Time and again critics write about Nina Simone's power and charisma throughout the civil rights movement. She sang the words of an entire movement: "All I want is equality / for my sister, my brother, my people and me. / Yes, you've been lying to me all these years" (Simone Mississippi). She sang throughout her run, and in a “smoky” voice, when four young girls were killed in a church bombing (Lewis). She sang "Will my country fall, stand or fall? / Is it too late for all of us? / And did Martin Luther King die in vain? (Simone Why?) after MLK died. Nina Simone... a singer with many voices different, a singer who denies any categorization, a woman who deviates from the genre to prove something "'My goal has always been to stay out of any category'. 'This is my freedom,'" she insisted to a reporter. But it was a "freedom" that, according to biographer David Nathan, "drove industry pundits and the music press crazy as they tried to classify her" (Brooks). Critics have tried to categorize it into genres ranging from the most obvious, jazz, to "wing to bebop" up to free jazz within which...