Nina Simone

December 31, 1968 at GMT-8

The Best of Nina Simone

Plucking standout material from Nina Simone’s Philips albums of 1964-67, this 1969 LP paints a portrait of one of America’s most searingly original and unclassifiable talents. Simone had an effortless fluency in jazz and blues, show tunes, and modern pop/rock, a classically inflected yet indelibly soulful piano style, and an emotionally wrenching and dynamically varied voice that Hal Mooney’s arrangements and production captured especially well. Oddly, there’s nothing here from High Priestess of Soul, but Simone’s six other Philips releases are well represented. The theatrical sing-speak of “Pirate Jenny,” the radical protest of “Mississippi Goddam,” the extended jam breakdown of “Sinnerman,” the chilling narrative crescendo of “Four Women”: There’s a singularly expressive quality in these immortal performances.

12 Tracks

May 31, 1965 at GMT-7

I Put a Spell On You

100 Best Albums Nina Simone’s musical omnivorousness is on display in 1965’s I Put a Spell on You. It’s one of her most pop-skewing albums—yet it’s also, to a degree, obscured by the singer’s superlative ability to make any song unrecognizably her own. I Put a Spell on You became one of Simone’s most successful albums, and its title track—a string-laden, melodramatic cover of Screamin’ Jay Hawkins’ campy rock classic—would turn out to be Simone’s biggest single since her debut.

Still, it was “Feeling Good” that ultimately became the album’s best-known track, and a cornerstone of Simone’s musical legacy, thanks in part to its placement ina 1994 Volkswagen commercial. The scale of the horn section and orchestra are no match for Simone’s vocal force on the completely reimagined show tune; it’s the rare minor-key celebratory anthem. But the album isn’t all blustering horns and weepy strings: “Tomorrow Is My Turn” is a jazzy, gently swinging tune that captures some of the same sentiment as “Feeling Good,” while “Blues on Purpose” is an intimate instrumental interlude.

By putting her stamp on so many different types of songs, Simone fought against the somewhat limiting designation of “jazz singer.” “Pop singer” hardly was the best replacement, as evidenced by the way Simone’s musical edge never dulls, no matter how many layers of orchestration get layered atop it. She was simply a singular interpreter, never hampered by the ways other artists might sing a song before or after her. Whether reinterpreting musical numbers (“Beautiful Land”), temporarily transforming into a chanteuse (“Ne Me Quitte Pas,” one of three tracks originally written in French), or casually tossing up familiar-sounding R&B songs like “Gimme Some,” Simone sounds equally comfortable—and equally, relentlessly herself.

12 Tracks

December 31, 1966 at GMT-8

Sings the Blues

The title of Nina Simone’s 1967 RCA debut, Nina Simone Sings the Blues, implies a back-to-basics approach—and, in some ways, that’s the through line of this timeless set. The songs are, naturally, mostly blues, with both new compositions like “Do I Move You?” and “Blues for Mama”; standards like “The House of the Rising Sun” and “Since I Fell for You”; and homages to Simone’s blues-queen forbearers, with renditions of works made famous by Lil Green (“In the Dark”) and Bessie Smith (“I Want a Little Sugar in My Bowl”). And, in contrast to a number of Simone’s more heavily orchestrated mid-1960s albums, the playing on Nina Simone Sings the Blues is pared down and live-sounding, centered on the heavyweight grooves of drummer Bernard Purdie, as anchored by Simone’s inescapable dynamism.

Yet the album’s seemingly simple blues theme didn’t stop Simone from stretching out with characteristic emotion and musical complexity, and there’s nothing rudimentary here about her piano-playing and singing. For proof, consider her jaw-dropping take on the Porgy and Bess number “My Man’s Gone Now”: According to one biography, it was recorded in a single, spontaneous take—one that still sounds startlingly new and ambitious.

And while Simone never shied away from musical confrontation, Nina Simone Sings the Blues showcases her brashness. Its opening track, “Do I Move You?”, is an almost-accusatory demand of her listeners: “Do I groove you, is it thrillin’?” Simone asks with unflinching directness—and with a knowing wink, fully aware of the voyeuristic pleasure her often-white audiences took in the subversion of her onstage expressiveness. And “Backlash Blues,” the lyrics of which are drawn from one of Langston Hughes’ last poems, is an unforgettable rebuke of the American political status quo. “It was his final slap in the face of the white backlash of this country,” Simone told the crowd before performing the song at the Newport Jazz Festival, a few months before the album was released (and less than two months after Hughes’ death). “Do you think that all colored folks are just second-class fools?” she asks over a classic blues groove, easily cutting to the heart of the form and its significance.

