NINA SIMONE
After some ups and downs, Nina Simone was ready to take on the music world in 1958, at 25 a mature singer and classically-trained pianist with a contempt for pop music, yet a willingness to perform it. The 1935 Broadway production of Porgy and Bess, based on a book by Heyward DuBois with music and lyrics by George and Ira Gershwin, had demonstrated staying power. The stage play, ultimately accepted as a classic American folk opera, had already been revived a few times by 1959, the year it was made into a film starring Sidney Poitier and Dorothy Dandridge. Simone's recording of "I Loves You, Porgy," taken from her 1958 debut album Little Girl Blue, was released as a single around the time of the movie's theatrical run ... MORE ››
