212. Nina Simone, "Wild Is the Wind"

 


I try not to put too much stock into positioning on this list, i.e., what records are next to each other, but putting this right before Fiona Apple's Idler Wheel is just a bit too on the nose, you know?  Simone was a huge and acknowledged influence on Apple, and listening to this, it's easy to see why.  I loved Apple's swooping and kinetic melodies and the way she can modulate her voice for effect and while Simone's performance here is much more sedate - much, much, MUCH more sedate - the way Simone uses her voice is no less interesting.

This is a fairly quiet and restrained album, and it's all about the vocal.  "What More Can I Say?," to take an example, starts out very quiet, and then builds in intensity and volume and boldness, with her voice driving it.  "Why Keep On Breaking My Heart" has this wild change about 35 seconds in; it starts out very quiet, and then breaks into this Latin-ish kind of marimba beat just out of nowhere.  Bold choice!  

The only song on the album written by Simone is "Four Women," about four women, natch, each one representing a facet of Black society.  It was mistakenly interpreted as racist and banned on some radio stations.  Like a lot of the other songs, it starts out quietly and slowly builds in intensity.  There's one real front-to-back jam on the album, "Break Down and Let It All Out," written by Van McCoy, who would go on to write the surprise disco hit "The Hustle" in 1975. 

Simone had a fairly incredible story.  Born in poverty in 1933, she was a childhood piano prodigy and after gigging in Atlantic City clubs, she signed a record deal at 26.  She recorded around 40 albums and lived in Barbados, Liberia, and the Netherlands before finally settling in France, where she died in 2003.  She was bipolar and took absolutely no shit from any audiences, which you have to like.  

The album really isn't my thing, so it's gonna be an appreciate-but-don't-love from me.

Does this album deserve to be in the Top 500? If you say so.

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