Nina Simone – The Best of

Nina Simone – The Best of

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00:00 Nina Simone – Brown Baby (1962) 05:36 Nina Simone – In The Evening By The Moonlight (1960) 11:38 Nina Simone – Theme From ‘Middle Of The Night’ (1959) 14:03 Nina Simone – Return Home (1959) 19:27 Nina Simone – You’ve Been Gone Too Long (1959) 21:36 Nina Simone – Mood Indigo (1958) 25:33 Nina Simone – He Was Too Good To Me (1962) 30:34 Nina Simone – Memphis In June (1961) 33:08 Nina Simone – Blue Prelude (1959) 36:25 Nina Simone – Black Is The Color Of My True Loves Hair (1959) 39:52 Nina Simone – Merry Mending (1962)

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42:23 Nina Simone – Where Can I Go Without You (1961) 45:11 Nina Simone – Stompin’ At The Savoy (1959) 47:17 Nina Simone – Little Liza Jane (1960) 51:42 Nina Simone – Wild Is The Wind (1959) 55:03 Nina Simone – Solitaire (1959) 58:19 Nina Simone – He Needs Me (1958) 01:00:40 Nina Simone – The Other Woman (1959) 01:03:33 Nina Simone – Just In Time (1962) 01:10:06 Nina Simone – You’d Be So Nice To Come Home To (1960) 01:14:34 Nina Simone – Little Girl Blue (1958)

01:18:45 Nina Simone – Do Nothin’ Till You Hear From Me (1962) 01:21:32 Nina Simone – The Gal From Joe’s (1962) 01:23:29 Nina Simone – Trouble In Mind (1960) 01:29:04 Nina Simone – Can’t Get Out Of This Mood (1959) 01:31:35 Nina Simone – No Good Man (1961) 01:35:07 Nina Simone – Flo Me La (1960) 01:42:14 Nina Simone – Plain Gold Ring (1958) 01:45:21 Nina Simone – I Love To Love (1961)

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The High Priestess of Soul: The Life, Style, and Enduring Legacy of Nina Simone

Nina Simone was more than a musician; she was a force of nature. A classically trained pianist, a vocalist of unparalleled emotional depth, a composer of fierce originality, and an unflinching civil rights activist, she defied categorization throughout her life. She was often labeled a “jazz singer,” but this is a reductive container for an artist who seamlessly wove classical, blues, folk, gospel, pop, and soul into a unique and powerful tapestry. Her voice—a rich, dark contralto that could be a whispered caress or a thunderous roar—was an instrument of profound expression, capable of conveying the deepest wells of sorrow, the sharpest barbs of anger, and the most transcendent joy. To understand Nina Simone is to understand the struggle for artistic integrity and the relentless pursuit of justice through art.

A Life Forged in Fire: The Biography of Nina Simone

Early Life and Classical Foundations (1933-1954)
Eunice Kathleen Waymon was born on February 21, 1933, in Tryon, North Carolina, the sixth of eight children in a poor African-American family. Her musical gift was evident early on; she played piano by ear at the age of three and became the pianist at her local Methodist church. Her mother, a Methodist minister, and her father, a handyman and preacher, recognized her prodigious talent. With the support of her community and her mother’s employer, she began taking classical piano lessons with a local teacher, Mrs. Lawrence Mazzanovich, a British woman who nurtured her love for Bach, Chopin, Beethoven, and Schubert.

This period was also marked by her first traumatic encounter with racism. At her first public recital at age twelve, her parents, who had been seated in the front row, were forcibly moved to the back to make room for white attendees. The young Eunice refused to play until her parents were returned to their seats. This incident planted a seed of righteous anger that would later define her career.

Her dream was to become the first Black classical concert pianist in America. With the help of a fund set up by her supporters in Tryon, she attended the Juilliard School of Music in New York City for a year, preparing for a scholarship audition at the prestigious Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. Despite a stellar audition, she was denied admission—a rejection she attributed unequivocally to racism for the rest of her life. This crushing blow ended her classical aspirations and forever shaped her fraught relationship with the musical establishment.

