More than most performers, Nina Simone fit into her own category. Trained as a classical pianist, in her career she explored folk music, jazz, blues, soul, R&B, pop and spirituals, and sang lyrics that were both topical (often connected with the civil rights movement) and timeless. While some of her recordings were projects that emphasized a particular idiom or theme, much of the time she mixed together different styles, playing whatever came to mind and most interested her at the moment.

While she originally worked to become a classical pianist, Nina Simone soon found that in the mid-1950s there was no great need for black classical performers (a slight she never forgot). Needing to make a living while a student at Juilliard, she gained a job playing piano in a nightclub on the condition that she also sing. Soon her classical studies stopped and, after making her first album (which had a hit recording of "I Loves You Porgy"), she was on her way to becoming famous.

Rather than playing it safe and raking in money, Nina Simone included groundbreaking songs in her repertoire that protested the racial situation including "Mississippi Goddam" and "Old Jim Crow." However, she was never just a protest singer although that gained her the most notoriety. During the 1960s, which were really her prime years, she made many memorable sessions in a wide variety of idioms while always sounding like herself.

Forever Young, Gifted & Black: Songs of Freedom and Spirit is a collection of some of Simone's most significant civil rights and anti-racism songs of 1967-69. Highlights include two versions of "To Be Young, Gifted and Black," an emotional tribute to the recently slain Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., "Mississippi Goddam," Billy Taylor's "I Wish I Knew How it Would Feel to Be Free" and "The Times They Are A-Changin'." Some of these rare recordings are heard in their unedited form for the first time.

Silk & Soul, from the late 1960s, features Nina Simone singing both soul music and a few protest songs. Her anguished yet confident voice was perfect for the soul music of the time as she shows on a wide-ranging set that spans from "The Look of Love” to "Go to Hell," from a different version of "I Wish I Knew How it Would Feel to Be Free" to "Turn Me On."

These two collections show today's listeners just how powerful and influential Nina Simone was during her career.

—Scott Yanow