Mother's Spiritual

About Mother's Spiritual

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. The album was released at the beginning of 1984 after a year of difficult and expensive recording sessions, and came more than five years after its predecessor, 1978's well-received but poor-selling Nested. Thanks to a small buzz surrounding Nyro's return to the spotlight after her second period of semi-retirement (the first came from 1972-1975), Mother's Spiritual became Nyro's last US chart entry, reaching #182 on the Billboard 200 chart. Musically, Mother's Spiritual is the most serene and easygoing of all Laura Nyro albums, and was criticised in some quarters for being too sedate and maternal in comparison to her wild, adventurous, and experimental albums such as Eli and the Thirteenth Confession and New York Tendaberry. Thematically, Nyro's concerns turned from passion and love towards subjects of a more political and sociological nature, including environmentalism, motherhood, and feminism. It met with mixed reviews, and Nyro was lambasted in some quarters for "turning into a tree-hugger." more »