What are you people hiding from me??

Being a music fan, and a fan of many genres, it is always fun to find something that has flown under your radar.  Once exposed you get to be ravenous.  You want to hear more.  You want to hear their early stuff, their late stuff, their live stuff.  You comb the internet for videos of Late Night TV appearances (or European music festival coverage).

My most recent to fall in to that category is Nina Simone.

I knew the name, and that was really about it.  One day scrolling through my Netflix queue I saw a “recommended” pick for the documentary “What Happened, Miss Simone?”  A friend on facebook had posted their admiration for the documentary so I decided “what the heck”.

She led a very interesting life and I’ll leave any sort of “was it accurate” etc to another time but what I really liked and what got me hooked was the music (of course).  The way she carried herself, the way she sang.  I felt mad…why had none of my friends told me about her?

The tipping point was the black and white footage of her doing “Ain’t Got No, I Got Life”.  That stopped me in my tracks.  I had to watch it again…twice.  A day or so later I looked for the footage on line.  To both my surprise and frustration (again..nobody told me!!) the clip has been viewed over 14 million times.  14 MILLION!

Yet it was brand new to me..and it was awesome.

Watch for yourself here

Look at her smile around the 2:20 mark.  I mean..come ON!

The final note she sings and never seems to bend makes my knees shake.

Watch it again..go ahead I understand.

What else are you people hiding on me?