13 Tracks

June 14, 1965 at GMT-7

I Put A Spell On You

Nina Simone’s musical omnivorousness is on display in 1965’s I Put a Spell on You. It’s one of her most pop-skewing albums—yet it’s also, to a degree, obscured by the singer’s superlative ability to make any song unrecognizably her own. I Put a Spell on You became one of Simone’s most successful albums, and its title track—a string-laden, melodramatic cover of Screamin’ Jay Hawkins’ campy rock classic—would turn out to be Simone’s biggest single since her debut.

Still, it was “Feeling Good” that ultimately became the album’s best-known track, and a cornerstone of Simone’s musical legacy, thanks in part to its placement ina 1994 Volkswagen commercial. The scale of the horn section and orchestra are no match for Simone’s vocal force on the completely reimagined show tune; it’s the rare minor-key celebratory anthem. But the album isn’t all blustering horns and weepy strings: “Tomorrow Is My Turn” is a jazzy, gently swinging tune that captures some of the same sentiment as “Feeling Good,” while “Blues on Purpose” is an intimate instrumental interlude.

By putting her stamp on so many different types of songs, Simone fought against the somewhat limiting designation of “jazz singer.” “Pop singer” hardly was the best replacement, as evidenced by the way Simone’s musical edge never dulls, no matter how many layers of orchestration get layered atop it. She was simply a singular interpreter, never hampered by the ways other artists might sing a song before or after her. Whether reinterpreting musical numbers (“Beautiful Land”), temporarily transforming into a chanteuse (“Ne Me Quitte Pas,” one of three tracks originally written in French), or casually tossing up familiar-sounding R&B songs like “Gimme Some,” Simone sounds equally comfortable—and equally, relentlessly herself.

12 Tracks

October 6, 2022 at PDT

Feeling Good (Austin Millz Remix) - Single

1 Trackfalse

September 30, 1965 at GMT-7

Pastel Blues

Nina Simone released a flurry of albums throughout the mid-’60s—Pastel Blues was her second release in 1965, and she dropped no fewer than four new albums the following year. The pace was relentless, and in time it would take a serious toll on her mental and physical health. But this creatively fertile period saw Simone bringing her relentlessly original take to folk songs, jazz standards, and much more—cementing her status as an American original.

The short but intense album begins with the deceptively titled “Be My Husband.” The song starts out playfully but turns stranger with each verse, as the singer pleads with her husband—to the tune of a chain-gang chant—to be kinder to her. Equating marriage with forced labor is strong stuff, and the fact that the lyrics were penned by Simone’s abusive second husband, Andy Stroud, only deepens the resonance of this sparse, arresting song. The next track, Bessie Smith’s classic “Nobody Knows You When You’re Down and Out,” shows what happens to a woman cast out on her own. These may not be the blues of Muddy Waters, but they damn sure are the blues.

The album concludes with two of the most powerful songs Simone ever recorded: a devastating rendering of the anti-lynching “Strange Fruit” and the absolutely frantic, 10-minute musical explosion that is her arrangement of “Sinnerman.” Simone would go on to release many other extraordinary works, but Pastel Blues deserves a special spot in the pantheon.

9 Tracks

December 31, 1965 at GMT-8

Nina With Strings

10 Tracks

July 27, 1998 at PDT

Sugar In My Bowl: The Very Best of Nina Simone 1967-1972

40 Tracks

October 31, 1964 at GMT-8

Broadway-Blues-Ballads

13 Tracks

December 31, 1992 at PST

The Essential Nina Simone

29 Tracks

September 18, 1989 at PDT

Compact Jazz

16 Tracks

December 31, 1958 at GMT-8

Little Girl Blue (Remastered)

Nina Simone’s 1959 debut album is framed as a romantic taste of the overflowing New York jazz scene: The cover shows her in Central Park, and the subtitle is “Jazz as Played in an Exclusive Side Street Club.” Never mind the fact that Little Girl Blue was recorded in a studio, and that Simone was still less interested in getting a foothold in that jazz scene than she was in becoming an acclaimed classical pianist (as hard as it might be to imagine now, jazz paid the bills). The intimate trio recordings captured on Little Girl Blue, though, are as cosmopolitan and evocative as promised, transporting listeners—if not to an exclusive side street club, then to the Midtown Bar in Atlantic City, where she’d been playing before this album boosted her prospects.

