Nina Simone recorded seven albums for the Philips label between 1964 and 1966. It was the period in her career in which her reputation was cemented as a world-class artist, and one in which she gained fame for her contributions to the civil rights movement as well. Despite the fact that she recorded great albums both before and after her years with Philips (most notably with RCA), her Philips period is easily her most enigmatic. Among her Philips recordings are her live label debut and six studio recordings featuring wildly varying instrumentation, arrangements, and contents. The box contains all seven LPs on four CDs, and includes one bonus track.
Nina Simone was one of the most gifted vocalists of her generation, and also one of the most eclectic. Simone was a singer, pianist, and songwriter who bent genres to her will rather than allowing herself to be confined by their boundaries; her work swung back and forth between jazz, blues, soul, classical, R&B, pop, gospel, and world music, with passion, emotional honesty, and a strong grasp of technique as the constants of her musical career.
The Nina Simone entry in Universal Music's discount-priced best-of series 20th Century Masters: The Millennium Collection draws nine tracks from Simone's popular Philips Records albums of the mid-'60s, plus two tracks from her live album Let It Be Me, released by Verve Records in 1987. Several of Simone's most frequent concert selections and signature songs are included, among them a live take of "I Loves You Porgy," "Mississippi Goddam," "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood," and "The Other Woman." With a running time under 40 minutes and limited to only two of the labels for which Simone recorded, this is hardly a comprehensive compilation of her work. But it is a reasonable sampler at a reasonable price.