LAURA NYRO DRIVEN BY FANS' APPRECIATION, NOT BOMBAST.

Byline: Mark Brown Orange County Register

Laura Nyro, who died last week, was perhaps best known to the public through her songs made hits by other people, which included ``Eli's Coming'' by Three Dog Night, ``Stoney End'' by Barbra Streisand, ``And When I Die'' by Blood, Sweat and Tears, and ``Wedding Bell Blues'' by the Fifth Dimension.

Like the recently deceased Townes Van Zandt, the Bronx-born Nyro was a much bigger influence in a quiet fashion than a music star. To fellow musicians, she was a powerful influence who shook up the music world with the 1968 release ``Eli and the Thirteenth Confession'' the same way Patti Smith would rock things nearly a decade later.

Columbia Records recently released a two-CD retrospective of Nyro's work, ``Stoned Soul Picnic: The Best of Laura Nyro.'' In it, Nyro credited her love of poetry for influencing her to write songs such as ``And When I Die'' and ``Wedding Bell Blues'' when she was just 17.

Nyro and Joni Mitchell did for female singer-songwriters what Bob Dylan had done for males years earlier, opening the door to the record industry and the public to listen to what she had to say. Besides Streisand, artists such as Suzanne Vega, the Indigo Girls, Sweet Honey in the Rock, Jane Siberry, the Roches, George Duke, Junior Walker, Elvis Costello and even Frank Sinatra recorded her songs. Many of those artists and others - Rickie Lee Jones, Teena Marie - acknowledged their debt to the slight singer with the soaring voice.

In her music she wore her influences prominently, from the doo-wop groups she grew up with, to jazz masters and to the Dylan anthems she idolized. She wasn't afraid to mix that all together with her out-front, supremely assured vocal stylings.

``I was not, let's say, raised on mainstream songwriting,'' she said in an interview included in the new retrospective. ``For instance, when I was a teen-ager I listened to a lot of John Coltrane. To Miles Davis, along with soul music, folk and rock 'n' roll that I was into. But I listened a lot to those incredible jazz minds. So, interesting chord structures and chord progressions that were off the beaten track are natural to me.''

What mystified critics and fans alike was why Nyro never broke out as an extremely popular artist in the public eye. Her version of ``Wedding Bell Blues'' was nearly identical to the lusher version that was a hit for the Fifth Dimension. While her interpretations of ``Eli's Coming'' and ``And When I Die'' were less bombastic than the hit versions by Three Dog Night and Blood, Sweat and Tears, respectively, fans found them more appealing and intimate.

While not as visible on the charts in recent years, she toured ceaselessly and continued to record albums up through ``Walk the Dog and Lite the Lite'' in 1993. Fans, however, found the same soulful singing and insightful songwriting in newer pieces such as ``Broken Rainbow'' and ``Lite a Flame.'' In addition, her concert appearances featured solo acoustic versions of classics such as ``And When I Die,'' delivered with a delicate beauty that was light-years from the popular version by Blood, Sweat and Tears. A live album of 1993-94 concert appearances is in the works, as is a more complete career retrospective on Profile Records.

Nyro remained content with her place in history but was more interested in fans' appreciation of her work.

``There's a certain feeling when I get out and sing - it's almost like a healing thing,'' she said. ``And I think that some of the songs remind them of some sweet kid inside themselves.''