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The singular Simone
The good doctor’s final act and most soulful singles.
By Jim Irvin.
Blooming marvellous: Nina Simone in London, 1967;
(inset) Simone in satin, early ’90s.
Getty, Carol Friedman
IN 1993, she was operating as Dr Nina Simone and hadn’t released a studio recording since 1985’s unfortunate Nina’s Back. When approached to make A Single Woman she was attracted by the chance to sing in front of a 50-piece orchestra. She opted not to play piano, which was handled by noted jazz player Michael Melvoin. According to the man who set up her UK Fan Club in 1965, soul sage David Nathan – in affectionate linernotes for this CD/2-LP reissue A Single Woman: The Complete Elektra Recordings (Omnivore) ★★★ expanded with 14 outtakes, including covers of No Woman No Cry, The Long And Winding Road and Prince’s Sign O’ The Times – Simone’s inspiration was Billie Holiday’s Lady In Satin and Frank Sinatra’s A Man Alone, an LP of songs by Rod McKuen, the once bafflingly popular poet and songwriter who was irrelevant by 1993, so covering three of his mawkish works was an uncommercial start. “I am what I am/Only one single wo-man,” goes Simone’s version of A Single Man, clunkily enough. She also assays the gloopy Love’s Been Good To Me, a song whose opening line, “I have been a rover”, is hard to hear without thinking ‘Woof!’ It’s in the wrong register for her, she hits it too hard and the arrangement swamps the track with sentimentality.