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NPR's Weekend Edition
'Why?': Remembering Nina Simone's Tribute To The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.
Nina Simone was born on this date in 1933. We remember her with a song born through pain.
Three days after the Rev.. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in 1968, Simone and her band played at the Westbury Music Festival on Long Island, N.Y. They performed “Why? (The King of Love is Dead),” a song they had just learned, written by their bass player Gene Taylor in reaction to King’s death. Hear Simone’s brother and organist Samuel Waymon remember that powerful performance in an archival interview on NPR’s Weekend Edition.
Nina Simone’a Anthology is one of the 1000 Recordings to Hear Before You Die.