The Birth of “Nina Simone” (1954-1964)
Devastated and in need of an income, she took a job playing piano and singing at the Midtown Bar & Grill in Atlantic City in 1954. The owner demanded that she sing as well as play, and to hide this “devil’s music” from her devout mother, she adopted the stage name “Nina Simone”—”Nina” from a nickname given by a boyfriend (from the Spanish “niña”) and “Simone” from the French actress Simone Signoret.

Her unique style—mixing instrumental pieces like “Jitterbug Waltz” with pop songs and gospel-infused numbers—quickly garnered a loyal following. Her first hit came in 1958 with a breathtakingly slow, blues-drenched version of “I Loves You, Porgy” from George Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess. It became a top-20 pop hit, launching her national career and leading to her debut album, Little Girl Blue.

This early period established her as a formidable interpreter. She possessed an alchemical ability to take any song—from show tunes to folk ballads—and completely reinvent it, imprinting it with her own complex personality. She signed with the influential Colpix label and built a reputation as a captivating, if intimidating, live performer.

The Voice of the Movement (1964-1974)
The 1960s marked a profound transformation in Nina Simone’s life and art. The murder of Medgar Evers in 1963 and the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, which killed four young Black girls, ignited a fire within her. She felt a moral and artistic obligation to use her platform in the fight for civil rights.

This period produced her most explicitly political and powerful work. She wrote “Mississippi Goddam” in under an hour after the Birmingham bombing. A furious, sarcastic, and brilliantly catchy song, it was a direct rebuttal to the notion of gradual change. Its release was controversial; it was banned in several Southern states, and radio stations returned copies broken in half. Other landmark protest anthems followed: “Old Jim Crow,” “Backlash Blues” (with lyrics penned by her friend Langston Hughes), and the haunting “Strange Fruit,” a song about lynching made famous by Billie Holiday.

Perhaps her most enduring civil rights statement is her rendition of “To Be Young, Gifted and Black,” written in memory of her friend, the playwright Lorraine Hansberry. It became an anthem of Black pride and empowerment, a hopeful counterpoint to the anguish of “Mississippi Goddam.”

Her personal life during this time was turbulent. She had a daughter, Lisa Celeste, in 1962, and a notoriously volatile marriage to Andy Stroud, who became her manager. The pressure of her career, the intensity of her activism, and the lingering pain of her past struggles began to take a heavy toll.

Exile and Later Years (1974-2003)
Disillusioned with America’s racial politics and the music industry, Nina Simone left the United States in 1974. She lived a nomadic life in Liberia, Switzerland, Paris, the Netherlands, and finally the South of France. Her career went through periods of obscurity and resurgence. She was diagnosed with bipolar disorder in the late 1980s, which explained the extreme mood swings that had often marked her live performances.

Despite personal and financial struggles, she never stopped performing or recording. Her 1987 live version of “My Baby Just Cares for Me” became an unexpected hit in the UK after being used in a Chanel No. 5 commercial, introducing her to a new generation. She wrote her brutally honest autobiography, I Put a Spell on You, in 1991.

Nina Simone spent her final years in Carry-le-Rouet, France. She passed away on April 21, 2003, in her sleep after a long illness. Her death was met with an outpouring of grief from across the world, a testament to her enduring impact.

The Architecture of an Unclassifiable Style

Nina Simone’s style cannot be pinned to a single genre. It was a fusion, a confrontation, and a conversation between all the music she had ever absorbed.

The Pianist: Her classical training was the bedrock of her artistry. She possessed a formidable technique, with a powerful left hand that provided complex, often Bach-like, harmonic and rhythmic foundations. Her arrangements were dense and intellectual, filled with contrapuntal lines and sophisticated chord voicings that one would expect in a concert hall, not a nightclub. When she played, the piano was not an accompaniment; it was a co-narrator, equal in expression to her voice.

The Singer: Her voice was an unparalleled instrument of emotional truth. It was not conventionally “pretty”; it was raw, gritty, and capable of shocking dynamic shifts. She could deploy a vibrato so wide it sounded like a sob, or deliver a line with the stark, chilling clarity of a recitative. She used silence and space as powerfully as sound. Every syllable was weighted with intention, whether it was despair, defiance, seduction, or scorn.

