Nina Simone Albums for Hearing the Range of Her Interpretations

Simone plays the melody of “Good King Wenceslas” against the title song. Listen to how the piano keeps returning to the carol while her singing follows a different shape. A Rodgers and Hart song becomes a conversation between two melodies.

Start with “Black Is the Color of My True Love’s Hair.” The piano establishes a quiet pattern, and Simone lets the syllables take their own time over it. “Cotton-Eyed Joe” is another folk song on the album that rewards hearing how slowly she lets a story emerge.

Put “Solitude” next to “It Don’t Mean a Thing (If It Ain’t Got That Swing).” The first gives each line room to settle. The second makes the shape of the rhythm part of what she sings about. Simone arranged the album herself, and the pairing lets you hear how differently she approaches two songs from the same composer.

On “Pirate Jenny,” from The Threepenny Opera, Simone keeps the words close and controlled as the character’s story gets more menacing. The performance makes you listen to how she delivers each line, even when the accompaniment stays spare. Her own “Mississippi Goddam” uses the bounce of a show tune to carry a very different kind of anger.

Start with the title track. Simone puts Screamin’ Jay Hawkins’s song into a ballad setting and lets the tension rise inside a phrase. Then try “Ne Me Quitte Pas,” where her phrasing in French gives Jacques Brel’s plea a more fragile sound.

On “Sinnerman,” a traditional spiritual stretches into more than ten minutes. Follow the piano pattern and listen for the handclaps when the texture thins. “Strange Fruit” is worth hearing alongside it for how much weight Simone can put on a line at a much slower pace.

Try the title track with Johnny Mathis’s recording of the movie song in mind. Simone gives the melody room to rise and then leaves a little air where you expect it to keep going. Stay for “Four Women,” her own song, to hear how much a change in vocal emphasis can do for a character.

On Lil Green’s “In the Dark,” Simone works with a small band and takes time over the words. Listen for Buddy Lucas’s harmonica as a voice answering hers. “My Man’s Gone Now,” from Porgy and Bess, brings the album’s same attention to timing into a theatrical lament.

Start with “Ain’t Got No, I Got Life.” Simone joins two songs from Hair and makes the turn from deprivation to affirmation the center of the arrangement. The album also includes her Westbury performance of Gene Taylor’s “Why? (The King of Love Is Dead),” recorded three days after Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated.

The George Harrison title song gets a full arrangement and a vocal that leaves its own space inside it. For a stronger change from a familiar version, try “My Way.” The percussion picks up under Simone, and the strings build around a performance that sounds more exhilarated than resigned.

Randy Newman’s title song moves to a reggae-influenced beat. Simone keeps her delivery measured, letting that rhythm coexist with the weariness in the words. “Everything Must Change,” written by Bernard Ighner, shows how slowly she can let a melody unfold when the arrangement gives her room.

On the title track, Simone sings Rod McKuen’s words inside a full string arrangement. The lower notes and pauses give a line time to change meaning as she holds it. Try “Papa, Can You Hear Me?” next for how she brings the same attention to a song written for a film.