Tom Moon on Nina Simone

"In the song-drama 'Four Women,' one of several Nina Simone originals on this career overview released shortly after she died in 2003, at age seventy, the classically trained pianist and singer assumes the identities of four black female archetypes—the wise, long-suffering laborer, the whore, the militant, and the confused child of mixed-race parents. Each is distinct, stepping out of a different period novel. Through changes in inflection and dialect, Simone forces her listeners to confront those characters, feel their humanity, sense their struggles. By the time the song ends, you know about more than just four isolated women; you know about womanhood and pride, dignity and the tangled politics of identity and race. It's always that way with Simone. … She rarely throws herself completely into extremes like 'happy' or 'sad'—here is complex music in the key of bittersweet, complete with the messier aspects that jazz divas sometimes gloss over. Her love songs, like the wrenching 'I Loves You Porgy,' have the weary, worn-down countenance of the soldier returning from violent battle; her protest songs … are delivered with a romantic's blue-sky idealism" (1,000 Recordings to Hear Before You Die, p. 705).