"To Be Free: The Nina Simone Story"

Legacy

By Ron Netsky on October 28, 2009

On the DVD that accompanies this three-CD career retrospective, the late Nina Simone says she likes to shake people up. With her own compositions ---  "Four Women," "Mississippi Goddam," and "To Be Young, Gifted And Black"  --- and covers by Bob Dylan and others, she made a career of it. There's even a moment here, during a concert at a military base at the height of the Vietnam War, when, at the end of George Harrison's "My Sweet Lord," she shouts, "Today, who are you Lord? You are a killer!" But that's not all that Nina Simone was about. Her gorgeously textured voice and gospel-tinged piano style reached heights of expression when interpreting songs by George and Ira Gershwin ("I Loves You, Porgy"), Jacques Brel ("Ne Me Quitte Pas"), and even Screamin' Jay Hawkins ("I Put A Spell On You"). Her brilliant rendition of "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood" rivals the hit version by The Animals that she inspired.