TO BE FREE
THE NINA SIMONE STORY
SONY LEGACY - 2008
There was only one Nina Simone, an original and highly imaginative artist whose style embodied a wide range of influences from musical Americana and beyond. To Be Free: The Nina Simone Story (three CDs and a DVD) is a fine boxed set overview of her career, emphasizing the live performances where she was most in her element.
Culling material from her Bethlehem, Colpix, Philips, RCA, PM, CTI and Elektra recordings, To Be Free is the most comprehensive and wide-ranging of many available collections; it includes all the Billboard and UK national chart singles plus previously unreleased jewels.
(The film included on the DVD is also known as Nina: A Historical Perspective, a documentary produced by Peter Rodis in 1970.)