Nina Simone – Little Blue Girl

Only my two cents of course, but as far as I’m concerned, with the passing of time, we are only going to continue to revere and admire this woman more. Courageous, inspired, gifted, complicated, damaged, and simply astounding.

Only now, I think, are we really able to learn how brave she was. So many of her challenges to racism and oppression—long hidden in deep vaults—are still coming to light, and with each revelation, we learn more about how deep, deep, deep this artist, this human, really was.

And such music in her. Such music.

I recommend this album not because it’s her best, not because it’s my favorite, but because it’s her debut, and because her depths are so incredibly deep, you simply must, at some point, start at the beginning, if you’re ever to hope to comprehend the full measure of what she accomplished, of what she gave to us all.