If you've never heard "Eli and The Thirteenth Confession," Laura Nyro's second album, you should give it a listen. (Paul Schaeffer has said it would be his "desert island" disc.) This fusion of jazz and pop has appeared on more Top 100 lists than I can count.

Laura was better known for writing hits for other people, but she was a force all her own. I remember seeing her in a Sunday afternoon show at the famous Main Point, dressed in a diaphanous black evening gown. She leaned over the grand piano and breathed into the mike, "David, I need a light." And future billionaire David Geffen, her then-manager, leapt onto the stage to light her cigarette.

After the Beatles, she might be the single most influential songwriter of the Sixties. Even Joni Mitchell grudgingly admitted she was the only songwriter she saw as a peer.

Artists like Carole King, Tori Amos, Patti Smith, Kate Bush, Suzanne Vega, Bette Midler, Rickie Lee Jones, Elton John, Jackson Browne, Elvis Costello, Cyndi Lauper, and Todd Rundgren cite her as a major influence. (Alice Cooper has said she's one of his favorite songwriters.)