The Interpreter: This was perhaps her greatest genius. She did not merely “cover” songs; she deconstructed and rebuilt them. She turned the pop fluff of “My Baby Just Cares for Me” into a sophisticated jazz swing number. She transformed the folk ballad “House of the Rising Sun” into a slow-burning, Gothic tragedy. She infused the love song “I Put a Spell on You” with a terrifying, primal intensity. She made every song her own, forcing the listener to hear the lyrics anew.

Why She is So Important and Influential

Nina Simone’s importance and influence are monumental and can be felt across music, culture, and social justice.

1. The Blueprint of the Artist-Activist: In an era when Black entertainers were often pressured to remain apolitical to be palatable to white audiences, Nina Simone was unyielding. She used her art as a weapon for social change, proving that music could be both beautiful and politically potent. She paved the way for countless artists, from Public Enemy to Kendrick Lamar, who see their work as intrinsically linked to the struggle for justice. She famously stated, “An artist’s duty, as far as I’m concerned, is to reflect the times.” She lived this creed without compromise.
2. A Singular Model of Artistic Integrity: She refused to be categorized or commercialized. She played what she felt, when she felt it, and demanded absolute silence and respect from her audience. Her performances were not mere entertainment; they were visceral, transformative experiences. She showed generations of musicians, particularly women and Black artists, that they did not have to conform to industry standards to be successful—that their unique vision was their greatest strength.
3. Musical Influence: Her influence is vast and deep. Her classical-jazz fusion can be heard in the work of artists like Robert Glasper. Her raw, emotional vocal delivery has inspired everyone from Aretha Franklin and David Bowie (who was a devoted fan) to Lauryn Hill, Adele, and Hozier. Her fearless genre-blending presaged the entire “alt” landscape of today.
4. A Cultural Icon and Symbol of Black Pride: Songs like “To Be Young, Gifted and Black” and “Four Women” (a stunning narrative about the stereotypes and struggles of Black women) provided a soundtrack for the Civil Rights and Black Power movements and continue to resonate today. She gave voice to Black anger, pain, pride, and beauty in a way that was unprecedented in popular music. She remains a towering figure of dignity, strength, and uncompromising Black identity.

Essential Works: A Primer

To know Nina Simone is to listen to her. Key recordings include:

• “Mississippi Goddam”: The quintessential protest song. Furious, urgent, and brilliant.
• “Strange Fruit”: Her rendition is arguably the most chilling ever recorded, a masterpiece of controlled horror.
• “Feeling Good”: A song of triumphant liberation that has been covered endlessly but never matched for its raw, soaring power.
• “Sinnerman”: A 10-minute tour-de-force that builds from a spiritual into a frantic, percussive explosion.
• “I Put a Spell on You”: The definition of obsessive love, delivered with terrifying conviction.
• “To Be Young, Gifted and Black”: An enduring anthem of hope and pride.
• “Four Women”: A poignant and powerful exploration of Black womanhood.
• “I Loves You, Porgy”: The song that started it all, achingly beautiful and vulnerable.
• “Ain’t Got No / I Got Life” (from ‘Nuff Said!): A medley that moves from despair to joyful defiance, capturing her live magic.

Essential Albums:

• Pastel Blues (1965)
• Wild Is the Wind (1966)
• High Priestess of Soul (1967)
• ‘Nuff Said! (1968) – featuring a powerful live recording from the Westbury Music Fair days after Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination.
• Nina Simone Sings the Blues (1967)

Nina Simone was a revolutionary. She was a genius who was told her dream was impossible, so she forged a new, more authentic path. She was an artist who looked at the world’s ugliness and refused to look away, instead channeling its pain and its promise into her music. Her legacy is not just in the songs she left behind, but in the challenge she issued: to be an artist of integrity, to speak truth to power, and to never, ever apologize for the depth of your feeling or the fire of your convictions. She was, and remains, the High Priestess of Soul—a title that doesn’t define her, but one she alone defines.

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