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.
The next year the album "To Love Somebody" was released with the title song by Barry and Robin Gibb. It made the British Top 10. The album had three Bob Dylan covers including "I Shall Be Released," as well as songs by Leonard Cohen and Pete Seeger, along with "Revolution," a protest song co-written by Simone and Weldon Irvine Jr. "To Love Somebody" was my introduction to Simone, and I'll never forget the way she berated her musicians during the intro to "Revolution." She harshly tells them, "Hold it! This is louder than usual. Let it groove on its own thing." Cool. I thought. This woman can kick butt ...
The increased militancy of the late '60s, along with the death of Martin Luther King Jr. and the general decentralization of the civil rights movement, drove Simone away from the United States. What she and so many had believed could be achieved she felt had failed; she fled to Barbados for the first break in performing in years. In 1971 she and her husband divorced and she returned to Barbados, becoming the "kept" woman of the married prime minister, Earl Barrow. It was the year she recorded "Here Comes the Sun," with Dylan's "Just Like a Woman," Stan Vincent's "O-o-h Child," Jerry Jeff Walker's "Mr. Bojangles" and Jacques Revaux's "My Way." It is a collection that speaks more of personal than political freedom.
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".