Combining Bachian counterpoint, the improvisational approach of jazz and the modulations of the blues, her talent could no longer be ignored. Other characteristics of the Simone art are: her original timing, the way she uses silence as a musical element and her often understated live act, sitting at the piano and advancing the mood and climate of her songs by a few chords.
Sometimes her voice changes from dark and raw to soft and sweet. She pauses, shouts, repeats, whispers and moans. Sometimes piano, voice and gestures seem to be separate elements, then, at once, they meet. Add to this all the way she puts her spell on an audience, and you have some of the elements that make Nina Simone into a unique artist.
When four black children were killed in the bombing of a church in Birmingham in 1963, Nina wrote Mississippi Goddam, a bitter and furious accusation of the situation of her people in the USA. The strong emotional approach of this song and the others on her first Philips record ("Nina Simone In Concert"), would become another characteristic in her art. She uses her voice with its remarkable timbre and her careful piano playing as means to achieve her artistic aim: to express love, hate, sorrow, joy, loneliness - the whole range of human emotions - through music, in a direct way.
One moment, she is the actress who turns a Kurt Weill-Bertold Brecht song as Pirate Jenny into great theater, then, after a set of protest songs, she will sing Jacques Brel's fragile love song Ne Me Quitte Pas in French.
Although Nina was called "High Priestess of Soul" and was respected by fans and critics as a mysterious, almost religious figure, she was often misunderstood as well. When she wrote Four Women in 1966, a bitter lament of four black women whose circumstances and outlook are related to subtle gradations in skin color, the song was banned on Philadelphia and new York radio stations because "it was insulting to black people…"
The High Priestess would walk different paths to find the adequate music to spread her message. Her first RCA album, "Nina Simone Sings The Blues", includes her own I Want A Little Sugar In My Bowl, Do I Move You, a haunting version of My Man's Gone Now (again from "Porgy & Bess") and the protest song Backlash Blues, based on a poem written for her by Langston Hughes.
Her repertoire includes more Civil Rights songs: Why? The King of Love is Dead, capturing the tragedy of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Brown Baby, Images (based on a Waring Cuney poem), Go Limp, Old Jim Crow, ... One song, To be Young, Gifted and Black, inspired by Lorraine Hansberry's play with the same title, became the black national anthem in the USA....
And Salon profiled her in 2000:
- Her 1968 album, "'Nuff Said," contained tracks as various as "Ain't Got No/I Got Life," a medley from the '60s musical "Hair," the spiritual "Take My Hand Precious Lord" and her own "Backlash Blues," taken from the poetry of Langston Hughes.
Article comments
1 - Ocean
NINA SIMONE WAS ONE OF ONLY THE HANDFUL OF TRULY GREAT VOCAL ARTISTS OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY.I HOPE HER LIFE HAD BEEN COOL, AND GOOD, AND EASY.
SHE WAS A REGAL FIGURE- I SAW HER IN PERSON TWICE, THE FIRST TIME WHEN I WAS A PRE-TEEN , AND I WAS AMAZED AND IMPRESSED AT HER AFRICAN ATTIRE AND THE HEADDRESS SHE WORE AS ELEGANTLY AS A CROWN- HER LONG NECK REMINISCENT OF NEFERTITI HERSELF.
SHE NEVER PLAYED DIRECTLY TO THE AUDIENCE, BUT INSTEAD,WITH HER BODY LANGUAGE SHE INVITED THEM IN A SUBTLE,PSYCHIC WAY TO JOIN IN HER SOUL'S RITUAL,NEVER TURNING HER HEAD TO LOOK AT THE AUDIENCE. SHE ALLOWED US ALL TO FOLLOW HER INTO HER OWN HEAD TRIP, INTO HER OWN VOCAL MEANDERINGS THROUGH A HURT-TOSSED AND DARK VALLEY THE DEPTHS OF WHICH THE REST OF US COULD ONLY SURMISE. SHE, LIKE ROYALTY, ALLOWED US TO WORSHIP HER, AND TO OBSERVE HER GOING THROUGH HER OWN INNER ANGUISH, AND I FELT SHE WAS ON A PEDESTAL.
I HAVE SELDOM SEEN SO PROUD A PERSON, AND SO HEAVY A PERSONALITY.
SHE WAS GREAT.
THAT THROATY ,CONTROLLED, INSTRUMENT OF HERS IS UNIQUE AND DISQUIETING, UTTERLY UNFORGETTABLE.HER RICH CONTRALTO IS ADDICTING, LIKE HER SLOW, MOODY ARRANGEMENTS.
HER ARRANGEMENTS OF HAUNTING AND TRADITIONAL SONGS LIKE,’ BLACK IS THE COLOR OF MY TRUE LOVE’S HAIR’, HAVE NO MATCH.
ONCE HEARD, NO OTHER VERSIONS WILL DO.
2 - Eric Hunter
"My Baby don't care for clothes,..." When she berates the audience like a school marm for their lukewarm "High toned places" great moment in music.
I loved: "I want a little sugar in my bowl".