Holy Mackerel, I wasn't aware that Nina Simone had covered You'd Be So Nice To Come Home To, always imagined Helen Merrill's version was more or less definitive. Ah, the certainties of life, how quickly they come unstuck. As soon as I heard this, I felt no need to go any further with the album, it's such a mesmerizing piece, everything else would pale by comparison. Thank you for putting it on my musical map!
There's a great reminiscence from Sam Shepard's brief memoir on Nina Simone (no idea, of course, how much of it is true):
"...The one song she sang that really killed me was, "You'd Be So Nice to Come Home To." It always froze me in my tracks. I'd be out on the floor collecting Whiskey Sour glasses and she'd start that rumbling landslide piano with her ghostly voice snaking through the accumulating chords. My eyes would go up to the bandstand and stay there while my hands kept on working.
I knocked over a candle once while she was singing that song. The hot wax spilled all over a businessman's suit. I was called into the manager's office. The businessman was standing there with this long splash of hardened wax down his paints. It looked like he'd come all over himself. I was fired that night.
On the street outside I could still hear voice coming right through the concrete walls:"You'd be Paradise to come home to".
Hahaha . . . what a hoot! I take it the emphasis is understood to be on "come"? But of course, how disingenuous of me. Perfectly believable, once you get used to the idea of Sam Shepherd running around in a night club collecting Whisky Sour glasses . . .
Holy Mackerel, I wasn't aware that Nina Simone had covered You'd Be So Nice To Come Home To, always imagined Helen Merrill's version was more or less definitive. Ah, the certainties of life, how quickly they come unstuck. As soon as I heard this, I felt no need to go any further with the album, it's such a mesmerizing piece, everything else would pale by comparison. Thank you for putting it on my musical map!
There's a great reminiscence from Sam Shepard's brief memoir on Nina Simone (no idea, of course, how much of it is true):
"...The one song she sang that really killed me was, "You'd Be So Nice to Come Home To." It always froze me in my tracks. I'd be out on the floor collecting Whiskey Sour glasses and she'd start that rumbling landslide piano with her ghostly voice snaking through the accumulating chords. My eyes would go up to the bandstand and stay there while my hands kept on working.
I knocked over a candle once while she was singing that song. The hot wax spilled all over a businessman's suit. I was called into the manager's office. The businessman was standing there with this long splash of hardened wax down his paints. It looked like he'd come all over himself. I was fired that night.
On the street outside I could still hear voice coming right through the concrete walls:"You'd be Paradise to come home to".
Hahaha . . . what a hoot! I take it the emphasis is understood to be on "come"? But of course, how disingenuous of me. Perfectly believable, once you get used to the idea of Sam Shepherd running around in a night club collecting Whisky Sour glasses . . .