Customer Reviews

Feeling Good: The Very Best of

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I needed a collection of Nina Simone and after careful thinking and looking at the selection on Amazon I chose this one. And I have been very pleased.

My first demand was to get "Feeling good" and here it is. Wonderful, sensual, unforgettable. I was also curious about "Mississippi goddamn", which I've never heard on Finnish radio but saw a bit in a documentary about soul. It's a compelling performance, starts so harmlessly, tongue-in-cheek and builds up to a description of racism and plea for liberty - which inspired Sam Cooke to create his "A change is gonna come".

Nina Simone was a marvellous pianist and a great voice, that had more than one side. It's interesting to hear the less heard version of "My baby just cares for me" and then "Don't let me be missunderstood". Her "Ne me quitte pas" is a pretty good cover of Brel's original, which is saying a lot. I hate Brel covers.

The collection is quite a good one, showing more than one side of Simone's personality: the sexy, the bold, the jazzy, the humorous... If there are better collections, I haven't seen them, and I've looked.

My father was given this cd as a gift; not his cup of tea... I'll forgive him that, but this album changed my outlook on soul. More sophisticated than motown, more alive than Loussier. "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood" and "Love Me or Leave Me" utterly gutting!

I had never heard of Nina Simone until I played the video game called The Saboteur. One of the songs in the game was a haunting tune that kept playing over and over in my mind -- Feeling Good. Fellow gamers went on message boards stating the same feeling about the song. Through them, I learned of the singer's name and purchased this CD. I absolutely love it. If you are a connoisseur of jazz, you will enjoy it immensely, too.

I bought this CD right after seeing the Doolittle girl (American Idol 2007 favorite) perform "Feeling Good". That song hooked me! "Feeling Good" (soul), "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood" (pop), "I Put a Spell on You" (blues), "Love Me or Leave Me" (jazz) are my favorites and worth the price of this CD. "Mississippi Goddam" (awful) is the low point of this compilation disc. This CD is also interesting for Simone's excellent interpretations of Billie Holliday's classics, "Don't Explain" and "Strange Fruit". Stir in a little French a' la Edith Piaf, "Ne Me Quitte Pas", "Take Me to the Water" (gospel) and "Mood Indigo" (D. Ellington), and the listener has musical gumbo from one classy lady that defied all catagories. Unfortunately, this CD misses some of Simone's greatest efforts. I would add "Exactly Like You", "Return Home", "Wild as the Wind", "Fine & Mellow", "Willow Weep for Me", "Summertime", "Blue Prelude", "Satin Doll", "Stompin' at the Savoy", "Solitude" and "The Thrill is Gone". Lucky for us that they can all be downloaded from iTunes!

I save this song for those moments when I want to celebrate my victories. It is that little piece of heaven I love. Her voice is perfect in all of its un-usualness. And that orchestra behind her. . . "Priceless".

this is such a great Cd, I could listen to it all the time. Simone is so smooth, love the cd

I like this album but I actually bought it for the title song. I would have preferred another of her albums but it was unavailable at the time

I have over 3,000 cds (1,000 are mine and I was recently given the additional 2,000) and consider myself a fan of music. However classic soul music has never been my cup of tea. I heard Feeling Good on the show Chuck and knew I wanted to put the song on my MP3, to my dismay Ms. Simone was not in my collection. Now as someone who has so many cds (many I have yet to hear) I am adding to my collection slowly as I have no place to put them. I decided why not buy Feeling Good and wow am I glad I did. This is a fantastic cd from Feeling Good to the very last song. A few songs I have heard done by other artists but none done with as much feeling. The only song that Ms. Simone wrote her self is Mississippi Goddam and it tells so much about a time and place I know nothing of but I could feel what she was trying to express. I have put this cd with my top 100 cds so I can listen to it time and time again.

Listening to this cd has motivated me to look into her other albums and I can now say that I am a fan.

The disc skipped in a few places. And no, it wasn't my cd player: I tried it in the car, in the stereo, and on the computer.

Excellent CD. I had been limited in what I had heard up to this time. What a voice and can she sell a song!