Laura Nyro (/ˈnɪəroʊ/ NEER-oh; born Laura Nigro, October 18, 1947 – April 8, 1997) was an American songwriter, singer, and pianist. She achieved critical acclaim with her own recordings, particularly the albums Eli and the Thirteenth Confession (1968) and New York Tendaberry(1969), and had commercial success with artists such as Barbra Streisand and The 5th Dimension recording her songs. Her style was a hybrid of Brill Building-style New York pop, jazz, rhythm and blues, show tunes, rock, and soul.

Between 1968 and 1970, a number of artists had hits with her songs: The 5th Dimension with “Blowing Away“, “Wedding Bell Blues“, “Stoned Soul Picnic“, “Sweet Blindness“, and “Save the Country“; Blood, Sweat & Tears and Peter, Paul and Mary, with “And When I Die“; Three Dog Night and Maynard Ferguson, with “Eli’s Comin’“; and Barbra Streisand with “Stoney End“, “Time and Love”, and “Hands off the Man (Flim Flam Man)”. Nyro’s best-selling single was her recording of Carole King‘s and Gerry Goffin‘s “Up on the Roof“.

In 2010, Laura Nyro was posthumously inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame, arguably her greatest professional accolade, in the footsteps of composers like George Gershwin, Oscar Hammerstein, and Stephen Sondheim.

Afterwards, in 2012, Nyro was also posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Nyro was born Laura Nigro in the Bronx, the daughter of Gilda (née Mirsky) Nigro, a bookkeeper, and Louis Nigro, a piano tuner and jazz trumpeter. Laura had a younger brother, Jan Nigro, who has become a well-known children’s musician. Laura was of Russian Jewish, Polish Jewish, with Italian ancestry from her paternal grandfather.