Nina Simone - Complete 1957-62 Singles [2020] + Let It All Out, Selected Singles 1961-1978 [2025] (4 x CDs)
NINA SIMONE SINGLES
Nina Simone - Complete 1957-62 Singles [2020] + Let It All Out, Selected Singles 1961-1978 [2025] (4 x CDs)
Nina Simone’s story is often told through albums, but her singles reveal something different, a musician shaping her identity one recording at a time, responding to the world with clarity, courage and emotional truth. These two collections, the early Complete 1957–62 Singles and the expansive Let It All Out set, trace her evolution from a young pianist‑singer finding her voice to a fully formed artist whose work carried political weight, cultural pride and deep personal resonance.
The first set captures Simone before fame hardened into expectation. The singles from Bethlehem, Colpix and early Philips sessions show her balancing jazz phrasing, classical discipline and a quiet intensity that made even small songs feel significant. I Loves You, Porgy, He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands, Will I Find My Love Today, each track carries a sense of discovery. Her piano lines are crisp, her vocals poised, and the arrangements leave space for her to shape mood with subtle shifts in tone. These recordings feel close, almost intimate, as if she is still deciding how much of herself to reveal.
The second collection widens the frame. By the early sixties Simone had become a force, and the singles from 1961 to 1978 show her pushing outward, emotionally, politically, musically. Mississippi Goddam, To Be Young, Gifted and Black, Backlash Blues, Four Women, songs that confront injustice with precision and fire. Alongside them sit ballads, folk interpretations, soul‑leaning arrangements and late‑period tracks shaped by exile and reflection. Her voice grows darker, richer, more deliberate. The piano becomes a weapon, the phrasing sharper, the emotional stakes higher. These singles document an artist who refused to soften her truth for commercial comfort. (Butterboy)
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This also worth checking and I think I have said before but once Nina covered any Bee Gee songs the UK Mods adopted her as one of their own oddly perhaps but they were de rigeur to be seen at Mod House Parties with a Nina Simone album under your arm! I kid you not!
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