Margo Guryan, the cult singer-songwriter who composed the 1960s hit “Sunday Mornin'” and later saw renewed interest in her own solo music when her lone album, 1968’s Take a Picture, was reissued, has died at the age of 84.
Guryan’s death was first reported by Buzzbands.LA and confirmed by her friend, Damon Krukowski of Galaxie 500.
A classically trained musician who studied at Boston University, Guryan was signed by Atlantic Records in the late 1950s. After her initial attempts as a performer stalled, Guryan focused her efforts on songwriting for others. Jazz singer Chris Conner (“Lonely Woman”) and Harry Belafonte (“I’m On My Way to Saturday”) were among the artists who recorded her early compositions.
After hearing The Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds, Guryan was inspired to write the song “Think of Rain,” which was subsequently recorded by a number of artists including Bobby Sherman, Jackie DeShannon, and Claudine Longer. Later that year, Guryan composed what would be her most commercially successfully song, “Sunday Mornin'”. A version recorded by Spanky and Our Gang reached No. 30 on the Billboard 200. It was also sang as a duet by Bobbie Gentry and Glen Campbell.
Guryan released what proved to be her lone solo album, Take a Picture, in 1968. Though the album was well-received critically, Guryan’s disinterest in touring behind the release stifled its commercial performance. She subsequently withdrew from the music industry entirely.
Three decades after its release, Guryan’s music received renewed interest when Saint Etienne covered her song “I Don’t Intend to Spend Christmas Without You.” In 1999, Take a Picture was reissued in the US, Europe, and Japan, followed in 2001 by the release of the 25 Demos collection.
In 2007, Guryan released her first new composition in four decades with “16 Words,” a song inspired by George W. Bush’s 2003 State of the Union.
More recently, Guryan’s song “Why Do I Cry?” went viral on TikTok, and the title track to Take a Picture is set to soundtrack the season finale of Doom Patrol on HBO Max. In a 2021 feature on the 40 Greatest One-Album Wonders, Rolling Stone lauded Take a Picture “as an early prototype for countless lounge and dream-pop excursions [that] bridges the gap between Burt Bacharach and Belle & Sebastian.”
Listen to some of Guryan’s compositions below:
