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Title: Some Riveting Moments
Review: Difficult, erratic, brilliant--Nina Simone is all those things. Her recorded work is also a testament to the fact that popular music does not have to be bland, market-tested or safe. It also needn't be too pretty. Nearly every track on this compilation album has a kind of edginess about--even jazz standards like "I Get Along Without You Very Well" or a sunny hippie anthem like "I Got Life." Several tracks here were culled from a live performance recorded the day after Martin Luther King's assassination. Her readings of "Sunday In Savannah" and "Mississippi Goddam" take on a particularly riveting quality in light of that event. Simone's righteous anger is contagious...even 34 years after the fact. This CD is a good introduction to the work of a major artist. Both her unique way with a standard like "I Loves You Porgy" and her more politicized sensibility, represented by the Martin Luther King "trilogy," are well represented.
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