Nina Simone
EMERGENCY WARD
MUSIC ON VINYL
PETER PISCHMANN ROBERT ABBOTT SENGSTACKE/GETTY
Released in 1972, Emergency Ward is a three-track album which claims to be live, but one tune definitely isn’t, another doesn’t appear to be, and the third, though outstanding and undeniably recorded in concert, is edited clumsily. Nonetheless, this brief selection still stands among the most essential records in Nina Simone’s extraordinary, catalogue. Certainly, its lead track, an interpretation of George Harrison’s 1971 hit, My Sweet Lord, needs just 18 minutes to do what Donny Hathaway’s similarly transcendent Live takes almost an hour to achieve. Emotionally vivid, it finds Simone extem porising wildly, nakedly shifting moods from ecstatic to desperate, with a New York Baptist Church choir helping her scale heights of joy. She also drops in lines from Today Is A Killer by The Last Poets’ David Nelson, allowing her to express the challenges of belief in a world haunted by, among other things, the Vietnam War. So mesmeric is Simone that every time she sings “It takes so long” she suspends the song longer than most would dare, silencing her audience until relief comes with the title’s heartfelt words. Her voice is exquisite and her delivery will break your heart. A seemingly improvised version of Harrison’s Isn’t It A Pity is equally striking, Simone’s fingers dancing instinctively on her piano’s keys, driven by her passions. If Poppies, the gorgeous slice of psychedelic soul which divides them, seems lightweight in comparison, the relief is frankly welcome.