nina simone - search and destroy

it's a slow song, but she takes it so. fucking. slow. sort of like jimmy scott. love it.

^^^^ Seconded. In fact that was how I first heard it (well, the Colpix version of it), in the dark on headphones, and it was just one of those moments where you realise that there's music out there in the world that you need to get into your life.

The one-disc Colpix Years cd is a tremendous introduction to Nina; genius throughout, and not too much of it to be intimidating.

If you buy CDs, this two-fer is a pretty nice start (at least it was for me). Looks like you can get it used for $3:

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41BN6NNCJ1L._SL500_AA300_.jpg

IMO, comps are not the way to go with Nina. Many of the albums are patchy, but she is the type of artist where the bad/weird choices give insight into what she was about. To appreciate her work as a whole, you have to accept its complexity.

the one good thing i can say about her is that she is totally forgotten in the u.s, so i never have to hear her (unless i listen to democracy now or pacifica or something. which i never do.).

Love the self-hating leftism of this.

I'm slowly working my way through the new biography about her by Nadine Cohodas (who has written about Ches Records and Dinah Washington). Well-researched but it's a bit exhausting reading through one concert review excerpt after another.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0375424016?tag=root04c-20&camp=213381&creative=390973&linkCode=as4&creativeASIN=0375424016&adid=04YKGG8KX60NG0QQN5F9&

Chess

Mordy, you also need to listen to "Sinnerman" & her version of Sandy Denny's "Who Knows Where The Time Goes?" if you haven't

"Love the self-hating leftism of this."

the only times i have ever heard nina simone on the radio i was listening to either npr or amy goodman's democracy now. i don't listen to npr or amy goodman much at all. thus, it is easy for me to never hear nina simone on the radio. what's self-hating about that?

or, wait, maybe you are calling pacifica and democracy now self-hating. i'm confused! sorry.

Love, love, love Nina.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=flsRJ1knNkA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SDFiCLNhM8k
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6_BWNzThJY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y8ATFsXmX4g
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Q7w7gk1JhQ

All of these except "Baltimore" are available on this: http://www.discogs.com/Nina-Simone-Anthology/release/643211

And since I can never hear Ne Me Quitte Pas without hearing Thomas Brinkmann's take on it, listen to that here: http://www.divshare.com/download/11330296-877

Another favorite:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJtMpa4eHd4

Ha, I have finally found out what Scott S. does not like. He listens to metal vocalists and disco vocalists and all kinds of '50s through the present rock and r'n'b vocalists but Nina Simone's voice and Pacifica talk show voices annoy him

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-Dskcd8jdw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dntswUJGKDo&feature=related

^^^seriously everybody listen to that shit

Yes, this album is v. good and like nothing else in her discography (that I have heard).

http://images.wikia.com/lyricwiki/images/4/41/Nina_Simone_-_Emergency_Ward.jpg

working in my office and "Isn't It a Pity" came on and about eight minutes in i was unconsciously tearing up

wild is the wind is indisputably her best work!

Sugar In My Bowl a great 2cd compi of her turn of the 70s material. It used to be a constant in the cheap disc section of the local chain cd store, not sure if it was mid price originally.
Always struck me that for somebody who was so vocally militant there were a lot of songs by white singer/songwriters from her at the time.
One of my favourite songs on there is a Bee Gees cover called In The Morning, still havenm't found original. Just found them doing it live on a set I torrented from Dime.
& 22nd Century is great too. As is Consummation

Without question, Nina Simone in Concert from 1964.

Spare jazz ensemble devoid of the fluffy orchestrations that ruin so many of her other recordings.

This is the sweet spot where she had developed her chops, but hadn't yet started riding her own coat-tails.

Set-list includes everything from Gershwin to Kurt Weill to Simone originals.

Vibrant, and at times, unsettling performance in front of a (what I expect was) a coat-and-tie wearing NYC audience.

Nina seems to be hitting the bottle pretty hard on these nights, and while some of it gets a tad sloppy, she really lets it all hang out.

I've listened to just everything in her catalog - nothing compares to in Concert - and it's the only Nina Simone I'll ever need.

I thought I had heard all the great Nina Simone songs by now but this is spectacular:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PYcgCiWAv8c

22nd Century is awesome. Ws making a vocal jazz compilation...and now I'm just listening to Nina. Can't stop.

Ws gonna revive the 'artist everyone on ILM likes' to include her but I see Scott's comments upthread...actually kinda surprising there aren't more people who dislike her voice, something v rough and aunt-like about it. Not that I'd include myself in that crowd as I like the voice.

someone already mentioned this upthread but for real DAMN

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pqdyI570pMo

I'm on such a huge Nina Simone kick right now. The RCA collection has been on constant play at home the past couple of weeks.
I was always aware of about 15-20 songs by her, but man what an artist.

I had only heard this as easy listening fodder of the type my parents liked. Nina's version has this classical piano rippling away underneath sustained vibrato notes. Genuinely moving.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A0P0Qc2YSQs

May have already said this somewhere above but I love a 2cd set called 'Sugar In My Bowl' which covers a lot of material around the turn of the 70s.
Odd thing is how many white pop-folk/singer-songwriters such an outspoken black power supporter was covering. But all done very well.
Dunno if it's still available, pretty sublime anyway.

