An old, passed-down Negro spiritual became even more epic in Nina Simone‘s vengeful hands… you can feel the heat and taste the sweat in this definitive version; over ten minutes of jazz-propelled desperation. With Miss Simone – no stranger to the church – leading a call-and-response from a decidedly rocking pulpit, “Sinnerman” remains popular music’s finest “Come to Jesus moment.” I witnessed (not “saw,” not “heard,” but “witnessed”) Simone perform this on a strangely windless night, with swarms of gnats completing a too-brief transformation of a Seattle waterfront stage into a Mississippi roadhouse. I would give anything to experience that again.
