1968 · Album
Live & Kickin (Vol. 1)
Recorded Live, 1960s · Score Records · Produced by Unverified — information not available
Nina Live, Holding Nothing Back
This is Simone at her most immediate — no studio polish, just raw piano and a voice that dares you to look away.
Live albums are a gamble. Either the energy of the room translates and you get something you couldn't manufacture in a studio, or it just sounds like a worse version of the records you already own. Nina Simone's Live & Kickin (Vol. 1) falls firmly in the first camp. Simone was built for live performance. Her reputation as the High Priestess of Soul wasn't just a nickname — it described what actually happened when she walked onstage. She commanded rooms. The combination of her classical piano training, rooted deeply in Bach and baroque technique, and her contralto voice doing things no conservatory would have taught her, made every performance its own event.
What makes this recording worth your time is hearing how Simone moves between styles without making it feel like a setlist. She could go from something that felt like gospel to something rooted in classical structure without any awkward gear-shift. That range — classical, folk, blues, R&B, jazz, pop — wasn't just a resume item for her; it was genuinely how she thought about music. On a live record you hear those choices happening in real time, and with Simone that is always interesting.
For listeners who know Simone primarily through her studio work, this is a useful companion. The controlled environment of a studio let her be precise; live, she was something else — looser, more confrontational, more willing to let a moment breathe or snap shut depending on her mood. This particular volume is a solid entry point into her live catalog rather than the definitive document of it, but that is not a knock. It does exactly what a good live record should do: it puts you in the room.
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