Nina Simone RCA Reissues
Forever Young, Gifted & Black: Songs of Freedom and Spirit
Nina Simone Sings the Blues
Silk & Soul
(RCA Legacy)
Over the course of her almost fifty-year-long performing career, Nina Simone was a lot of things to a lot of different people. She was the husky-voiced, primitive blues goddess of "See Line Woman" and "Feeling Good," the fearless Civil Rights crusader of "Old Jim Crow" and "Mississippi Goddam," the sophisticated "High Priestess of Soul" who gave her definitive 1966 album its name. She was, of course, all of these things; more often than not, she was all of them at the same time. And that is precisely why the essence of Simone is so difficult to capture on a single disc. To try and boil down a career as long, as varied, as singularly eclectic as hers into just a handful of iconic moments is an exercise in futility.
Thankfully, the compilers of these reissues understand that fact. Playing to just three of Simone's many strengths, they wisely highlight each with a disc of its own: Sings the Blues and Silk & Soul, both originally released in 1967, cover their self-explanatory genres with the comfortable ease of a woman who has been blending them for years, while Forever Young, Gifted & Black compiles politically-minded highlights and rarities from the late '60s. Granted, some might argue that these releases are inherently flawed, hailing as they do from the singer's late '60s tenure at RCA rather than her two trailblazing "classic years" with Phillips. But if listening to this music with fresh ears proves anything, it's that there's a timelessness to all of Simone's work, which no amount of critical grumpiness could ever erase.
As a matter of fact, these albums work a hell of a lot better than they have any right to. Forever Young, Gifted & Black's track listing reads at first glance like a senseless grab bag of Civil Rights Nina: a single here, an alternate take there, a smattering of live cuts to fill the gaps. But the music within is never less than interesting, and often revelatory. Three excerpts from Simone's performance at the Westbury Music Fair on April 7, 1968, mere days after the assassination of Martin Luther King, are the obvious highlights: a performance so charged that the stage banter by a shell-shocked, emotional Simone rivals the music for intensity. "Do you realize how many we have lost?" she asks before the rousing final chorus of "Why? (The King of Love is Dead)," a long-edited tribute to Dr. King here expanded to its full thirteen minutes. "They're shooting us down one by one." Next, she invokes the Birmingham Four and launches into an incendiary rendition of "Mississippi Goddam" which threatens to leave its better-known counterpart (from 1964's Nina Simone in Concert) in the dust. "The King of Love is dead! I ain't 'bout to be non-violent, honey!" she exclaims before the final verse, demonstrating in just thirteen words the miles of difference four years can make in the national consciousness.
These Westbury tracks are something of a double-edged sword for the compilation; they leave one salivating over the prospect of a full-length release for that concert, while making the rest of the CD we do have look rather hodge-podge by comparison. But Forever Young, Gifted and Black still manages to hold together as an enjoyable listening experience. The Lorraine Hansberry-quoting title track, a vibrant collision of gospel exultation and pomp reverence, remains one of Simone's most immediate anthems, while the alternate versions of "Turn! Turn! Turn!" and "Ain't Got No/I Got Life" are respectively more intimate and more rollicking than their previously-released forebears. Finally, the collection is rounded out by a handful of album cuts: two live from NYC's Philharmonic Hall in 1969 (already made available on Black Gold), two from 1969's To Love Somebody, and one - a little oddly - from Silk & Soul. Although I can't help but wonder why these tracks weren't passed over in favor of more rare material, they're all hits rather than misses; and with a specially-commissioned new poem by none other than Nikki Giovanni adorning the inner sleeve, who really has the heart to quibble?
