Laurie Styvers: The life of Texas’ great forgotten songwriter
From the outlaw country of Willie Nelson to frozen margaritas, handheld calculators, and even breast implants, Texas has made a number of notable contributions to American pop culture over the years, but music is perhaps where the Lone Star state has excelled the most. Nevertheless, some of the state’s greatest talents seemed to fall through the cracks during their heyday, as in the case of Laurie Styvers.
Unjustified obscurities are ten-a-penny within the realm of the music industry, but Laurie Styvers’ story still feels particularly tragic. On paper, the young vocalist had everything going for her: a beautiful voice, songwriting talent, and even connections with the right people within the industry. Yet, even still, she passed away prematurely without ever having broken into the mainstream or realised her musical ambitions.
Starting at the beginning, though, Styvers fulfilled the average Texan stereotype by being born into a family in the oil business. During the mid-1960s, though, her father was relocated to London, during perhaps the most exciting cultural period in the history of the English capital.
As any teenager walking the swinging streets of 1960s London was bound to do, Styvers quickly became entranced with the blossoming music scene around her, and wanted some of it for herself.
Her salvation came in the form of a 1968 newspaper ad, which led her to join the long-forgotten folk-rock trio Justine, alongside John McBurnie and Keith Trowsdale. After recording one single that was immediately lost to obscurity, though, Styvers chose instead to focus on establishing a solo career, with the help of her then-boyfriend Hugh Murphy and his friend, the legendary Kinks and Who producer, Shel Talmy.
Even Talmy, however, couldn’t seem to inspire commercial appeal in Styvers’ work; her solo debut, Spilt Milk, went nowhere in 1972, and her follow-up in The Colorado Kid didn’t fare much better. Aside from a few decent reviews and some airplay on college radio, the folk-rock stylings of the Texan vocalist seemingly weren’t enough to make an impact.
By the time that the 1970s came to a close, the budding young songwriter had abandoned the music industry entirely. Moving back to Texas and setting up an animal sanctuary, nobody would have been any the wiser about her fleeting recording career or how she had rubbed shoulders with the movers and shakers of London’s swinging sixties period. She remained in obscurity until her tragic passing in 1998, after a battle with hepatitis.
It wasn’t until decades later, in 2023, that High Moon Records issued an expansive anthology of Styvers’ recordings for Talmy and Murphy while the pair were at Hush Productions. Compiling both studio albums along with various studio outtakes, the release was the first to truly capture the beauty of the Texan’s songwriting talents and vocal prowess.
It might have taken the music industry some 50 years to truly understand the appeal of Laurie Styvers, but it is better late than never, as they say, and today her work is rightly hailed among the greatest efforts of early 1970s folk-rock excellence.
