She met any transgression with such a withering glare that her eyes were more like flamethrowers than headlights; the voice imperious, with a crust of sarcasm. Nina Simone could scare the pants off her band and fans, alike. Watch, in Netflix’s gripping What Happened, Miss Simone?, her stop playing to…
Category: Features – Archive
Flipping through records in a department store, the 16-year-old me is hooked by the cover image: an ebony man in a bright white singlet, his body arching backwards as he plays his trumpet. Miles Davis, it says. A Tribute to Jack Johnson. I ask to hear it – in those…
It was almost as though she had emerged from the womb fully formed. In her 20s she was already feted, adored and even worshipped. Billie Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald were freakish enough, needing only a couple of years to rise from showing promise to embodying supreme artistry. Sarah Vaughan skipped…