| Eli and the Thirteenth Confession | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
 | ||||
| Studio album by | ||||
| Released | March 13, 1968 | |||
| Recorded | January–February 1968 | |||
| Genre | ||||
| Length | 46:15 | |||
| Label | Columbia | |||
| Producer | ||||
| Laura Nyro chronology | ||||
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| Singles from Eli and the Thirteenth Confession | ||||
| ||||
| Review scores | |
|---|---|
| Source | Rating |
| AllMusic |  [4] |
| The Austin Chronicle | [5] |
| The Guardian | [6] |
| Rolling Stone | (positive) [7] |
Eli and the Thirteenth Confession is the second album by New York City-born singer, songwriter, and pianist Laura Nyro, released in 1968.
Nyro premiered some of the songs that were to appear on the album at the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival. The song "Luckie" was derived from an earlier composition Nyro had played at her audition for Verve Records in 1966. Before she signed to Columbia Records, Verve had already planned to release the album, under the title Soul Picnic. The album saw its actual release in 1968 on the Columbia label and became one of the year's underground successes. The album was written entirely by Nyro, arranged by Charlie Calello and produced by both.
The front cover was taken by Bob Cato. Writer Michele Kort said that Nyro resembled a "dark Madonna with luxuriant red lips." [8] The back cover is a black-and-white silhouetted photo of Nyro kissing the head of what appears to be her younger self. According to Nyro, she was "kissing seventeen years of her life—her childhood—goodbye." [9] On Nyro's insistence, the album's lyric sheet was printed with perfumed ink, and Kort wrote in 2002 that it still maintained a pleasant scent. [10]
The album's themes are of passion, love, romance, death, and drugs, and the songs are delivered in Nyro's distinctive brash, belting vocals. Musically, it is a multi-layered and opulent work, including multi-tracked vocals and strings. The album's loose genre is pop, but it also incorporates elements of soul, gospel, jazz, and rock.[ citation needed ]
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 favored (both honors go to the follow-up, New York Tendaberry ). The album was her first chart entry, reaching No. 181 on the Billboard 200, when it was known as "Pop Albums." In the February 2016 issue of Uncut magazine, it was rated in the 100 Greatest Albums of All Time. Many musicians, including Elton John and Todd Rundgren were directly influenced by the album, and bandleader Paul Shaffer told CBC Television's George Stroumboulopoulos that he considers this album to be his one "desert island record".[ citation needed ]
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 No. 10, while The 5th Dimension went to US No. 3 with "Stoned Soul Picnic" and US No. 13 with "Sweet Blindness".[ citation needed ]
The legacy of the album is evident on the 1997 compilation Stoned Soul Picnic: The Best of Laura Nyro , which includes 6 songs from the 1968 album.
Six songs from Eli and the Thirteenth Confession are included in the ballet Quintet performed by the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. Rolling Stone ranked it No. 463 in the 2020 edition of their 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. [11]
Eli has grown in reputation and regularly garners acclaim. It is now recognized as a groundbreaking album in pop music. In April 1997, Stephen Holden of The New York Times deemed it one of the late-'60s "most influential pop recordings". He cited Nyro's "fiercely emotional singing" and the songs' "abrupt changes of tempo and style" as reasons why it was "unlike anything that had been heard" in the genre. [1] Later that month, Entertainment Weekly 's Alanna Nash wrote that the album confirmed Nyro as "pop's high priestess" and called her one of the genre's "most influential American songwriters." [2]
Eli has been widely credited with laying the foundation for various musicians. Holden saw Nyro kickstart a lasting genre of "quirky, reflective songwriting" led by women. [1] In 2015, Vivien Goldman for The Vinyl Factory wrote that it "instantly transfixed a generation", but had "still [been] extensively mined by other artists" years later. She credited it, alongside her next two albums, with shaping the "personal, opera-tinged" style of musicians Kate Bush, Cyndi Lauper, Tori Amos and Alicia Keys. [12]
Eli and the Thirteenth Confession was reissued in expanded and remastered 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 remastered version was issued alongside remastered/expanded editions of New York Tendaberry and Gonna Take a Miracle .[ citation needed ]
In August 2011, the album was re-released in audiophile vinyl by label "Music on Vinyl", using high-resolution digital audio at 96 kHz / 24 bit. [13]
In June 2016, Audio Fidelity reissued the album on hybrid Super Audio CD. It contains the original stereo version in high-resolution digital audio as well as a previously unreleased 4-channel quadraphonic mix, which was created in 1971. Prior to this release only one track, "Eli's Comin'", had been released in quad on a rare Columbia Records sampler LP. [14]
All tracks are written by Laura Nyro
| No. | Title | Length |
|---|---|---|
| 1. | "Luckie" | 3:00 |
| 2. | "Lu" | 2:44 |
| 3. | "Sweet Blindness" | 2:37 |
| 4. | "Poverty Train" | 4:16 |
| 5. | "Lonely Women" | 3:32 |
| 6. | "Eli's Comin'" | 3:58 |
| No. | Title | Length |
|---|---|---|
| 7. | "Timer" | 3:22 |
| 8. | "Stoned Soul Picnic" | 3:47 |
| 9. | "Emmie" | 4:20 |
| 10. | "Woman's Blues" | 3:46 |
| 11. | "Once It Was Alright Now (Farmer Joe)" | 2:58 |
| 12. | "December's Boudoir" | 5:05 |
| 13. | "The Confession" | 2:50 |
| No. | Title | Length |
|---|---|---|
| 14. | "Lu" (Demo) | 2:37 |
| 15. | "Stoned Soul Picnic" (Demo) | 3:37 |
| 16. | "Emmie" (Demo) | 4:25 |
Laura Nyro was an American songwriter and singer. She achieved critical acclaim with her own recordings, particularly the albums Eli and the Thirteenth Confession (1968) and New York Tendaberry (1969), and had commercial success with artists such as Barbra Streisand and the 5th Dimension recording her songs. Wider recognition for her artistry was posthumous, while her contemporaries such as Elton John idolized her. She was praised for her emotive three-octave mezzo-soprano voice.
