“Backlash Blues” (live) (1968) – Nina Simone * Written by Langston Hughes and Nina Simone * Produced by Joe René * LP: ‘Nuff Said! * Label: RCA Victor
The Summer of Soul (2021) concert film unearths footage of the Harlem Cultural Festival, the forgotten “Black Woodstock” that ran for six separate nights during the summer of ’69. It’s a concert film rarity that has the power to take viewers through a full range of emotions, from giddy joy to sanctified tears and then to anger. Nina Simone, at her uncompromising peak, handles that last bit, serving it up with an equal portion of awe. “Backlash Blues” is here at full boil, with words by Langston Hughes, bearing the same vocal edge, spoken statement of purpose, and boom-crash piano it had on her ‘Nuff Said! album. This was a live recording done three days after the assassination of Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. (Her first version of the song, a studio take on her 1967 Nina Simone Sings the Blues album, captured it at a mere simmer.)
In the film, “Backlash Blues” launches Simone’s set, and by the end of it she is working the crowd with lines such as “Black people…Are you ready to smash white things, to burn buildings, are you ready?…Are you ready to kill, if necessary?” She’s actually reading verses by the Last Poets’ David Nelson, but you wouldn’t know it.