Lady Nade’s crowd-pleasing tribute to Nina Simone is achieving an unprecedented level of success for a resolutely independent artist, a success which you can only feel is as deserved as it is convincing. Since Lady Nade’s Cheltenham debut six years ago, she had released three albums of acoustic guitar indie-folk-americana soul, with collaborations including a “Tribute to the Blues Dames” which set the scene for “Lady Nade Sings Nina Simone” originally devised four years ago for Nina Simone’s ‘90th anniversary’.
Opening with just her voice, drums and handclaps from her band members with “Be My Husband” showcased the power of Lady Nade’s voice, so similar to Nina Simone’s as to pass for tribute but you can hear with certain extemporisations and phrasing that she’s approaching the songs as you would any songs you wanted to bring the best of yourself to. There are lots of jokes about her Bristolian accent, not so much as to warrant retitling songs like “Why Keep On Breakin’ Me ‘Eart?” but why not. The balancing act between the Nina and the Nade is finely judged and immaculately executed such that you can abundantly see why it’s been so successful, with this show being the first in another long UK tour.
The 90-minute set ticked off the big familiar numbers (“I Wish I Knew”, “Ain’t Got No Life, I Got Life” (that one from the Muller advert), “Love Me Or Leave Me”, “My Baby Just Cares For Me”, “Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood” and Feelin’ Good (that one by Muse)). As a vocalist and interpreter of the songs, she absolutely brings it and sells it, though “Love Me And Leave Me” was let down by the piano, and “Chain Gang (The Work Song)” by the saxophone, and where o where were the crucial chants of “POWER!” in “Sinnerman”?
There’s also a sense that Nade is convincing re-reading Nina, but her talent is better represented by more multi-dimensional tone and register in the material. The band is more confident on the pop crossover numbers, a specialisation of Nina Simone’s and Lady Nade’s, that brought pleasing readings of the dreamy pop ballad “Lilac Wine” and the soft ska of “Baltimore”, which is a connoisseur’s cut written by Randy Newman. I love that they can play all the big famous songs and then the less famous but highly regarded ones; it reassures you that they really dig the whole catalogue.
The Nina Simone catalogue is wildly varied. Freedom songs, songs about love, symphonies and pop ditties. Lady Nade is exuberant in adding to this, “also songs about SEX”, describing “Take Care of Business” as “Filthy!” She tears into “Gin House Blues” (first recorded by Bessie Smith)’s injunctions to “Give me my gin!” with gusto. Anyone can do the Muller advert songs. What we need is the Filthy Nina Anthology.
Other under-represented themes are also brought to light by Lady Nade. Self-described as “All round nutjob and good egg” she does a lot of music workshops in care homes with dementia patients, and is open about Nina Simone’s mental health problems, such as a re dwelt on in “What Happened to Miss Simone?” documentary. The honesty of Nina Simone’s songs appeals to Lady Nade. “She broke stigma talking about stuff that went against the grain- mental health and the reality of life.” The way Nina Simone added melancholy to Screamin’ Jay Hawkins’s bitter blues “I Put A Spell On You” is legendary, an exemplar of her paradoxical union of vulnerability and power, which suits Lady Nade well.
“Mr Bojangles” is a doozy. “This is what it would feel like getting a hug from Nina Simone,” she says. Feelings, and then some. Nina Simone recorded it in 1971. A standard and masterpiece, it’s like Joni Mitchell’s “Both Sides, Now” in that it takes itself so seriously that it can easily become hilarious. There’s a Pedro Almodovar film which employs a muzak version with such laconic precision the song will probably never recover. Lady Nade’s strength is her strength, rather than the sense of fragility you need to emote to really lean into it to obliterate its potential pomposity. It takes a heart of stone not to laugh at lyrics like this: “But his dog up and died/ Dog up and died/ And after twenty years he still grieves.”
Props to “Julian” on sound. Dunkertons Tap Room is a tough room to engineer in a kind of permanent festival marquee enveloped by a loud cloud of cider drinkers. I wondered if we were going to be able to hear anything at all. My highest praise to Lady Nade might be that for the most part I found myself not hearing the noise any more, only twice noticing I’d stopped noticing it. POWER!!!
BAND:
Piano: Ruth Hammond.
Saxophone: Sophie Stockam.
Guitar: Holly Carter
Drums: Matt Sockham Brown
Bass: Riaan Vosloo (special guest)
