Margo Guyan born September 20, 1937

Margo Guryan (September 20, 1937 – November 8, 2021) was an American singer-songwriter. 

Born in a New York suburb, Guryan began her musical path as a child, taking up the study of piano in the first grade and continuing through high school and into Boston University. She studied classical music, though she was attracted to certain kinds of pop music, particularly jazz, which she had fallen in love with in high school. Never a fan of performing, Guryan switched from her piano curriculum, for which she would have had to complete a senior recital, to composition in her sophomore year at Boston. 

Her pop and jazz compositions began garnering immediate attention. Chris Connor became the first artist to record one of her songs, "Moon Ride," which she released on Atlantic in 1957. The summer after she graduated from college, Guryan spent three weeks at the Lenox School of Jazz in Massachusetts, where Ornette Coleman and Gary McFarland were fellow students and the teaching staff included Bill Evans, John Lewis, Milt Jackson, Jim Hall, Max Roach, and Gunther Schuller. Lewis and Schuller signed her to MJQ Music once the session was completed and gave her the assignment of turning Coleman's "Lonely Woman" into a vocal version.

Jazz singer Chris Connor recorded her song "Moon Ride" in 1958, while Guryan was still at university, and in 1962, Ms. Connor had recorded "Lonely Woman" with Guryan's lyrics. Another early recording of her work was by Harry Belafonte, who recorded "I'm On My Way to Saturday" for The Many Moods of Belafonte (1962). She attended the Lenox School of Jazz in 1959, where she met and worked with Ornette Coleman and Don Cherry, and was taught by Bill Evans, Max Roach, Milt Jackson, Jim Hall, John Lewis and Gunther Schuller, among others. 

She was one of two women admitted to the program that year. Following this, Lewis and Schuller signed her to MJQ Music. She was primarily a jazz musician in this period, married to jazz trombonist and pianist Bob Brookmeyer and writing lyrics for jazz pieces by composers including John Lewis, Ornette Coleman and Arif Mardin. Songs of this period, with her lyrics, were recorded by Chris Connor, Freda Payne, Nancy Harrow and Alice Babs, among others.

                                   

Until the mid-'60s, Guryan had focused largely on classical and jazz, but it was her friend Dave Frishburg who introduced her to a pop record that changed her life: the Beach Boys' "God Only Knows." She soon began listening to any pop and rock music she could get her hands on and altered her own song writing tendencies accordingly. After working up a catalogue of her own originals, jazz producer Creed Taylor sent Guryan to Columbia's publishing company, April-Blackwood, and manager David Rosner (her eventual husband) was sufficiently impressed enough to help her record an album. Take a Picture appeared on Bell Records in 1968, by which time Spanky & Our Gang had already recorded a hit version of one of the songs, "Sunday Morning." The album earned positive reviews, but wider attention was sacrificed to her performing aversion.

As a songwriter, though, it was a thoroughly productive period for Guryan. Claudine Longet, Jackie DeShannon, and Astrud Gilberto all released versions of "Think of Rain" (while Dion and an impressed Harry Nilsson also recorded unreleased versions). "Sunday Morning" was also a hit for Oliver, and it was recorded by Julie London, Bobbie Gentry, and Glen Campbell, among others. Her songs were placed with London, Carmen McCrae, the Lennon Sisters, and Mama Cass Elliot.  Guryan continued composing through the end of the '60s and into the '70s. Although she preferred writing songs that others could record and perform, in 1968 Margo recorded and released an album entitled "Take a Picture". Although the success of this record back then was limited, it has since become a much sought-after collector’s item, so much that original pressings of the "Take a Picture" LP have been spotted being sold on e-Bay for as much as $190 each!

She moved with her husband to Los Angeles and tried to stay current by writing a several topical songs -- she even tried her hand at disco for a single effort -- but her personal connection with the music had begun to wane, and she turned to producing other artists. Gradually she began to study and practice classical music again with Howard Richman, the teacher she had initially found for her stepson. She, in turn, became a teacher, and took up composing again in the '90s as a teaching aid for her students. By the end of the decade, interest in her 1968 album had come full-circle, garnering raves among pop aficionados, not only in the United States but also in Japan, England, and Europe. Meanwhile a new generation of artists began embracing her songs including Saint Etienne, Linus of Hollywood, and the Wondermints. An archival release called 25 Demos was released by Franklin/Oglio in 2001 with a slightly expanded U.K. version, Thoughts, appearing a bit later on the RPM label.

Sessions for a possible new record commenced in the mid-2000s, though 2006's "16 Words" was the only track to see release. An instrumental recording of Guryan performing The Chopsticks Variations was issued in 2009, and over the next decade additional versions of her demo anthology were released including Burger Records' 27 Demos (2014) and Modern Harmonic's 29 Demos (2016). Margo Guryan died at her home in Los Angeles on November 8, 2021, at the age of 84. 

(Edited from Wikipedia)