With aspirations to be a classical pianist, she applied to the city’s prestigious Curtis Institute of Music, and was heartbroken when the school rejected her - which she felt was racially motivated. Afterwards, she lived with her family in Philadelphia. Nina Simone took a rather unusual journey to becoming “Nina Simone.” Born Eunice Waymon in 1933 in rural North Carolina, she was a child prodigy on piano, and attended Julliard for a year in 1950. Her jaunty performance of “My Baby Just Cares for Me” brought Simone renewed public interest after it was used in a popular 1987 Chanel No.
Little girl blue nina simone discography crack#
Her sensational rendition of “I Loves You, Porgy” was a big hit upon release, and was her only song to crack Billboard’s Top 20. Little Girl Blue also features two of Simone’s most well-known tracks.
Her love of classical music surfaces in the Bach-esque passage in “Love Me or Leave Me” and, most prominently, in the title track, which includes bits of the traditional Christmas carol “Good King Wenceslas.” The closing tune, “Central Park Blues,” is the sole Simone original, a spirited instrumental that touches up together the album’s many moods.
Simone delivers haunting, heart-aching ballads like “Plain Gold Ring” and “Don’t Smoke in Bed” along with swinging tunes like “Love Me or Leave Me” and her up-tempo interpretation of Duke Ellington’s “Mood Indigo.” Simone’s inventive interpretative skills also are on display with her haunting arrangements of Rodgers & Hammerstein’s “You’ll Never Walk Alone” and “Good Bait,” which is played much moodier than Count Basie’s original. These 11 tracks are still thrilling to experience nearly 65 years after they were recorded.
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