max abelson's super groovy music video spectacular

#727: nina simone - backlash blues (1976, live in montreux)

if an alien or small and uninformed child came to you and said, “what is soulful?” you could play them certain nina simone songs and they’d nod and totally understand immediately. the absolutely only flaw here, though, is an otherwise wonderful mid-song drummer-appreciation speech that snubs david bowie: “like odetta said last night, if you don’t get loose now you better forget it. because you ain’t got much time. none of us do. i think the rolling stones say, ‘we’ve got five years.’”

#726: nina simone - what’s free to you speech

in the radio station in my apartment, a ten-day block of nina simone just started in anticipation of martin luther king jr day. is there anything finer? just look at her talk. ”what’s free to you?” a french-sounding interviewer asks. ”what’s free to me? same thing it is to you, you tell me,” she says. “no, you tell me,” says the frenchman. ”it’s just a feeling. it’s like how do you tell somebody how it feels to be in love? you cannot do it to save your life. you can describe things, but you can’t tell them, but you know it when it happens. that’s what i mean by free. i had a couple of times on the stage when i really felt free, and that’s something else. that’s something else!”