Laura Nyro - Stoned Soul Picnic: The Best Of Laura Nyro (1997)

A double-CD, career-spanning retrospective that offers little in the way of surprises: it's a tastefully selected overview of her career highlights, heaviest (and justifiably so) on her late '60s albums. There's the inevitable feeling of letdown as disc two progresses; her post-early '70s material is far less interesting than her earliest work, even if it's inoffensive. All of the first five albums (through 1971's Gonna Take a Miracle) are now on CD, so this is most suitable for the fan who isn't passionate enough to be a completist. Includes a couple of previously unreleased live tracks from the 1990s; the version of "Sweet Blindness," unfortunately, is not the original late-'60s recording, but from a late-'70s live album.

Tracklist:

CD1:
01 - Wedding Bell Blues
02 - Blowin' Away
03 - Billiy's Blues
04 - Stoney End
05 - And When I Die
06 - Lu
07 - Eli's Comin'
08 - Stoned Soul Picnic
09 - Timer
10 - Emmie
11 - The Confession
12 - Capt. St. Lucifer
13 - Gibson Street
14 - New York Tendaberry
15 - Save The Country
16 - Blackpatch
17 - Upstairs By A Chinese Lamp
18 - Beads Of Sweat
19 - When I Was A Freeport And You Were The Main Drag

CD2:
01 - I Met Him On A Sunday
02 - The Bells
03 - Smile
04 - Sweet Blindness
05 - Money
06 - Mr. Blue
07 - A Wilderness
08 - Mother's Spiritual
09 - A Woman Of The World
10 - Louise's Church
11 - Broken Rainbow
12 - To A Child
13 - Lite A Flame
14 - And When I Die
15 - Save the Country