The darker side of Nina Simone's music

Nina Simone may be a dinner party staple, but there is also a deep and darker side to the singer, says Ed Power

THERE are two Nina Simones. The easy-listening, dinner party staple crooning her way through ‘I Put A Spell On You’ and ‘My Baby Just Cares For Me’. And the maverick outsider — the damaged woman who played a prominent part in the American civil rights movement and once told Martin Luther King she was not opposed to violence for political ends.

In her new portrait of the singer, What Happened, Miss Simone?, documentary maker Liz Garbus seeks to join the dots between these often contradictory ideas of Simone — the easy listening icon and the dangerous firebrand. The Simone that emerges is an engrossing contradiction: a shy woman who relished confrontation, an esoteric talent who bullied her family. The portrayal is some way short of flattering but is constantly fascinating.