In many ways more compelling than the collection, however, are Sings the Blues and Silk & Soul: not just Simone's two greatest albums for RCA, but, in the case of Sings the Blues, her single most successful excursion into the "raw" side of her music - and as we all know, Nina was about as raw as a Giulliard graduate could get. Though it may not contain anything quite as gritty as 1965's neo-work song "Be My Woman," Sings the Blues' smoky juke-joint confessionals stand comfortably among Simone's best work. It's also a more expansive album than its name implies, containing everything from frank expressions of female sexuality like "I Want a Little Sugar in My Bowl," "Buck" and "Do I Move You," to a railing anti-racism anthem cowritten by Langston Hughes ("Backlash Blues"), to a Gershwin cover ("My Man's Gone Now") and a version of "House of the Rising Sun" performed in the style of "Sinnerman!" The bonus tracks are few but worthy, and Sid McCoy's weedy original liner notes, replicated here, are also worth a laugh or two: "'Sugar in My Bowl' is one of those suggestive tunes successfully employing double entendre," he explains.
Meanwhile, "It Be's That Way Sometime" kicks off Silk & Soul in a funky, if somewhat mannered mode; the result, as Simone's powerful vocals struggle for dominance over her lite-soul backing, is inspired, creating a tension that lasts throughout the whole record. Thus fiery, gospel-tinged "soul" like "Go to Hell" and "I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel to Be Free" rubs shoulders with the "silk" of "Cherish" and "The Look of Love," and somehow she manages to pull it all off with equal skill. Throw in a few lesser-known bonus tracks (one of which, "Save Me," carries a co-writing credit by one Aretha Franklin), and this trio of Nina Simone reissues has its third consecutive success.
Of course there is more to the Nina Simone story than even these fine discs can tell; and if her career remains impossible to encapsulate in just one CD, it's hardly any easier to contain with three. Yet Sings the Blues, Silk & Soul and Forever Young, Gifted and Black remain concise statements of three of Simone's most appealing sides: the reincarnated blueswoman, the crafter and interpreter of soulful pop melodies, the poet of the African American experience. If there's any chance that these CDs could bring a deeper understanding of Nina Simone to a new generation of listeners, then a better means to that end could hardly be imagined (except, perhaps, for Verve's reissues of the Phillips albums, coming in February). Now if only they'd put out the complete Westbury show...
Official Site
Buy Forever Young, Gifted and Black
, Nina Simone Sings the Blues
, and Silk & Soul from Amazon
See Also: Nikki Giovanni
Silk & Soul
(RCA Legacy)
Over the course of her almost fifty-year-long performing career, Nina Simone was a lot of things to a lot of different people. She was the husky-voiced, primitive blues goddess of "See Line Woman" and "Feeling Good," the fearless Civil Rights crusader of "Old Jim Crow" and "Mississippi Goddam," the sophisticated "High Priestess of Soul" who gave her definitive 1966 album its name. She was, of course, all of these things; more often than not, she was all of them at the same time. And that is precisely why the essence of Simone is so difficult to capture on a single disc. To try and boil down a career as long, as varied, as singularly eclectic as hers into just a handful of iconic moments is an exercise in futility.Thankfully, the compilers of these reissues understand that fact. Playing to just three of Simone's many strengths, they wisely highlight each with a disc of its own: Sings the Blues and Silk & Soul, both originally released in 1967, cover their self-explanatory genres with the comfortable ease of a woman who has been blending them for years, while Forever Young, Gifted & Black compiles politically-minded highlights and rarities from the late '60s. Granted, some might argue that these releases are inherently flawed, hailing as they do from the singer's late '60s tenure at RCA rather than her two trailblazing "classic years" with Phillips. But if listening to this music with fresh ears proves anything, it's that there's a timelessness to all of Simone's work, which no amount of critical grumpiness could ever erase.
