nina simone - search and destroy

I remain agnostic. Nina Simone is not consigned to the flames.

"I read an interview once where someone asked Nina how she felt about being compared to Billie. She said she hated it because she thought Billie had an ugly voice."

see, that's funny, cuz nina simone had one of the ugliest voices i've ever heard. 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.). a tougher taking sides would have been billie vs dinah or something (and dinah could have taken nina out with one hand tied behind her back if we are talking tough broads. nina was just a cry-baby.) maybe abby lincoln -vs- nina would be more fair. two third-tier failed pop stars turned semi-revolutionary priestess. (i'd take abby.)

-- scott seward (skotro...), March 19th, 2005 9:51 PM. (scott seward) (link)

sorry for going off like that. i really try to be positive on ilm. it's just some people...i can't even honestly think of a singer that i dislike more! it's something visceral when i hear that voice. that croak. it's just rubs me in so many wrong ways i don't know where to begin. i mean, i would rather listen to billy corgan! (not that i would, but hypothetically if i HAD to listen to someone i can't stand.) i shoulda just said: "as a singer she was one helluva piano player!"

-- scott seward (skotro...), March 19th, 2005 10:51 PM. (scott seward) (link)

I've always liked her voice a lot, but I like very unusual voices a lot, especially in women.

I do too!

(but you were too easy on that silly NY Times/freakfolk article)

The first time I ever heard the name Nina Simone was in the movie Point of No Return, but that was 1993. The only other thing I can think of was the ending of Before Sunset where Ethan Hawke puts on "Just In Time" (version off The Tomato Collection I believe) in Julie Delpy's apartment and they have a short discussion of her.

well... she died a couple of years ago!!!

Just picked this one up in pristine condition at the record store:

http://ec1.images-amazon.com/images/P/B0001ZXMCM.01._SCLZZZZZZZ_.jpg

It is stunningly good. Nina sounds utterly exhausted (and mentions that she is during one of her monologues) and world-weary to point of slurring and mumbling her words. She also sounds wasted or just totally out of it. But the music is completely striking and gorgeous. I've been feeling a bit exhausted myself lately so maybe it's just matching my mood, but the point remains.

'Who knows where the time goes' out from that Black Gold album is one of my favorite Nina Simone performances, she almost bleeds the song out.

How's this one: Protest Anthology?

I like that Black Gold album, but the recording quality on it is pretty bad (even for a live album), especially with high sounds.

So, assuming I haven't heard any Nina Simone before, where do I start? Sings the Blues?

Tomato Collection. Double CD. Its all live but this is where she is at her most astonishing. Don't know if this is hard to find or anything. I've had it for years and love it to death. I think she might be the only person i know where I prefer her live stuff to her recorded stuff. I'm sure somebody will correct me or provide a better studio alternative.

I'm on a major discovery of hers. I recommend the remaster of Live at the Village Gate. "You'll Never Walk Alone" on there is...indescribable.

Is there a Nina Simone POX thread? I'll have to put a list together.

i'm partial to "pastel blues" and "wild is the wind"--two of her philips albums.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3gAgP-LG0cQ

if you have never heard this... well, turn off the lights and prepare yourself.

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"

one thing i really like about nina simone is that, at her best, she could transfigure kitsch, through delicate, often austere arrangements and vocal approach

one of my favorite of her albums is "nina simone at carnegie hall": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nina_Simone_at_Carnegie_Hall

..partly because it's the best example of this. she does a number of movie themes whose "original" versions verged on the saccharine , as well as some hoary pseudo-folk songs that had long since been reduced to cliche ("cotton-eyed joe"), but she redeems it all through offbeat, spare renditions

see e.g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-EMjeEFPZlc

in a way her approach anticipates that of jimmy scott (who was actually a contemporary)

actually "black swan" is an out-and-out art song, so it's not the best example of what i'm trying to get at

better example:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NyUmBFQSY78

If you still don't like the music after seeing all the clips, I don't think any amount of talking heads analyzing the tunes is gonna change your opinion.

i am *so glad there was a minimal amount of talking heads in this, beyond her family and musicians.