The Little Girl Blue version of “I Loves You, Porgy” became Simone’s first hit single, and ultimately the biggest hit of her career, making it to the upper reaches of Billboard’s Hot 100. The performance introduced listeners to Simone’s singular voice, with the spare accompaniment showing just how deftly she could command a performance with her singing and playing alone. Everything about the band and framework on “I Loves You” was entirely conventional: Here was a “girl singer”—as they were then called—accompanying herself on piano, with a drummer and bass player along for the ride. Yet Simone’s sound is completely distinct, her phrasing and playing toying with the blues and Bach in equal measure.

Elsewhere on Little Girl Blue, Simone introduces the a cappella singing that would become a trademark of later recordings on the modern-sounding “Plain Gold Ring,” and unleashes a classical piano solo on “Love Me or Leave Me.” The only anomalous aspect of Little Girl Blue is that, unlike her peers, Simone wasn’t forced to fight through layers of heavy orchestration that were intended to make the record more pop-friendly—and thank goodness for that.

10 Tracks

December 31, 1999 at PST

Nina Simone's Finest Hour

15 Tracks

September 30, 1967 at GMT-7

Silk & Soul

Nina Simone never had the chart success to match her overall impact as an artist; as a result, many of her albums are an inscrutable blend of songs her label believed could perform commercially, and Simone’s more indulgent—but often rewarding—digressions. That’s the case with 1967’s Silk & Soul, which incorporates the kind of funk sounds and pop gloss that were fashionable at the time, but keep Simone’s musical grounding intact.

Recorded with much of the same ensemble that had worked on the recent Nina Simone Sings the Blues—but with the addition of a horn section and broader orchestration—Silk & Soul finds the singer working with a typically eclectic mix of songs. “I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel to Be Free” wasn’t a hit upon release, but it’s become a classic of the Civil Rights Movement, channeling gospel’s ebullience with a potent message penned by pianist Billy Taylor. Her sultry “Turn Me On,” meanwhile, would set the bar for Norah Jones’ version over three decades later.

Elsewhere on Silk & Soul, there are outré versions of contemporary pop, including a haunting, overdubbed version of The Association’s “Cherish,” as well as Simone’s restrained, quivering rendition of Burt Bacharach and Hal David’s “The Look of Love.” Perhaps the most surprising inclusions are two funky tracks with an uncharacteristically good-time bent: “It Be’s That Way Sometime”—written by Simone’s brother, Sam Waymon—and “Some Say.” That party music gets juxtaposed, in typical fashion, with some of Simone’s most gutting work, including “The Turning Point,” a song about a child learning what racism is, and “Love O’ Love,” which features just Simone and her piano, and which takes on the form of a timeless secular spiritual.

12 Tracks

December 31, 1977 at PST

Baltimore

10 Tracks

July 10, 1994 at PDT

Feeling Good: The Very Best of Nina Simone

20 Tracks

October 30, 2006 at PST

Remixed & Reimagined

During her long career, Nina Simone offered radical revisions of jazz standards, Beatles tunes, Broadway material, and anything else that struck her queenly fancy. Her richly-toned voice and stately piano work made anything she touched her own. It’s fitting, then, that a stellar coterie of DJs and producers should keep the process going by deconstructing some of Simone’s best work from the ‘60s and ‘70s. What could have been a desecration turns into a celebration thanks to the timelessness of the original recordings and the creativity of the studio wizards at work. The High Priestess of Soul’s trance-inducing grooves gain a jolt of energy from hot club remixes of “Go to Hell,” “Westwind,” and “Turn Me On.” Coldcut’s trippy take on “Save Me” emphasizes her bewitching aura, while Francois K’s percolating “Here Comes the Sun” taps into her serene side. The gospel and R&B-funk elements in Simone’s music offer particularly fertile material for these sonic mixologists. “Ain’t Got No - I Got Life” seethes with insistent brass, thanks to Groovefinder’s full-bodied embellishments. Even better is Jazzeem’s symphonic soul re-framing of “Funkier Than a Mosquito’s Tweeter.” With respect, Remixed & Reimagined adds new luster to this great artist’s legacy.