As a matter of fact, these albums work a hell of a lot better than they have any right to. Forever Young, Gifted & Black's track listing reads at first glance like a senseless grab bag of Civil Rights Nina: a single here, an alternate take there, a smattering of live cuts to fill the gaps. But the music within is never less than interesting, and often revelatory. Three excerpts from Simone's performance at the Westbury Music Fair on April 7, 1968, mere days after the assassination of Martin Luther King, are the obvious highlights: a performance so charged that the stage banter by a shell-shocked, emotional Simone rivals the music for intensity. "Do you realize how many we have lost?" she asks before the rousing final chorus of "Why? (The King of Love is Dead)," a long-edited tribute to Dr. King here expanded to its full thirteen minutes. "They're shooting us down one by one." Next, she invokes the Birmingham Four and launches into an incendiary rendition of "Mississippi Goddam" which threatens to leave its better-known counterpart (from 1964's Nina Simone in Concert) in the dust. "The King of Love is dead! I ain't 'bout to be non-violent, honey!" she exclaims before the final verse, demonstrating in just thirteen words the miles of difference four years can make in the national consciousness.These Westbury tracks are something of a double-edged sword for the compilation; they leave one salivating over the prospect of a full-length release for that concert, while making the rest of the CD we do have look rather hodge-podge by comparison. But Forever Young, Gifted and Black still manages to hold together as an enjoyable listening experience. The Lorraine Hansberry-quoting title track, a vibrant collision of gospel exultation and pomp reverence, remains one of Simone's most immediate anthems, while the alternate versions of "Turn! Turn! Turn!" and "Ain't Got No/I Got Life" are respectively more intimate and more rollicking than their previously-released forebears. Finally, the collection is rounded out by a handful of album cuts: two live from NYC's Philharmonic Hall in 1969 (already made available on Black Gold), two from 1969's To Love Somebody, and one - a little oddly - from Silk & Soul. Although I can't help but wonder why these tracks weren't passed over in favor of more rare material, they're all hits rather than misses; and with a specially-commissioned new poem by none other than Nikki Giovanni adorning the inner sleeve, who really has the heart to quibble?
In many ways more compelling than the collection, however, are Sings the Blues and Silk & Soul: not just Simone's two greatest albums for RCA, but, in the case of Sings the Blues, her single most successful excursion into the "raw" side of her music - and as we all know, Nina was about as raw as a Giulliard graduate could get. Though it may not contain anything quite as gritty as 1965's neo-work song "Be My Woman," Sings the Blues' smoky juke-joint confessionals stand comfortably among Simone's best work. It's also a more expansive album than its name implies, containing everything from frank expressions of female sexuality like "I Want a Little Sugar in My Bowl," "Buck" and "Do I Move You," to a railing anti-racism anthem cowritten by Langston Hughes ("Backlash Blues"), to a Gershwin cover ("My Man's Gone Now") and a version of "House of the Rising Sun" performed in the style of "Sinnerman!" The bonus tracks are few but worthy, and Sid McCoy's weedy original liner notes, replicated here, are also worth a laugh or two: "'Sugar in My Bowl' is one of those suggestive tunes successfully employing double entendre," he explains.
Meanwhile, "It Be's That Way Sometime" kicks off Silk & Soul in a funky, if somewhat mannered mode; the result, as Simone's powerful vocals struggle for dominance over her lite-soul backing, is inspired, creating a tension that lasts throughout the whole record. Thus fiery, gospel-tinged "soul" like "Go to Hell" and "I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel to Be Free" rubs shoulders with the "silk" of "Cherish" and "The Look of Love," and somehow she manages to pull it all off with equal skill. Throw in a few lesser-known bonus tracks (one of which, "Save Me," carries a co-writing credit by one Aretha Franklin), and this trio of Nina Simone reissues has its third consecutive success.Of course there is more to the Nina Simone story than even these fine discs can tell; and if her career remains impossible to encapsulate in just one CD, it's hardly any easier to contain with three. Yet Sings the Blues, Silk & Soul and Forever Young, Gifted and Black remain concise statements of three of Simone's most appealing sides: the reincarnated blueswoman, the crafter and interpreter of soulful pop melodies, the poet of the African American experience. If there's any chance that these CDs could bring a deeper understanding of Nina Simone to a new generation of listeners, then a better means to that end could hardly be imagined (except, perhaps, for Verve's reissues of the Phillips albums, coming in February). Now if only they'd put out the complete Westbury show...
Official Site
Buy Forever Young, Gifted and Black
, Nina Simone Sings the Blues, and Silk & Soul from AmazonSee Also: Nikki Giovanni
<< Home