to be released on March 25. It leads
one to believe that there are domestic and import versions for the UK and US, with the US domestic / import-to-the-UK release coming out in March. That's what it looks like anyway...

And in addition to Roxanne's sighting of the 4 Nyro Japanese DSD encores, I'm seeing budget versions of these same 4 on the Sbme label coming out soon.

What a zoo...

I heard the other day that Rev-Ola is changing the track order to the original track order, and that anyone who has a CD with the "First Songs" track order can get a replacement. I haven't checked their website yet, but I'll post again if I do.