"The late great pop folk artist Laura Nyro is known for being one of the definitive voices in songwriting in the 1960s and ‘70s, and while she faded in the ‘80s her work has undergone a recent resurgence after ovarian cancer claimed her life in the ‘90s.Laura Nyro was born Laura Nigro to a jazz trumpeter father in 1947. She released her first LP, More Than a New Discovery, in 1966 after attending Manhattan's infamous High School of Music and Art. Commercial success didn't mirror the promise other artists, such as Barbara Streisand (who covered ""Stoney End"") and Blood, Sweat & Tears (who scored with ""And When I Die"") did, and she was also booed off the stage during the Monterey Pop Festival. David Geffen liked Nyro, however, and became her manager, eventually landing her a contract with Columbia. Nyro received critical acclaim for 1968's Eli and the Thirteenth Confession and one year later New York Tendaberry had given birth to two of Nyro's most beloved songs to date, ""Save the Country"" and ""Time and Love.""After continuing to explore soul music into the 1970s with tributes to Motown (""Nowhere to Run"") and doo wop (""The Bells""), Nyro announced her retirement at just 24 years old. The singer/songwriter married and moved to a small town in New England but returned after the dissolution of her marriage with 1975's Smile. A subsequent tour and two more albums (1977's live Season of Lights and 1978's Nested) were followed by another sojourn from music. In 1984 Nyro emerged with the introspective Mother's Spiritual but another album wouldn't follow for five years, in the form of Live at the Bottom Line. In 1993 Nyro issued Walk the Dog and Light the Light but she passed away after battling ovarian cancer in 1997. In 2001 Angel in the Dark, a collection of early unreleased work, arrived posthumously."