#0075: Nina Simone - Wild Is The Wind [****]

I confess to panicking a little when this started.  The opening track is a strutting blues not unlike the last 2 albums I've listened to.  Don't get me wrong, this woman's voice elevates the form above its everyman ennui but I was surprised, given what I know about her.

Four Women, I'm sure must be a famous song in some circles.  I'd never heard it before but from the first line it was clearly important.  The lyrics are four verses, each describing a woman in the first person.  Each one is representative of a black woman and together plot a path from slavery to the bitterness of militant anti-white attitudes of the time.  The album comes up against the backdrop of the Civil Rights Movement, Dr Martin Luthor King, a time of significant change in the saga of racial tension in America and this song is particularly poignant when considered in context.

Separated by the ethereally dark Lilac Wine, two off-the-rail Simone smoochers simultanously haunt and soothe with their soft swing.   I can imagine That's All I Ask being covered by soul singers to this day but a quick search reveals it has been tragically overlooked, with only Jeff Buckley appearing to have done it.

Break Down And Let It All Out is bit more of a ballsy soul number but she is much more at home in the gentle climate of misty agony and though the words consistently express the sorrow of love's multi-faceted propensity to deliver pain, it seems the faster rhythms are present mostly for variety.

The title track didn't trigger recognition until it started.  Bowie did this on Station To Station and the two versions seem like entirely different songs.  I never really liked Bowie's version and indeed until now I thought he'd written it.  It apparently first written for Johnny Mathis.  I haven't heard his version but I would struggle to accept another rendition as the definitive version having heard Nina Simone's treatment.

The rest of the album goes on in much the same way and reveals itself to be music played in a darkly lit room, where old friends sit and talk until late or lovers hold each other in the fragile afterglow, the trickling piano and breathy vocal fusing them together in eternal beauty no matter the inevitable pain forthcoming.