'Eli and the Thirteenth Confession'

Laura Nyro is a pretty interesting character if for no other reason than being pretty unfamous despite being an American woman singing catchy pop songs in the 1960s.

Early on, Nyro staked her claim as a successful songwriter selling her first song to Peter, Paul and Mary for $5,000. She later started performing around the age of 18. Think Carole King (woman, songwriter, performer, sound) except with a little bit of jazz. She even had a relationship with Jackson Browne, which is totally something King would've done at one time or another.

She recorded and released Eli and the Thirteenth Confession in 1968. It's a really catchy pop album. It's really good and most people haven't heard it. By 1971, she had married Vietnam vet and carpenter David Bianchini and grew wary of being marketed and becoming a celebrity and she effectively
retired at the crisp, young age of 24.

She did come back although her legacy of the 1960s outweighs almost anything she did in the 1970s. She later had a illegitimate child with an Indian man and, by all accounts, lived out a lesbian relationship the final 17 years of her life.

Nyro died at age 49 of ovarian cancer -- the same disease that killed her mother at the same age. Eerie.