New York Tendaberry is the third album by New York City-born singer, songwriter and pianist Laura Nyro. It was released in the autumn of 1969, on Columbia Records, some eighteen months after its predecessor, Eli and the Thirteenth Confession. It was helmed by her, with the assistance of producer and engineer Roy Halee. The cover photograph was taken by David Gahr.
Christmas and the Beads of Sweat is the fourth album by New York-born singer, songwriter, and pianist Laura Nyro. The album was released on the Columbia Records label in November 1970 after Nyro had recorded it in the early summer with producers Felix Cavaliere and Arif Mardin. Whilst Nyro had handed over production reins, she was still in control of the project and co-arranged her compositions.
Gonna Take a Miracle is the fifth album by New York City-born singer, songwriter and pianist Laura Nyro, with assistance by vocal trio Labelle. It was released on Columbia Records in November 1971, one year after its predecessor Christmas and the Beads of Sweat. The album is Nyro's only all-covers album, and she interprets mainly 1950s and 1960s soul and R&B standards, using Labelle as a traditional back-up vocal group.
Smile is the sixth album by New York singer, songwriter and pianist Laura Nyro. It was released in early 1976, following a four-year hiatus from the music industry during which time she both married and divorced, and lived away from the spotlight. She dedicated the album to her mother.
More Than a New Discovery is the debut album by Bronx-born singer, songwriter, and pianist Laura Nyro. It was recorded during 1966 and released early in the following year on the Verve Folkways imprint of the Verve Records label.
Nested is the seventh studio album by Bronx-born singer, songwriter, and pianist Laura Nyro. It was released in 1978 on Columbia Records.
Mother's Spiritual is the eighth studio album by New York City-born singer, songwriter, and pianist Laura Nyro and her ninth original album in total, including the 1977 live album Season of Lights.
Laura: Live at the Bottom Line is the second live album by New York City-born singer, songwriter, and pianist Laura Nyro and her tenth original album in total, including the 1977 live album Season of Lights.
Walk the Dog and Light the Light is the ninth studio album by Bronx-born singer, songwriter, and pianist Laura Nyro. It was released in the late summer of 1993, more than nine years after its predecessor, Mother's Spiritual. It followed Nyro's 1989 live album Laura: Live at the Bottom Line, and the atmosphere here is similarly laidback and easygoing.
Impressions is the first compilation retrospective album by Bronx-born singer, songwriter, and pianist Laura Nyro.
Time and Love: The Music of Laura Nyro is a 1997 tribute album to singer-songwriter Laura Nyro, released shortly after her death of ovarian cancer and released on Astor Place.
Stoned Soul Picnic: The Best of Laura Nyro is the second retrospective album by American musician Laura Nyro and the most comprehensive overview of her work to date.
Live from Mountain Stage was the first posthumous album release by Bronx-born musician Laura Nyro and her third officially released live album.
Time and Love: The Essential Masters is the third retrospective album of New York City singer-songwriter Laura Nyro's work to be released, and the first since her death in April 1997. Released on the Legacy imprint of Columbia Records, it compiles 16 of her more famous compositions into a single-disc volume, focusing on her work from 1966 to 1971, with only one song, 1975's "Sexy Mama", selected from her post-1971 catalog.
"Stoned Soul Picnic" is a 1968 song by Laura Nyro. The best-known version of the song was recorded by the 5th Dimension, and was the first single released from their album of the same title. It was the most successful single from that album, reaching No. 3 on the U.S. Pop chart and No. 2 on the Billboard R&B chart. It became a platinum record.
"Eli's Comin'" is a song written and recorded in 1967 by American singer-songwriter and pianist Laura Nyro. The song was first released in 1968 on Nyro's album, Eli and the Thirteenth Confession.
"Sweet Blindness" is a song written by Laura Nyro, released in 1968, and included on her Eli and the Thirteenth Confession.
"Save the Country" is a song written by Laura Nyro, first released by her as a single in 1968. Nyro released another version of the song on her 1969 album New York Tendaberry.
American Dreamer is a 2021 box set of reissues from American singer-songwriter Laura Nyro released by Madfish. It has received positive critical reception.
