What Happened, Miss Simone? by Alan Light. 260 pages (not including discography and notes)
This is a biography of artist Nina Simone, who wasn't just a singer, but a classically trained pianist and civil rights activist. Alan Light is a former music journalist, and brings that writing style to this book. Using rare archival footage, audio recordings, interviews and personal diaries, Light puts together a nuanced portrait of a complex and compelling woman.
I had been familiar with Simone's work for a while, but I didn't really know that much about her before reading this book. It was interesting to read about her personally, but admittedly, I found some of the writing about her musicianship to be fascinating. A classically trained pianist, Simone brought that deep understanding of classical music into her performances. At the time she was first performing, this was very unusual, and unexpected. Unfortunately, Ms. Simone's personal life often overshadowed her artistic life. However, reading about her personal struggles and how they influenced her music made me want to pull up more recordings and listen to them. Very interesting reading.
This blog is the home of the St. Louis Public Library team for the Missouri Book Challenge. The Missouri Book Challenge is a friendly competition between libraries around the state to see which library can read and blog about the most books each year. At the library level, the St. Louis Public Library book challenge blog is a monthly competition among SLPL staff members and branches. For the official Missouri Book Challenge description see: http://mobookchallenge.blogspot.com/p/about-challenge.h
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