Finding true south

Nina Simone's enduring live power and the Blind Boys of Alabama bid farewell.

- GRAHAM REID

YOU'VE GOT TO LEARN by Nina Simone

At the 1966 Newport Jazz Festival, the great Nina Simone - with her trio of drums, bass and guitar typically drew from blues, gospel and jazz. She also reached from the minimalist stomping plantation holler of Be My Husband and "gutbucket blues" on the hard-hammering Blues for Mama to her popular hit I Loves You Porgy (from the Gershwins' Broadway production Porgy and Bess) delivered with heartbreaking simplicity.

Simone was uncompromising in performance and this recently discovered recording of her half-hour Newport set opens with the arresting, aching title song written by French-Armenian singer-songwriter Charles Aznavour: "You've got to hide your tears... to hide your sorrows, you got to go on living just as before." In a spellbinding seven minutes she taps into generations of racial and personal hurt: "Ain't no use to think about tomorrow... you've got to learn to be much stronger ... learn to live when your soul's been wounded."