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If Nyro had lived longer, I imagine she eventually would have cracked open a small window to her life. "She felt the world was too vast and too open to limit oneself." "She felt that to say someone was gay or lesbian or bisexual was merely another form of separatism and there was enough separatism without that," he said. And Richard Denaro, a San Francisco hairdresser friend of hers, remembers a long conversation in which Nyro affirmed that she would never allow herself to be labeled anything by anyone. She preferred to be called "woman-identified," according to her sister-in-law, Janice Nigro. Nyro may have been coy about her bisexuality, but she was famously private about every aspect of her personal life. The biggest clue that Nyro ever dropped was in her 1984 song "Melody in the Sky," from the album Mother's Spiritual, in which she sang, "And I like you / I'm not looking / For Miss or Mr Right." Even more telling was the fact that she suddenly eliminated pronouns from her love songs. Their relationship remained almost entirely hidden from Nyro's public. Desiderio would later tell Laura's brother, Jan, that his sister, whom Maria may have met backstage at a concert, had been the pursuer. Considering that Nyro treasured the visual arts and books, it was a good match. ![]() She was a painter who co-owned the Magic Speller, a women's bookstore in Newport Beach, Calif. Maria Antonia Desiderio was seven years Nyro's junior, with a similarly dark Italian visage. It wasn't until the early 1980s, years after her heyday on the pop scene (although her music perennially, if intermittently, continued to flower), that Nyro became romantically involved with a woman. But still, "Emmie"-with lyrics such as "Move me, oh sway me / Emily you ornament the earth for me"-made us wonder about our heroine's amorous life, let alone our own. Many took "Emmie" as a sort of lesbian anthem, even if that wasn't Nyro's intention (she claimed it was about universal womanhood, pointing out that it was her mother's favorite song of hers). "At that time I didn't know what was gay, straight, or bi," Child told me, "but when Laura sang songs like `Emmie', it evoked this sexual revolution inside of me."įor lesbians too, Nyro's songs, redolent of female mystery and desire, triggered our own longings and encouraged us to confront our subterranean urges. And it was Laura Nyro who molded my image and concept of what is feminine."įor other gay men, such as songwriter Desmond Child (who co-wrote Ricky Martin's "Livin' la Vida Loca," Cher's "We All Sleep Alone," and countless other hits), Nyro's music awakened the very idea of same-sex attractions even when she wasn't singing about men. Martin's Press, $25.95), "In my queer life it was Laura Nyro who taught me to scream and wail. (For her sometime manager David Geffen, who was then struggling with his own sexual identity, Nyro's draw was clearly erotic as well as creative.)Īs I quote one male fan in my new biography of Nyro, Soul Picnic: The Music and Passion of Laura Nyro (Thomas Dunne Books/St. For some gay men, it was Nyro's powerful femininity that most moved them. ![]() Instead, it was Nyro's mystical combination of music and lyrics and stage persona-rich with complexity, confession, and the exquisite pain of love lost and found-that helped us acknowledge we were bent. #ARE YHEIR GAY VHARACTERE IN INVISIBLE EMMIE FULL#It wasn't even Nyro's long black hair, deep-as-a-well dark eyes, luscious full lips, and voluptuous figure that brought us to terms with other-than-straight sexuality. It Wasn't just her soulful, whisper-to-a-scream voice that inexorably drew us out (gays do adore their divas) nor her brilliant albums (including Eli and the Thirteenth Confession, New York Tendaberry, Christmas and the Beads of Sweat, Gonna Take a Miracle) nor the disarming Tin Pan Alley-meets-street-comer doo-wop compositions that were hits for other artists ("Wedding Bell Blues" and "Stoned Soul Picnic" for the Fifth Dimension, "Eli's Comin'" for Three Dog Night, "And When I Die" for Blood, Sweat & Tears, and "Stoney End" for Barbra Streisand). Rather, Nyro-who died of ovarian cancer in 1997-helped us realize we were gay. When we fell head over heels for pioneering female singer-songwriter Laura Nyro in the late 1960s, it wasn't because we thought of her as gay. APA style: Laura's legacy: why do gays still love Laura Nyro? Michele Kort, author of the new Nyro biography Soul Picnic, explains the pioneering bisexual singer-songwriter's allure.Laura's legacy: why do gays still love Laura Nyro? Michele Kort, author of the new Nyro biography Soul Picnic, explains the pioneering bisexual singer-songwriter's allure. MLA style: "Laura's legacy: why do gays still love Laura Nyro? Michele Kort, author of the new Nyro biography Soul Picnic, explains the pioneering bisexual singer-songwriter's allure. ![]()
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