Second appointment dedicated to Nina Simone: today we talk about "I Put a Spell on You".

 

From 1964, a fundamental phase in Nina Simone's life begins. The transition to the new record label Philips Records also marks a change in the content of the singer's songs, which become protest songs against the racial inequalities that African Americans are victims of daily. This is the case with songs like "Mississippi Goddam", in which Nina Simone demands immediate changes in the relationship between blacks and whites, to the point of causing the boycott of the song, chosen as a single, in some Southern states. But Nina Simone does not stop here in her fight and actively participates in events like the Selma to Montgomery march, increasingly convinced that a violent revolution is necessary to lift African Americans from oppression. The singer's commitment also emerges, more subtly, in songs like "I Put a Spell on You", where the assertion of her seductive power appears as an invitation to African American women to take pride in their skin and beauty, in opposition to Eurocentric standards. The song, chosen as a single to launch the album of the same name in 1965, allows Nina Simone to enter the UK and US charts, and among the covers included in the album, we also find the famous "Feeling Good" and the ballad "Ne Me Quitte Pas", which showcase the artist's powerful voice. However, Nina Simone's involvement in the civil rights movement damages her career, leading her to leave the United States in 1970 and move for a period to the Barbados islands. The following years see her engaged in the release of various live and studio albums and numerous concerts, where she enjoys sharing anecdotes about her career with the audience and performing songs on request. Moving between Liberia, Barbados, Switzerland, France, and the Netherlands, in her later years, she is diagnosed with bipolar disorder, thus justifying the fits of rage and crises that sometimes take over during her performances. After settling in the south of France in 1993, Nina Simone continues to perform until 2003, the year of her death, after a tough battle with cancer that had been ongoing for some time.

Today we invite you to once again be enchanted by the spell of her voice with "I Put a Spell on You". Enjoy listening!