Nina Simone - London 1977

I saw "King: A Filmed Record... Montgomery to Memphis", the 1970 documentary by Ely Landau, Sidney Lumet and Joseoph L. Mankiewicz (I don't quite see who directed and/or produced, but on the web Lumet and Mankiewicz are mentioned mainly, while in the film, only Landau's name was there big, while the other two were just shown in a long row of participants in the final credits). Anyway, the film left me pretty disturbed. Made me think of that Mingus tune "Free Cell Block F, 'tis Nazi USA"...

Here's a little write up I posted elsewhere on the web already:

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Three hours of mostly documentary footage (sometimes full speeches, such as the one in Washington). It shows some of the important events in MLK’s biography from 1955-1968 (of course those were important events for US history as well...)

Of course the police violence and racism and all, I expected that, but what I found really distressing were the parts filmed in Chicago (1966 I think), where there’s a very aggressive white mob, many of them carrying nazi-insignias with them – there’s one part then in a park (where I assume King wanted to do a speech or something) where there’s a whole counter-demonstration by whites all having these svastikas and stuff with them – really, really disgusting! I mean this was a mere twenty years after the Americans liberated large parts of Europe from that plague (well, many of the then „liberated“ ones were of course part of the plague, I have no illusions about that).

In between, there are some statements (some sounded like poetry readings – not in a bad way) by famous people, actors, like Paul Newman, Charlton Heston (ha, long way to his appearance in Michael Moore’s dumbed down film about guns!), Burt Lancaster etc. Also in the 1963 footage from Birmingham, you see Al Hibbler getting arrested (they don’t just throw him into one of their trucks with all the others as he’s blind). And on top of all, of course there’s plenty of cool music (Roach, Donald Byrd from his voices albums on Blue Note, the one with the cool cover, you know..., and you see Harry Belafonte, Peter Paul & Mary and others in short snippets from performances at demonstrations, as well as the stunning Mahalia Jackson – beats the sh*t out of Aretha, though if Obama had her as a guest in 68 or 69, she’d have been the queen, too, of course!)

Anyway, if you get a chance to see it, do it!

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The music used in the film was great (of course!) - Max Roach and Abbey Lincoln (of course!), Mahalia Jackson (singing live on screen), Donald Byrd, and more, and of course also Nina Simone... which made me remember that in between the recent Hubbard shows, I also upped a solo show of hers. Here 'tis!



Nina Simone
London, England (UK), Theatre Royal, Drury Lane
December 1977

Nina Simone - piano & vocals

1. Balm In Gilead (4:14)
2. Balm In Gilead (Reprise) (2:03)
3. Rich Girl (3:22)
4. Little Girl Blue (5:35)
5. The Other Woman (5:09)
6. Turning Point (3:24)
7. Pirate Jenny (4:50)
8. Pirate Jenny (Reprise) (3:22)
9. Everything Must Change (5:55)
10. That's All I Want From You (7:40)
11. Aint Got No - I Got Life (3:44)

TT: 49:18

Sound: A/A-
Source: broadcast on Capital Radio / 1978-11-10 (stereo FM)
Additional lineage: FLAC > WAV > Cool Edit Pro > FLAC (8,asb,verify)

:: ubu's edits ::
fixed marks, deleted silence at end of tracks