In Concert

by Fenway Donegan

Recorded over three days at Carnegie Hall, Nina Simone In Concert displays Simone’s wit, talent, genius lyricism, and ability to guide an audience through a performance. I struggle to even describe the experience of listening to the record for the first time. At only seven songs and just under 36 minutes, it is a tight, guided journey through Simone’s evolution as an artist and activist.

Starting with two songs from her debut album (“I Love You Porgy” and “Plain Gold Rings”), Simone demonstrates exactly what had made her soulful, heart-wrenching melodies a success up till that point. After ‘playing the hits,’ she turns to the record’s third song, “Pirate Jenny.” The song is an opera piece that tells the story of a mistreated cleaner who takes revenge against those indifferent to her plight with the help of a pirate ship. Simone repurposes the piece, imbuing it with a conformational and direct message. Over the course of six minutes, the song builds and builds, with her voice becoming more powerful with each verse. At the climax of the song, Simone’s character is faced with a choice of when to kill the captured men, who had remained apathetic to her suffering. The instruments go silent, and she pauses before whispering “right now.” Silence in the audience. Slow fade out. This message of Simone’s rendition is clear: when the day comes—and it will come—all those who stood by and did nothing to help justice prevail will not be spared.

“Pirate Jenny” marks a transition to Simone tackling more explicit civil rights issues within her music, which is further cemented with the next song, “Old Jim Crow.” Both songs serve as political statements in and of themselves, while simultaneously priming the audience for what is about to come.

After one final, beautiful rendition of a song from her debut album (“Don’t Smoke In Bed”), the album arrives at its destination: the gutpunch of “Go Limp” and “Mississippi Goddam.” “Go Limp,” a humorous song about a young woman who marches with (and subsequently loses her virginity to) members of the NAACP, all the while being warned by her mother, loosens the audience up. Simone engages in banter with the audience, asking the audience if they “get the gist of the song yet?” and requesting them to sing along with the chorus. After forgetting a verse and having to jog her memory on stage, all the while making jokes and pausing for laughter, she continues to repeat the chorus until the audience joins in.

Finally, the audience becomes an active part in the record, their voices joining together with Simone’s. Simone plays into the comedy of the song, laughing along with the audience. She proves to be such an expressive performer, I can hear her smiling while singing. The song serves to humanize Simone, demonstrating her sense of humor and personality to the audience, who at this point have fully let their defenses down. At this point in the record, the audience is right where Simone wants them.

The final song, “Mississippi Goddam,” culminates in an explicit denunciation of lynching, segregation and the entirety of the Jim Crow south. It is, without a word of exaggeration, one of the most powerful songs ever written. At the beginning of the song, the audience is clapping and active, even laughing at Simone’s statement that “this is a show tune, but the show hasn’t been written for it… yet,” but the longer it goes on, the more that the power of lyrics and Simone’s voice wash over the audience. The band’s chants of “do it slow!” while Simone sings about forced plantation labor, marching for civil rights, and calling for equality, confront the audience with the harsh truth that they might be the villains of the song, as well as the racists and bigots. The song denounces all who stand in the way of progress, or champion slow, piecemeal approaches to justice. “This whole country is full of lies / you all gonna die and die like flies.”

By the time Simone tells the audience “bet you thought I was kidding didn’t you,” nobody is left to respond. Total silence. By the time the song builds to her final chorus, she belts the final note with a ferocity that defies written explanation. Simone said it best when closing the album. “That’s it.”