The Dusty Shelf: Laura Nyro and LaBelle – Gonna Take a Miracle

[The Dusty Shelf is a weekly column that showcases a tragically overlooked album from the music snob's library.]

R&B and soul music has an interesting and rather unique tradition compared to other pop subgenres in that reinterpretations of older songs is not only accepted, it is expected, and can even substitute new material.  A rock and roll covers album is kind of a novelty, but an R&B covers album is common practice – a cause to take notice.  Perhaps more so than any other covers album, Laura Nyro’s 1971 album, Gonna Take a Miracle, proves just how powerful and fresh an intelligent reimagining of old songs can be.

Nyro, whose voice is the sonic incarnate of empowered female sexuality, teams with a trio who is equally up to the challenge: Labelle -  the soul combo of Nona Hendryx, Sarah Dash and, of course, Patti LaBelle.  To steal from countless midnight infomercials, these are your favorite classics like you’ve never heard them before.  “You’ve Really Got a Hold On Me” and the title track sound completely rejuvenated and mojofied, slapping you across the face with sass and caressing you with love at the same time.

These aren’t girls, they are real women singing these songs – the kind whose voice you fall in love with but who can eat you alive if you ever conjure up the confidence to talk to them.  That exact swagger comes through in every glass-shattering chorus and hip-shaking piano line.  Motown‘s “Nowhere To Run” is a runaway soul train of four-part harmonies, chugging funk guitar licks and unpredictable detours.  Ben E. King‘s “Spanish Harlem”, meanwhile, is pure, swaying grace, and when Nyro coos, “Love is growing in the street, right through the concrete”, you can almost smell the metaphorical rose right under your nose.

For whatever reason, Laura Nyro is not all that remembered in the pantheon of 60s and 70s female singer-songwriters, taking a very unfair backseat to Joni Mitchell and Carly Simon among others.  But Nyro’s appreciation for (and understanding of) soul music set her apart – she was born to sing the songs found on Miracle, and it is perhaps her one fault that she did not take this avenue more often.

There is a reason this album should be remembered, and it isn’t just because these are classic songs.  Songs like “Dancing in the Street” and “You’ve Really Got a Hold On Me” have been covered countless times before, but these may as well be their decisive versions.  Nyro and LaBelle sing on this album with an unmatched angelic zeal – this album could have been completely a capella and still have the emotional impact that it maintains with the instrumental backing.  Couple that with a fantastically rough-around-the-edges production, and this is one of the very definitive R&B/soul albums in history.  These songs don’t ever need to be covered again.