Various artists, "Nina Revisited ... A Tribute to Nina Simone"

Various Artists

“NINA REVISITED … A TRIBUTE TO NINA SIMONE”

Sony Music

This album is the companion piece to the Netflix documentary “What Happened, Ms. Simone?,” about the life of singular singer and pianist Nina Simone in the context of the civil-rights movement of the 1960s. It deserves attention, on at least two counts.

First, it recasts songs written and covered by Simone by contemporary acts such as Usher, Mary J. Blige, jazz man Gregory Porter, and Philadelphia R&B singer Jazmine Sullivan. A superb example that resonates in America’s particularly fraught moment in race relations in 2015 is Sullivan’s take on “Baltimore,” the Randy Newman song about the Charm City where “it’s hard, just to live.” The song was a part of Simone’s repertoire. And why no one thought to cover “Mississippi Goddamn,” Simone’s angriest, most arresting song, is an unanswered question.

The second newsworthy element about “Nina Revisited” is that it was executive-produced and contains five songs by Ms. Lauryn Hill. The former Fugee hasn’t released a studio album in 17 years, but she’s clearly energized by the opportunity to honor one of her heroes. She raps over Simone’s “I’ve Got Life,” and she turns chanteuse en Francais on “Ne Me Quitte Pas.” And the dramatic interpretation of “Black Is the Color of My True Love’s Hair” is one of “Nina Revisited’s” three high points, along with Alice Smith’s hypnotic take on Screaming Jay Hawkins’ “I Put A Spell On You” and the lone track by Simone herself, Billy Taylor’s “I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel to Be Free,” which closes out the album with inimitable, unbowed spirit.

— Dan DeLuca,

The Philadelphia Inquirer