Nina Simone

For someone who originally just wanted to be a classical pianist, Nina Simone would go on to have one of the biggest voices I’ve ever heard. She held a room at the tip of her fingers every time she performed, every interview she gave, and every day she continues to live on in her music. She is known as “the High Priestess of Soul”, yet that somehow doesn’t seem like a grand enough title to encompass the force of a jazz singer, classical pianist, and overall personality she was.

Listening to her debut album Little Girl Blue, you can hear her piano skills on songs like Good Bait and, my favorite cover of the song ever, You’ll Never Walk Alone, that truly leaves me in tears every time I hear it. Most of the songs she recorded and performed live are primarily covers and her own interpellations of other’s songs. Yet, every single time I hear her renditions of them I can’t help but give her credit for she unabashedly makes each single song her own, uniquely. It wasn’t until listening through her music did I learn the song Baltimore is originally written by Randy Newman, writer and singer of You’ve Got a Friend in Me of Toy Story fame.

Also included in my listen is her rendition of George Harrison’s My Sweet Lord, in a four-song live studio recorded album considered her protest against the Vietnam War. She artfully interweaves a rendition of David Nelson’s poem Today Is a Killer throughout the song that culminates in an over 18-minute allegoric emotional rollercoaster. And of course, there is her legendary original song Why? (The King of Love Is Dead), which she performed and recorded just three after Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated. The emotional labor she does across the song is beyond that in which we will ever hear again. To me, her 21-studio album discography is nothing short of legendary for the fact that no one else could have made a body of work remotely close to this but Nina herself.