Love Me or Poll Me: Billie Holiday vs. Nina Simone

I can't talk about why. I only have a few songs by each of them on mix cds and whatever else I've accumulated over the years (usually made by girls). I respect Billie. I love Nina.

The earlier thread:

Taking Sides: Nina Simone VS. Billie Holliday

Lady Day

so tough but nina

It's Billie. I think people voting Nina don't know Billie well enough. No offense and all.

One of the few things I've ever posted on YouTube, because it's one of my favorite songs.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E-rlGmhL7gY

Nina made me cry when I saw her in 2000, at the Bass Concert Hall in Austin. It was "Here Comes the Sun" that really brought out the tissues for me. I LOVE Nina Simone, please don't read me wrong.

But Billie understood something that Nina doesn't deal with: decay, destruction, endings. Even the most gut-wrenching reading of a song by Nina Simone is finally about hope. Billie gets her delicate hands right down into the final soil. And because she does, her emotional range is so much wider.

I respect Billie. I love Nina.

^^^This, except the exact and total opposite.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Whenever this question is posed I always vote for Billie Holiday because I somehow feel she has the most affecting voice but today is a hot summer day in my city and unfortunately for Holiday shedoesn't have any 'sinnerman' or 'funkier than a mosquito's tweeter' or 'see-line woman' or anything decidedly contagious and manically upbeat in her catalogue.

Nina is one of my favourite all time artists.

Nina

I made the mistake of listening to Billie after a breakup once! Oh man, that was brutal. I listened to Billie a lot in high school but I have really been all about Nina since, I think because the emotional impact of Billie is still too raw for me.

Billie Holiday's records defined a big part of my life for several years. I am assuming the low action on this poll is that everybody's responses are pretty automatic; mine was immediate. I dig Nina Simone but Billie Holiday's music is a part of me.

Billy & Prez' - A musical romance is drop-dead gorgeous, deseret island stuff. not a big fan of Nina's style, but "Baltimore" is really lovely

Is it challops if I think jazz purists would do better chosing Nina over Billie? Nina Simone is in my mind a better example of the true jazz spirit than Billie who seems more calculated, technical...academic.

The sun is gone now so I'm switching back to Billie Holiday btw.

Nina Simone is in my mind a better example of the true jazz spirit than Billie who seems more calculated, technical...academic.

See, I would say the same thing, except I would switch names. My problem with Simone is that she seems overly mannered and almost genteel at times, where Holiday is all feeling. Anyway, Holiday all the way, since aside from a few songs I've never really gotten Simone.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

satisfactory