Nina Simone, perhaps one of the most unique female voices of all time, famously refused the label of “jazz,” once commenting that it was “a white term to define black people.” Instead, she called her sound “black classical music,” emphasizing her virtuosity as a pianist over her stellar talent as a singer, the latter of which she claims she never set out to be. Simone had trained in classical music since the age of three, and she frequently railed against the not-so-subtle racism of the music press, who constantly compared her to Billie Holiday— because, in Simone’s words, “they couldn’t get past the fact that we were both black”– and ignored not only the much wider range of Simone’s talent, but also the almost infinitely wide variety of musical styles and genres that Simone both employed and contributed to defining.
But that voice, tho.
Gloomy, hoarse, odd, and sometimes uninviting, Simone’s voice seemed to rise up from some subterranean well and then ooze out, in fits and starts that paid no heed to composer’s rhythms, like sonic lava. It broke through silence, it melted and destroyed worlds, then it cooled, and another terrain was left in its stead. It was absolutely idiosyncratic, unrepeatable, and deeply personal. Simone’s was a voice that could be felt emotionally, psychically, and dramatically, but if a voice could also be felt as one feels sandpaper or a tuft of cotton, if a voice could be tactile, it would be hers as well. Many who saw her live have remarked that even the technological wonders of recorded music can not capture all that was released in her performances.
I could pick almost any song from Simone’s corpus and it would be exemplary for today’s pick, but I’ve chosen “Ain’t Got No, I Got Life” because it is in many ways one of the more “conventional” sounding of her songs. And yet, even in its standard rule-following, Simone’s uniqueness cannot be missed.
There will likely never be another like her. She was an artist, a musician, a singer, a black woman and an activist for the ages.
Runners-up for #30DaySongChallenge, Day 18:
- Leonard Cohen’s “A Thousand Kisses Deep”
- Sam Cooke’s “A Change Is Gonna Come”
- Maria McKee’s “If Love Is A Red Dress (Hang Me In Rags)”
- Otis Redding’s “These Arms of Mine”
- Lucinda Williams’ “Those Three Days”
- Willie Nelson’s “Always On My Mind”