to the fact that Laura Nyro has the best record collection on Central Park West. She touches on quite a divergent span while remaining faithful to a single, very individual vision.

After all, when you open an album with "I Met Him On A Sunday," do "Dancing In The Street" and the Charts' "Desiree" right next to each other, toss up the reverse with "Spanish Harlem" and then sandwich another classic Fifties' group song ("The Wind") between two more Martha and the Vandellas' cuts ("Jimmy Mack," "No Where To Run") and end the whole thing with the above-mentioned title track–well, it's clear that you're not dealing here with the ninth repackaging of the RCA British Blues Archives.

In fact, if it just stopped at concept, timing and programming, it could've been said that Laura Nyro had constructed something akin to the perfect in-between album. But the actual show of force contained on the record skitters awry, and what's left is a collection of great songs that work on a hit-or-miss basis; there are times when her fabled magic takes over and does whole numbers on your sound system, and there are others where she just sounds weak and out-of-depth.

Given the credit list on the album, it can get pretty difficult figuring just how to point up the problem. It can't be laid at the door of producers Gamble-Huff, since it's never really made clear exactly where they went out to lunch during the construction of this record–they don't appear to have had much effect over the finished product. Nor can it be placed on Labelle, who despite a bit more prominence on the record than a back-up chorus should logically get (remember the great distance Motown always placed between Diana Ross and the Supremes to provide a little heft to the underlying rhythm track?), turn in a high-powered support that makes up in enthusiasm what it sometimes lacks in brilliance.

Nor is it Laura herself. Her commitment to the material is evident, the love and respect for it equally so, and her voice–despite a tendency to take the easy way out whenever the originals had room for a little showtime–is evidently alive and well. But what she's working against, what finally confuses the record and tends to dilute it, is the fact that Gonna Take A Miracle never really sits down and decides what it wants to be. They've been given a choice between a simple, pared-to-the-bone type of looking-back al