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Nina Simone: Remixed & Reimagined

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Nina Simone: Remixed & Reimagined
Mixing any recording can be an adventure. Most popular dance club music varies greatly from what the individual artist laid down. With nearly all recorded music, however, the featured artist has an opportunity to listen to and approve the final mix. The objective is to make the artist sound his or her very best. Through a lot of hard work, this usually works out fine.

This Legacy release of Nina Simone's work keeps her voice and her music at the forefront—sure, there are "distractions due to unnatural causes such as rhythmic loops and faded echoes and such. What's that old cliché? "If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

Fortunately, this remix wasn't "fixed so much that we'd lose sight of Nina Simone's unique persona. She's there, in focus, and surrounded by contemporary sounds like the ones you'd hear at your local techno-dance club on Saturday night. If you're willing to go out there and bump into other folks all night long on the dance floor, why not do it with one of the best? Nina Simone was just that.

If Nina Simone had an opportunity to listen to this remix, she'd probably like it. No one can say that it improves her original work, though. Neither can one say that this remix is out of character, since Simone was as hip as they come. Here we have a packaged mix that maintains her original work while adding a fair amount of soulful vibrations all around. There's plenty of repetition in the dance music, but Simone's songs never fade.

The albums represented through this remixed compilation include:To Love Somebody, It is Finished, 'Nuff Said, Silk and Soul, Here Comes the Sun, Black Gold and Nina Simone Sings the Blues.

Track Listing

I Can

Personnel

Nina Simone
piano and vocals

Nina Simone: vocals, piano; Burt Eckoff: piano; Selen Lerner: keyboards; Louis Benedetti: drum programming, keyboards; Eric Kupper, keyboards, programming; Jephe Guillaume: guitar; Roland Richards: organ, piano; D.J. Logic: turntable scratches, effects; Neal Evans: Hammond B3 organ; Casey Benjamin: Fender Rhodes electric piano, synthesizer bass, keyboards; Kirk Yano: electric sitar; others.

Album information

Title: Remixed & Reimagined | Year Released: 2007 | Record Label: RCA Victor

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