Little Girl Blue

I was hanging out with my niece recently, talking about music. She has a thing for what she calls 'old music' which basically means soul music from the late 80's early 90's-- which makes me feel dated since that's music from my high school and college days. There had been a time when my niece and nephews were young and I tried to influence their tastes in music and literature--mostly the graphic literary form known as comics-- and then I gave up. It's difficult to fight against the sludge tide of popular, trite top 40 pop. Although comics finally took a hold of my youngest nephew's imagination, music was always a more difficult sell. In our conversation I realized that perhaps, as one does with a beloved but slightly addled older family member, they just simply ignored my suggestions as the crap old people sometimes say. It's possible that she could listen to some of my suggestions with something like an open mind now.

I remember discovering my mother's stack of 78's when I was in jr. high and falling in love with the music of the 50's. They had always been around the house, but it seemed that all at once they were these little pieces of hotness, obvious treasures that everyone had foolishly ignored. It was a cultural archeological experience, digging into my mother's musical past, extending beyond the 45's I had known and loved since childhood, into something approaching my mother's adolescence. Listening to them was an experience in enlightenment. I couldn't believe the sounds had not filled the rooms of my early youth.

Years later when a roommate played Nina Simone's Little Girl Blue for me it was a similar experience: another discovered treasure that should have been handed to me like a sonic birthright. I had heard the name, but listening for the first time, it seemed impossible that my first time hearing something so immediately touching and delicious should come to me so late. When I mentioned Nina, my nieces response was, 'who?' So, in the name of sonic birthrights, and the feeling that every young black woman should know her, I present side 2 of Nina Simone's first album. I dedicate this to my beautiful, impossibly college-aged niece.

Nina Simone
Little Girl Blue
side 2

Good Bait
Plain Gold Ring
You'll Never Walk Alone
I Loves You Porgy
Central Park Blues