Song of the Day 1/23: Laura Nyro, “And When I Die”
Readers following the thread spawned by Wednesday’s Song of the Day know that El Somnambulo has no love for the second Blood, Sweat and Tears LP, which spent seven weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard album chart and spawned three No. 2 singles, including this tune, written by a 17-year-old Laura Nyro.
Nyro wasn’t the first to record her song, because she sold it for $5,000 to Peter, Paul and Mary, who included it on their sixth LP.
It became a huge hit for BS&T, but I understand El Som’s distaste for it. I don’t care for the cowboy-song atmosphere of the arrangement, though David Clayton-Thomas’ vocal is more restrained that I remembered it, at least until the coda.
Nyro’s compositions drew on so many strains of American popular music that artists across various genres recorded her tunes. Jazz pianist Billy Childs recruited Alison Krauss and dobro virtuoso Jerry Douglas for his version on his 2014 Nyro tribute album “Map to the Treasure.” Childs’ arrangement, unlike Nyro’s upbeat original, gives the song a more haunting feel.
Childs isn’t the first jazzman to tackle the tune. Chet Baker released an upbeat version based on the BS&T arrangement on his “Blood, Chet and Tears” LP in 1970.
Wow. That Childs/Krauss/Douglas version is chill-inducing. They make that song their own.
My SO’s late husband was the Road Manager and Sound Engineer for BS&T in their heyday. One of the few stories he told her was about a show in Japan where DCT got really embarrassed. It seems he was singing and there was a quiet musical interlude, DCT relaxed his arms and his hand, and mic, went behind his waist. The late husband didn’t mute DCT’s mic in time and the musical sound of passing gas echoed through the auditorium.