Jeremy Ryan

From The Conversation Nina Simone performs live on stage at the Newport Jazz Festival in Newport, R.I., on July 4, 1968. David Redfern/Redferns Many music fans know that Nina Simone’s 1965 hit “I Put a Spell on You” helped establish the 32-year-old singer as the “High Priestess of Soul.” Few probably realize that it was Langston Hughes – the pioneering poet and face of the Harlem Renaissance – who had encouraged Simone to record it. As a Langston Hughes scholar, I’ve spent the past six years...

This insightful book is one of the few books to connect the resistance of the Harlem Renaissance with the 1960s fight for civil rights. From Library Journal ★ Miller (English, North Carolina State Univ.; Origins of the Dream) studies the mutually beneficial connection between pianist, songwriter, and singer Nina Simone (1933–2003) and poet Langston Hughes (1901–67). Miller maintains that Hughes was Simone’s closest confidant, a relationship that formed an intergenerational bond, linked...

From Publishers Weekly An eye-opening portrait of two civil rights crusaders. The author scrupulously details how Hughes’s political poetry influenced Simone to speak out on social justice issues with songs like “Mississippi Goddam,” and the narrative is bolstered by ample photographs, handwritten notes, album covers, and promotional materials. It adds up to an eye-opening portrait of two civil rights crusaders.