No one sang like Nina Simone. So why did filmmaker Cynthia Mort let the star of her critically-derided new biopic on the legend, Zoe Saldana, sing every lyric? While Saldana does possess a passable croon, it communicates none of the character, hurt or mystery that made Nina so stellar. Would it have killed her to lip-synch?
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I remember how it ended. A bespectacled, lanky, light-skinned sister sporting two braided pigtails stepped up to the mic. I want a little steam on my clothes. We were suspended for a moment between the grief of having lost our Nina some three weeks before April 21, the day that Prince would die 13 years later and ecstatic remembrance as this then-unknown singer, Alice Smith, summoned the potency of our lost patron saint.
Love Me or Leave Me
During my quest to read every Nina Simone book and watch every Nina Simone movie , I found out that none of those pieces of media were pausing to tell you about which albums by her were the best. She released close to 50 studio and live albums during her proper career, and the amount of compilations and unofficial albums from shady labels brings that number closer to You get a glimpse of the different direction Nina could have taken her music if she resolved to stay famous as just a jazz pianist; this is the smoothest, most cocktail hour ready album in her discography. In early , Nina signed with Philips Records, who released this album as her first for them.
Nina Simone was one the great voices of the 20th century. Here is a look back on her life and the causes to which she dedicated herself through 10 songs. A deep and powerful voice, one that grabs you instantly. From the cabarets of Atlantic City to the world's greatest stages, from classical music to jazz, from the poor boroughs of Tryon, North Carolina to her home in the south of France, here is a portrait of Nina Simone, a pianist first and a singer second, a High Priestess of Soul equally committed and dedicated to the Civil Rights movement. Nina Simone's first dream was to become a pianist, " the first black female concert pianist in America ". As a teenager, she prepared intensively for the audition to the prestigious Curtis Institute in Philadelphia, but was denied admission and therefore performed in various cabarets in Atlantic City. She works into this cover an instrumental passage on par with a fugue by Johann Sebastien Bach. With this popular jazz version comes Nina Simone's first taste of success.
