Customer Reviews

Saga of Good Life & Hard Times

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Here is a new Nina Simone collection never released anywhere before except on CD. This new CD /RCA Saga Of The
Good Times And Hard Life features 16 of Nina's powerful works and truly is like having a 'new' Nina album in your hands
and should do very well amongst her faithful audience. Though all these tunes were recorded in '68 (with one exception "Do I
Move You (version 2)" which is from a '67 session), the 3 key reasons why this CD is special are 1) 7 tunes have never been
issued before, 2) 5 tunes are either extended or in a slightly different form than the original released versions and 3) 4 have
been remixed. On every track all the original first-generation multi-track session tapes were used in compiling this gem. Some
of the classics you'll find include "Mississippi Goddamn", "I Love You Porgy", "Take My Hand Precious Lord" , "Ain't Got
No Life/I Got Life" (issued in 2 versions) & the Bee Gees classic "In The Morning". Primo liner notes, rare pix and notes from
the producer on the work process involved in assembling this CD are also included. All the material has been digitally
remastered. Nina always sounded good...But now she sounds even better! And to top it off the CD is a pix disc with a great
pix of Nina.

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.