Forever Young, Gifted & Black: Songs of Freedom and Spirit

Read About This Recording

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.

This CD shows today's listeners just how powerful and influential Nina Simone was during her career.

—Scott Yanow

Quotes

"This anthology of songs reminds me of the strength of one woman and the way that her voice will resonate forever and remind us why we have to say SOMETHING, speak the truth, talk from the heart and let our passion for the Greater Good drive us to be a little bit more like the illustrious Nina Simone: Bold, Brave, Gifted, Black AND Beautiful." —Alicia Keys

Extended Article

This stunning collection not only pays homage to Nina Simone's musical role in the emerging civil rights movement of the late 1960s but also demonstrates her profound influence on a generation of our most beloved singer-songwriters, including Alicia Keys, Tracy Chapman, Lauryn Hill and Norah Jones.

Contents

To Be Young, Gifted and Black; Backlash Blues; I Wish I Knew How it Would Feel to Be Free; Why (The King of Love is Dead); Mississippi Goddam; Revolution; Turn! Turn! Turn! (To Everything There is a Season); Ain't Got No — I Got Life; Westwind; The Times They Are A-Changin'; To Be Young, Gifted and Black.

CD Special Features

• A stunning collection of songs from the voice of a moment
• Features rare and legendary live performances
• Liner notes by Alicia Keys
• And a specially commissioned poem by Nikki Giovanni