Effortless starling beauty ...
Claudia Stein | Vancouver, BC Canada | 06/03/2003
(5 out of 5 stars)
"The two main songs off the album are covers of George Harrison Classics, Isn't it a Pity and My Sweet Lord mixed with Today is a Killer, ~ The Last Poets. The songs are done with the help of mission gospel choir, which gives it tremendous energy, and with Dr. Nina Simone on lead you can expect the unexpected.Anyone who has an appreciation of gospel or the heavier songs of Nine Simone (Sinnerman, Sea Line Women, Blackbird, Aint Got No) should take the time to listen to this album. Its not a smooth-jazz-ish album that I think people may come to exspect from her. However in my eyes it is her absolute best."I never dreamed, I certainly never hoped, that one day I'd be screaming, for something my mother told me, i needed, in the begining." ~ My Sweet Lord"
FIVE STARS IS NOT HIGH ENOUGH
Josef Bush | Phoenix, AZ | 09/11/2003
(5 out of 5 stars)
"It wan't more than 6 months ago that I realized I could buy this music on a new CD, and when it came this morning and I put it on, there it was; the old vinyl, pristine, with its gritty LIVE sound. I hadn't heard it for more than forty years, and didn't think I would ever hear it again. But now, I'm back in the great presence. It's the fillmore; its summer concerts in Central Park. Its Be-Ins and Peace Ralleys. It's the time of Hope.
Nina Simone had always been singing around. Hers and Richie Havens' voices were the great voices of the early rock era before American POP was threatened by the trivialization of hi-bucks production and Euro-Cute. They reminded everybody that the roots of ROCK are at the very least anchored in the Blues and the old African Church. It is curious and overpoweringly ironic that George Harrison, the most spiritual of the Beatles, managed to take that little "inevitable" riff which was everywhere in those days, and in HE'S SO FINE too, and combine it or overlay it with the Hare Krishna chant and make MY SWEET LORD. Miracles always seem easy, even inevitable, when they're done. The miracle is that even after his trial for plagerism -- that sordid business -- this music and the vision that animates it, remain his, forever.
And so, here, Nina Simone, on the piano, as always, with a live chorus backing, and rhythm section, delivers it like the great spiritual anthem of yearning for Love and Peace and an end to stupid neo-colonial warfare, that the '60's were all about. It is the essence of George Harrison. It is the essence of Nina Simone. Its all Call and Response. Pristine. It still radiates a healing, redemptive musical power. There is nothing, anywhere on earth like it."
Track Listings (3) - Disc #1