'Nuff Said! is a really powerful live album recorded just a few days after MLK's assassination. Most of her stuff from that era is pretty amazing, but the context (and a song written expressly about King's death) makes that album stand out for me.

i like when she does shlocky show tunes and film title music, like the theme from "sayonara"

I love most of her music but really wish she had more of those 'tribal dance/funky' songs like See-line Woman and Funkier than a mosquito's tweet and less of the sad songs.

Might have been because she felt like not enough people danced at her concerts and that she was playing for corpses. That's what you get for playing for rich 60s folks, Nina.

I have The Tomato Collection and it is amazing - she sounds haunted, possessed by some kind of strong fuck you spirit and deep sadness as well as a a tough proud dignity but then it seems by all accounts she was actually this: angry, sad or exultant much of the time - so this was an accurate reflection of who she was. She hardly got her dues - just cos she was wild, eccentric and no cookie cutter musician. ALSO have the Montreaux Concert from...1974 on DVD again she is completely singular, furious and compelling. Amazing pounding beautiful piano. Lots of adjectives thrown around here but when I think of her I just feel speechless, inarticulate with amazement at her greatness so all I can do is throw these waffly superlatives out into the heather.

Ether.

funkier than a mosquiters tweeter. funkier than a mosquiters tweeter.funkier than a mosquiters tweeter.funkier than a mosquiters tweeter.funkier than a mosquiters tweeter.
― mullygrubbr (bulbs), Tuesday, May 17, 2005 6:34 AM (9 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/08/11/raised-voice?src=longreads

In the course of events that night, she was introduced to King, and Schackman remembered that she stuck her hand out and warned him, “I’m not nonviolent!” It was only when King replied, gently, “Not to worry, sister,” that she calmed down.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RHXtB9ssnhw

i got to see what happened, miss simone? last night. it was done quite well, i thought. lots of uninterrupted concert footage, and the bio elements were handled competently, no eliding the difficult stuff, no pat judgments or anything. there were some ommissions because the estate is so fractured. pretty amazing they were able to put together what they did in spite of the challenges.

i was a mess through the whole thing, naturally. her genius is searing, and the story behind it all is incredibly moving.

it's on HBO this summer.

desperate to see this

Will have to see if I can use someone's HBO Go password to watch it

i think it's on netflix soon?

It's all about the stuff she recorded between 71-73 for me right now: Black Gold, Emergency Ward, It Is Finished. If her albums weren't so patched together (live material smushed with old studio sessions) she could have made a masterpiece during that period.

Agreed. I've always wondered if she didn't possess a stubborn contrariness that precluded that somehow. I also love her albums in the late 60s with all the Bee Gees and Beatles covers on 'em.

as no one has said it for a while, and piano is incredible & does the job for me

interested in that doc!
was just recently blown away by her cover of randy newman's "baltimore."

It's on Netflix today. 30 minutes deep and I'm already pretty sure it's one of the best-made music docs I've seen in quite a few years.

Y'all this is how a music documentary should be made. I am gutted right now. Everything about it was so sad and beautiful and perfect.

Thanks for the tip, gonna watch this today! I love her music but I've never seen any documentary about it.

v excited for this

Curious about seeing it, but since I read the flawed bio Princess Noire, I am not exactly looking forward to seeing the depiction of Simone's tough years with bipolar issues on the screen, though of course that is part of her life and reality

I find her discography daunting. I bought the two disc best-of Anthology album about ten years ago. I love it, but not sure how much more I should seek out.

This came out in 2000, the back half are live tracks, though no info on if those live tracks are from the 1999 Meltdown (but See Line Woman is one of the live tracks)

https://www.discogs.com/release/446459-Nina-Simone-Nina-The-Essential-Nina-Simone

https://www.discogs.com/release/446459-Nina-Simone-Nina-The-Essential-Nina-Simone

― impostor syndrome to the (expletive) max (stevie), Tuesday, January 16, 2024 11:24 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

thanks stevie! i'll check that one out. according to the book no other tracks from the meltdown performance have been released - the sound engineer said that someone from her entourage came up after the concert and asked for the DAT, that was the only copy. there's no way to be certain that the version of 'see-line woman' referred to is actually from that performance...

i picked this up in oxfam at the weekend which rekindled my interest in finding the particular track. the second CD is also live tracks, with no information on where recorded. the version of 'see-line woman' has some prominent percussion but since i don't know how fucking loud the 'fucking loud' bongos are, i don't know if it's the version i'm looking for (on first listen I think maybe not, doesn't sound raw enough).

https://www.discogs.com/release/5843202-Nina-Simone-The-Essential-Collection

same version on both those CDs

Fantastic article about Nina’s childhood in western North Carolina

https://eu.citizen-times.com/story/news/local/2024/03/02/wnc-history-nina-simones-talent-apparent-while-growing-up-in-tryon/72763687007/