16 Tracks

December 31, 1973 at PST

It Is Finished (Live 1974)

11 Tracks

March 31, 1971 at PST

Here Comes the Sun (Remastered)

14 Tracks

July 20, 2023 at PDT

You've Got to Learn (Live)

This unearthed headlining set from the 1966 Newport Jazz Festival is timeless, but also very much of its time. It’s a civil rights cri de coeur, most explicitly in the case of the famed “Mississippi Goddam,” which gets a laidback, swinging treatment here. It’s also a portrait of an artist who could appear on a bill with John Coltrane or James Brown, a jazz festival, a folk or blues confab—and tear the house down at every one. She can shift from a Charles Aznavour chanson (the title track) to the raw and poetic “Blues for Mama” and the rootsy stomp of “Be My Husband” in the space of a few minutes. Her marriage of classically influenced piano and searingly stark vocal performance is a genre of its own, brilliantly evinced in the showstopping encore of Bart Howard’s “Music for Lovers.” Guitarist Rudy Stevenson, bassist Lisle Atkinson, and drummer Bobby Hamilton offer tasty, scaled-down support that never gets in the way.

7 Tracks

February 8, 2018 at PST

Mood Indigo: The Complete Bethlehem Singles

14 Tracks

December 31, 1965 at GMT-8

High Priestess of Soul

A legendary singer/pianist and outspoken activist, Nina Simone started playing music as a three-year-old in North Carolina before relocating to New York City and studying at Juilliard. She began performing in clubs during the mid-'50s and released her first album, Little Girl Blues, in 1958. She'd go on to record more than 40 albums for a variety of labels, rack up several hit singles, play at Carnegie Hall and the Newport Jazz Festival, become heavily involved in the civil rights movement, and influence countless other artists with her unique blend of jazz, blues, pop, soul, and gospel. High Priestess of Soul was released in 1967 and finds her alongside a full band assembled by famed composer/arranger Hal Mooney. Here she puts her own spin on selections from Chuck Berry ("Brown Eyed Handsome Man"), Duke Ellington ("The Gal from Joe's"), and Nat Adderley ("Work Song").

12 Tracks

January 14, 1988 at PST

Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood

16 Tracks

January 31, 1959 at GMT-8

Little Girl Blue (2021 - Stereo Remaster)

Nina Simone’s 1959 debut album is framed as a romantic taste of the overflowing New York jazz scene: The cover shows her in Central Park, and the subtitle is “Jazz as Played in an Exclusive Side Street Club.” Never mind the fact that Little Girl Blue was recorded in a studio, and that Simone was still less interested in getting a foothold in that jazz scene than she was in becoming an acclaimed classical pianist (as hard as it might be to imagine now, jazz paid the bills). The intimate trio recordings captured on Little Girl Blue, though, are as cosmopolitan and evocative as promised, transporting listeners—if not to an exclusive side street club, then to the Midtown Bar in Atlantic City, where she’d been playing before this album boosted her prospects.

The Little Girl Blue version of “I Loves You, Porgy” became Simone’s first hit single, and ultimately the biggest hit of her career, making it to the upper reaches of Billboard’s Hot 100. The performance introduced listeners to Simone’s singular voice, with the spare accompaniment showing just how deftly she could command a performance with her singing and playing alone. Everything about the band and framework on “I Loves You” was entirely conventional: Here was a “girl singer”—as they were then called—accompanying herself on piano, with a drummer and bass player along for the ride. Yet Simone’s sound is completely distinct, her phrasing and playing toying with the blues and Bach in equal measure.

Elsewhere on Little Girl Blue, Simone introduces the a cappella singing that would become a trademark of later recordings on the modern-sounding “Plain Gold Ring,” and unleashes a classical piano solo on “Love Me or Leave Me.” The only anomalous aspect of Little Girl Blue is that, unlike her peers, Simone wasn’t forced to fight through layers of heavy orchestration that were intended to make the record more pop-friendly—and thank goodness for that.

11 Tracks