27/12/2019
Three days after the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated in 1968, performer Nina Simone and her band played at the Westbury Music Festival on Long Island, N.Y. They performed "Why? (The King of Love is Dead)," a song they had just learned, written by their bass player Gene Taylor in reaction to King's death.
Simone's brother, Samuel Waymon, who was on stage playing the organ, talks with Lynn Neary about that day and his reaction to the civil rights leader's assassination.
"We learned that song that (same) day," says Waymon. "We didn't have a chance to have two or three days of rehearsal. But when you're feeling compassion and outrage and wanting to express what you know the world is feeling, we did it because that's what we felt."
Waymon and the band's performance of "Why? (Then King of Love is Dead)" lasted nearly 15 minutes as Nina Simone sang, played and sermonized about the loss everyone was feeling.
Karl Jenkins, better known as Philadelphian hip-hop artist Dice Raw, has written and produced The King of Love, a theatrical tribute to Dr. Martin Luther King
Dice Raw has been long associated with The Roots and he was also the founder of Philly band Nouveau Riche. He was inspired to create “The King of Love” by Nina Simone’s famous song of the same name, which was written by her bassist Gene Taylor just days after MLK Jr. was assassinated. Simone’s first performance of the song from 1968 is extremely moving, and Dice Raw couldn’t help but dive further into it.
Get tickets now to The King Of Love a Nina Simone musical written and Produced by Karl Dice Raw Jenkins https://www.eventbrite.com/e/the-king-of-love-a-nina-simone-musical-tickets-77475989771
