TITLE: Young, Gifted - And Forever Nina Simone (Legacy/RCA)

ARTIST: Nina Simone

STARS: 5 Out of 5 Stars

SOUNDS LIKE: Everything from jazz blues, R &B, gospel, folk, protest songs and Broadway tunes from the Fiery Queen of Jazz.

Queen Latifah, Sista Souljah, Kelis and every other angry, sexy, black woman of music owes a certain debt to Nina Simone. The North Carolina chanteuse was fearless and outspoken in her music in a time when women were supposed to be seen and not heard. She spoke out during the Civil Rights and the Black Power movements of the 1950s and 1970s with incindeiary tunes like “Mississippi Goddam” and “Sunday in Savannah.” But she could get downright funk sexy on songs like “Funkier Than a Mosquito’s Tweeter” and “I Want a little Sugar in My Bowl.”

But no one could ever pin Nina’s music down to one genre. She sang everything from blues, jazz, show tunes, folk music, rock, spirituals and ballads with gritty emotion. Not blessed with a voice in the range of a Billie Holiday or an Aretha Franklin, Simone could still wring every drop of pain, anger and sadness or whatever emotion needed out of any composition.

Now five years after her death, Legacy and RCA Records releases “Young Gifted-And Forever Nina Simone. It’s an impressive 51 track CD box set that spans her career from 1957 to 1993. It also comes with a 23 minute DVD documentary with nine selections from her live performances.

The box set also includes a booklet with never before seen photographs from family archives and the personal collection of Nina Simone historian, Sylvia Hampton.

“To see this African American woman get angry about the racial situation in her country, right there on stage, was a shock to people who who’d come to hear her sing ‘I Love You Porgy,’” said Ed Ward, music critic and radio commentator from a press release. “Not that she cared; she figured it was the artist’s job to deliver the truth and if the truth hurt so be it.”

Nina Simone is simply an American classic that should not be forgotten. A great Christmas gift.