"Looking through some photographs I found inside a drawer I was taken by a photograph of you"
You never know what will arrive at your front door. Last week it was a 40 gig iPod. Today it was a box so strangely shaped I couldn't figure out what was inside.
It was about two and a half feet wide. And the better part of four feet long. But only three inches thick. What, was somebody sending me a WINDOW?
And, after breaking the tape, I was confronted with a plethora of bubblewrap, enough for a young kid to be entertained all afternoon.
Finally, I was able to reach inside and extract what was contained.
It was now clear. I could tell from the frame. It was a photograph.
I slid the frame from the box and was confronted with a picture of Laura Nyro.
And she was holding someone in her arms. So very young. Barely twenty. Obviously her son.
But upon closer inspection I found this was untrue. No, Laura Nyro was holding JACKSON BROWNE!
Being a rock fan is being an archaeologist. You dig and dig. Looking for just one little nugget to make the entire picture come clear.
I had no idea why Jackson Browne opened for Laura Nyro at the Fillmore East just before Christmas in the winter of 1970. Even at this point, we were jaded when it came to opening acts. But this guy was someone special. He came out with just his acoustic and the songs he sang ENRAPTURED US! To the point where I haunted record shops for over a year until his debut album was released.
But just before he left the stage, as he was saying his goodbyes, he thanked the crowd for paying attention, knowing that Laura's fans were a special breed, that they were there primarily to see her.
And their acts could not have been any more different. Jackson was the California troubadour, here to tell us of his adventures and insights. But when Laura took the stage twenty minutes later we were confronted with shadows and light. All the sunniness and early-life optimism of Jackson faded away instantly.
Now Laura wasn't a complete downer. She could pound the piano and wail in exuberance BETTER than the Fifth Dimension, who were so famous for covering her songs. Because when Laura let loose, she wasn't singing a song, no, she was letting out what was INSIDE HER!
And that evening, she played much of her new album, "Christmas and the Beads of Sweat".
The night of my fiftieth birthday, I played the title track. I had to turn the house upside down to find the CD, but I needed to hear it.
I was confronted with the love of dozens of people in a surprise party. I was the center of attention. But I felt somehow I didn't deserve it. That in reality I'm the outside observer.
When I arrived home after midnight, I put on Joni's "People's Parties", but that didn't get it right. No, because this was MY PARTY! MY CHRISTMAS!
How in the hell could I feel so isolated, yet so CONNECTED! How could I be PART of the group yet sometimes feel so REMOVED!
What a conundrum.
The only thing that would make me feel good was a record.
I had to hear "Christmas In My Soul".
"Late For The Sky" is my favorite album ever. But as many times as I've seen Jackson, he's never compared with the three times I saw Laura. You see she dug down deep and bared her soul. For her, for us.
But now she's gone. And just about forgotten.
But not to the person who sent me this photograph. And me.
The reason Jackson Browne was on the bill with Laura Nyro at the Fillmore East was because they shared the same manager, David Geffen.
Obviously this photograph was shot in heady times. When Laura was at her peak, and Jackson was on his way up. Maybe in Central Park, maybe in Southern California. The light through the trees, which lands on Laura's face and Jackson's hair, indicates hope. All the hope we had in the sixties.
That hope disappeared over the next few years.
But somehow that hope is returning now. A new generation doesn't like where its government is leading them. And this generation has learned what to do from icons of the past.
Jackson is doing his part.
Laura...she's pushing up daisies.
But somehow she'd like that. She was always someone for small moments of beauty.
And this photo is a small moment of beauty. The passing of the torch from one musical generation to another.
But although it's ancient history, the work still remains. Although I play "The Late Show" more than "Fountain Of Sorrow", each are part of my DNA.
And so are classics like "The Poverty Train", and my personal favorites "Captains For Dark Mornings" and "New York Tendaberry".
Laura had this way of inhabiting the whole space. Of making all the other sounds fade into the distance. So you only concentrated on her. Her personal statements, her revelations.
That's life.
We're bombarded by advertising messages. But what really gets to us is the message from one person to another.
No one from the rock era touched us quite like Laura. Oh, we got insight from Jackson, but Laura told us about life itself.
And her life, it emanates from her photo, in my living room, years after that show at the Fillmore East, but in my heart just yesterday.
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