Mississippi Goddam at the Royal Festival Hall review: thunderous Nina Simone tribute

Corinne Bailey Rae performs at Mississippi Goddam A Celebration of Nina Simone at the Royal Festival Hall - (Pete Woodhead)

Rarely has the Royal Festival Hall seen an encore like this. Perhaps not since Nina Simone herself caused pandemonium on this stage in a legendary performance as part of Nick Cave’s Meltdown.

This tribute evening to Simone, performed as the inaugural part of the Southbank Centre’s Montreux Jazz Festival Residency, had been growing in potency all evening.

It had begun with concert footage of Simone at Montreux in 1976, where her fearsome attitude and astonishing voice were at their peak.

Ni Maxine (Pete Woodhead)

At first, as the performers came out sing her songs with the Nu Civilisation Orchestra, it seemed like a hard act to live up to, as a few sound problems kept Ni Maxine’s version of I Loves You Porgy and Tony Njoku’s I Wish I Knew How on the quiet side. And then it all changed.

Laura Mvula stripped things for a beautiful Plain Gold Ring, about a woman pining for a married man. Corinne Bailey Rae then took to the stage, resplendent in gold, in full chanteuse guise for an electrifying I Put A Spell On You, featuring Denys Baptiste from Cymande on saxophone.

Laura Mvula (Pete Woodhead)

She then closed the first set with My Baby Just Cares, which whipped the crowd up to the extent where breaths were held for the entirety of the interval.

When set two began, the turns grew in stature. Little Boy Blue by Mvula on piano was stunning and first tears of the evening fell. China Moses gave a soulful, powerful Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood. Njoku delivered a beautifully Baltimore. The spirit of Simone was entering the room.

Tony Njoku (Pete Woodhead)

Then came a show-stopping version of Four Women, in which Moses, Maxine, Mvula and Bailey Rae each took one of the four different characters in Simone’s famous 1966 song, each of which represented stereotypes about African-American women in society.

This was electrifying and furious. Mvulva as the enslaved but strong Aunt Sarah singing “My skin is black, my arms are long, my hair is woolly, my back is strong,” followed by Maxine as the mixed-race and oppressed Saffronia, who delighted the crowd when she stumbled over the lyrics but improvised brilliantly instead. Bailey Rae was the prostitute Sweet Thing, haunting as she recounted being a little girl providing gratification for men. Finally Moses was immense as the angry Peaches, incensed at the suffering brought down upon her people. It was staggering.

Corinne Bailey Rae, Ni Maxine and China Moses (L-R) (Pete Woodhead)

Mvula stayed to play a stripped back and raw Stars, a cover of a Janis Ian song about artists past their prime, which Simone played at Montreux in 76, before Bailey Rae brought down the house with a spectacular Feeling Good.

The evening seemed to climax with the final whole vocal ensemble joining the orchestra for Mississippi Goddamn, probably Simone’s greatest protest song, written in 1963 in the wake of the lynching of Emmett Till and Medgar Evans in Mississippi and the bombing of a church in Alabama which killed four children. Tonight it hit home with collective power, Njoku’s baritone absolutely immense as the Hall shook you to the bones.

The Company of Mississippi Goddam A Celebration of Nina Simone at the Royal Festival Hall - Southbank Centre x Montreux Jazz Festival Residency (Pete Woodhead)

A lengthy standing ovation resulted.

And then came the encore. Which for anyone there will live long in the memory.

Bailey Rae walked back on to announce that while the ensemble didn’t have any more songs, “we felt this song was talking through us…”

They duly performed Four Women again, this time with such heartfelt, passionate emotion that there was open weeping on stage and off. This time Maxine nailed it, they all did, and after each said the name of their characters at the end of their segment, the audience howled in appreciation. It all ended with Moses stomping and shouting, declaring with utmost defiance to not be erased, nor the memory of so many brutalised and subjugated black women, and screaming, “MY NAME IS PEACHES.”

The spirit of Simone was fully in the Festival Hall by the end of this thunderous, transcendent performance and the audience was on their feet again. What a night. What performances. What songwriting. This music will never die.