As much as I appreciated the archival footage and honesty from the sources, there's no explication of her art.

^^^this. it's weird how incidental her music seemed to the movie (and I was willing to be convinced, not hugely familiar with or a fan of her ouevre)

with Alfred in general re: her music too - there is a studied, overly formal rigor to everything (except her voice, which is remarkably expressive) that leaves me a little cold. I like some songs here and there but idk

see i think i like the tension between the formality/rigor you speak of and the deep wells of emotion in her voice. it works for me!

did she ever do Compared to What (or any Eugene McDaniels?) seems tailor-made for her

don't know!
weird, there is a different doc coming out? http://www.amazingnina.com/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V7awW5nrDHk

This is the ultimate, for me.

The anger and triumph and sadness of it. The little chuckle she does after "And you see me lookin' nice/ With a ribbon in my hair". The way her voice is so harsh and chiding all the way through until the last line, when she hits that heart-breakingly pure tone.

And of course...

THAT'LL LEARRRRN YA!

xp I guess a different doc could conceivably focus more on the music itself than What Happened, Miss Simone? did. The Netflix one was exec produced by her daughter, so her portrait of her was probably always going to be more about the person and less about the musician. I'd definitely watch another one that focuses on her music.

http://www.straight.com/movies/727951/amazing-nina-simone-celebrates-skilled-singer

http://pitchfork.com/news/64247-nina-simone-documentary-director-slams-ugly-and-inaccurate-zoe-saldana-biopic/

I want to see this second Nina S doc, The Amazing Nina Simone

from the review of it: The better-known doc, Liz Garbus’s What Happened, Miss Simone?, made with the involvement of Simone’s estate, had access to her diaries and tapes. The Amazing doc, written, shot, and directed by Jeff L. Lieberman, a Vancouverite now based in New York, is far less polished than that Netflix production, although his rough assemblage, even with its notably bad graphic design, does illuminate a lot of what went right for Miss Simone.

There are many performance and audio clips, including very early stuff and key songs the other effort missed. His straightforward chronology allows fans to see how quickly things happened for Eunice Waymon, a North Carolina piano prodigy who attended Juilliard and fell into jazz almost by accident. Pushed by a club owner to sing to her own accompaniment, she took a new name so her church-preaching mother wouldn’t find out.

Lieberman uses two of the singer’s brothers and Vancouver guitarist Henry Young, among many others, to paint clear pictures of the transformation, while ignoring some obvious questions, like if and how the Waymons reacted when Eunice shot up the charts with her definitive version of “I Loves You, Porgy” in 1958.

The film is light on information about the mental disturbances that gradually consumed her career and private life. It misses her own voice, and while Lieberman’s narration isn’t bad, it lacks an authoritative stamp to match his subject’s magnitude. Still, as with Simone herself, there’s more here to celebrate than regret.

Still haven't checked to see whether this 2nd Simone doc, The Amazing Nina Simoneis available via online sites

I like her version of “Feeling Good” better than the one John Legend did tonight at the Biden inauguration tv event

I mean... it’s pretty much set in stone that her version is the essential version of it.

i thought john legend did a great job w it
ninas is undeniable obv

off-topic but I wish John Legend would record the version of MJ's I Can't Help It that he performed on Master Of None a few years ago

also Nina's versions of Bee Gees songs are definitive for me

I think the only cover/interpretation she doesn't totally nail is "Everyone's Gone To The Moon" - not even she can save that one.

This could also go on 'What can't you find on the internet' but let's try here.

Seeing if anyone knows which live compilation album includes the only song released from her 'Meltdown' performance ('See-Line Woman'). It's referred to in Warren Ellis's book in a conversation he had in 2020 with the guy who had been the sound engineer on the night, and recorded the performance on a DAT through the mixing desk. "I know it's my recording as the bongos are so fucking loud".

She was at Meltdown in 1999.

She was at Meltdown in 1999.

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/