I had a friend who used to play Mississippi Goddam all the time.
Ah, damn.
Some great tracks have been mentioned. One that hasn’t: her version of Don’t Smoke in Bed. Heartbreaking. And I’m Feeling Good where you can hear what freedom means.
A great singer, and an under-rated pianist. There are a million ways to play a swung triplet/ dotted crotchet. Hers was instantly recognisable, a distillation of low-brow popular music, high-brow jazz and European classical.
Could be because Ms. Simone came across as/identified herself as a kind of against-the-system radical outsider.
S’trewth—I’m a big fan of Nancy Sinatra and Constance Bennett.
Female jazz and blues singers make up a significant portion of my music collection – Sarah Vaughn, Dinah Washington, Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday, Jo Stafford, Abbey Lincoln and so on. There’s just something about a certain type of voice singing a certain type of music that gets under my skin (no pun intended) and speaks to me in a way that other music and singers can’t.
Nina Simone was different from the rest of them. Not for her the flashy technical doodling nor the poor-little-me pathos of some singers, although Nina could do both. No, here was a woman with attitude, who sang the blues heartwrenchingly but with a hint of low menace that intimated that whoever was responsible for her blues had damned well stay out of dark alleys. Even when she was down, she was never out.
She was one of a kind. Farewell, Little Girl Blue. 
I’ll say it again …
It’s not often I read something in the paper that hits me that viscerally. She will be missed.
I always learn about new people from you. That Constance Bennett - wow!
Ah, poor, bitter Nina. She had a tough time of it, and her uncompromising attitude didn’t help her. I respect her immensely for it, but she was an unhappy woman.
The liner notes on one of her more recent “best of” compilations said it very well. Nina Simone could “get inside” a song better than almost anyone, and she could make you feel it.
I’ll miss her.