Here’s an aching­ly beau­ti­ful 1962 per­for­mance by Nina Simone of the song that start­ed her career: “I Loves You Por­gy,” from the 1935 George Gersh­win opera Por­gy and Bess. The per­for­mance begins with Simone’s own plain­tive ver­sion of the calls of the Straw­ber­ry Woman and the Crab Man from Act II:

They’re so soft and fine
And they’re just off the vine
Straw­ber­ries

I’m talkin’ about the food I sell
I’m talkin’ about my dev­il crabs
Dev­il crabs

She then tran­si­tions into “I Loves You Por­gy,” with lyrics by Ira Gersh­win. The song was writ­ten as a duet, but was lat­er per­formed solo by a num­ber of artists, includ­ing Bil­lie Hol­i­day. Simone record­ed it in Decem­ber of 1957, when she was 24 years old. It was released the fol­low­ing year on her debut album Lit­tle Girl Blue. At the time, she was still hop­ing for a career as a clas­si­cal pianist. “I Loves You Por­gy” was a big suc­cess for the young Simone–the only top 40 hit she would ever have– and it helped chart the course of her career as a blues and jazz musi­cian with strong clas­si­cal influ­ences.

Relat­ed con­tent:

Nina Simone Sings of Social Injus­tice in a 1965 Dutch TV Broad­cast

Ella Fitzger­ald Sings ‘Sum­mer­time’ by George Gersh­win, Berlin 1968

In the late-six­ties/ear­ly sev­en­ties, a new genre—pioneered by CSNY, Gram Par­sons, Dylan, the Grate­ful Dead, and a host of others—brought down-home coun­try sounds to main­stream rock audi­ences. So-called “Coun­try Rock,” how­ev­er, most­ly emanat­ed from a Los Ange­les scene that grew far­ther from both coun­try and rock and strayed into easy lis­ten­ing ter­ri­to­ry (or “Yacht-rock”; think late-peri­od Eagles), or jam-band land. But one band nev­er dis­solved into soft rock or aging psy­che­delia: The Band. The four hard-work­ing Cana­di­ans and a man from Arkansas named Lev­on Helm took their coun­try sound more from Helm’s home­town of Turkey Scratch than Lau­rel Canyon. The Band ignored almost every trend in con­tem­po­rary pop music and focused on tight­ly craft­ed, loose­ly-played songs that hewed close to the roots music that seem­ing­ly ran through their veins.

In 1970, when they played the con­cert record­ed above, the five unas­sum­ing mus­ta­chioed men also graced a Time mag­a­zine cov­er under the ban­ner “The New Sound of Coun­try Rock.” With songs like “Up on Crip­ple Creek” and “The Weight,” The Band earned the dis­tinc­tion. Their jour­ney brought them from back­ing band for rock­a­bil­ly singer Ron­nie Hawkins, then Bob Dylan, then final­ly emerg­ing on their own with their non­de­script name in 1968. The name says a lot about The Band’s ethos—there didn’t seem to be an ounce of van­i­ty in what they did, with each mem­ber con­tribut­ing to song­writ­ing and vocal duties. It might be said that the “coun­try” in their sound was pow­ered by drum­mer, man­dolin-play­er, and some­time lead singer Helm (they once briefly broke off from Hawkins and toured and record­ed as Lev­on and the Hawks), but The Band, and Lev­on, were also a top-notch blue-eyed soul singers, as you can hear clear­ly in their mid-six­ties out­put.

In the footage above, from a show at Pittsburgh’s Syr­ia Mosque, watch Helm, Rick Danko, Rob­bie Robert­son, Garth Hud­son, and Richard Manuel work their saloon-room country/soul mag­ic and smooth vocal har­monies on four songs: “Time to Kill,” “The Weight,” “This Wheel’s on Fire,” and “Up on Crip­ple Creek.” And don’t let the term “coun­try rock” put you off. You don’t have to like coun­try music to love what these guys do so well.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Mar­tin Scors­ese Cap­tures Lev­on Helm and The Band Per­form­ing “The Weight” in The Last Waltz

The 1969 Bob Dylan-John­ny Cash Ses­sions: Twelve Rare Record­ings

Bob Dylan and The Grate­ful Dead Rehearse Togeth­er in Sum­mer 1987. Lis­ten to 74 Tracks

Josh Jones is a writer, edi­tor, and musi­cian based in Wash­ing­ton, DC. Fol­low him @jdmagness

Update: Not long after we post­ed this, NPR took the audio offline. We told you to act quick­ly, but we did­n’t expect that quick­ly! Sor­ry for the incon­ve­nience.

We gave you a heads up in Jan­u­ary, and now it’s final­ly here: the 12-song album of pre­vi­ous­ly-unre­leased Jimi Hen­drix record­ings called Peo­ple, Hell & Angels. You’ve prob­a­bly heard the sin­gle “Some­where.” Well, now you can hear the rest of the album. (Lis­ten below.) And it’s free thanks to NPR’s First Lis­ten series, the same series that will let you stream Dave Grohl’s sound­track for his new doc­u­men­tary Sound City Stu­dios. But don’t delay, the albums won’t be online for very long.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Pre­vi­ous­ly Unre­leased Jimi Hen­drix Record­ing, “Some­where,” with Bud­dy Miles and Stephen Stills

See Jimi Hendrix’s First TV Appear­ance, and His Last as a Back­ing Musi­cian (1965)

Tom Waits and Kei­th Richards Sing Sea Song “Shenan­doah” for New Pirate-Themed CD: Lis­ten Online

In 2007, Kurt  Cobain’s 1991 anti-anthem “Smells Like Teen Spir­it” was long etched into the con­scious­ness of every music fan, but the musi­cal land­scape had changed con­sid­er­ably since its release. The inevitable mass appro­pri­a­tion of Nirvana’s thun­der­ous dynam­ics and shag­gy rebel­lion had turned out so much bland, over­pro­duced grunge that the sound sank into unlis­ten­able deca­dence. With indie artists doing Gang of Four-like dance punk, eight­ies elec­tro, and any­thing at all that sound­ed noth­ing like Nir­vana, some—like Iron and Wine and the Decembrists—picked up ban­jos and fid­dles and reached back even fur­ther to moody Appalachi­an folk.

So when punk fore­moth­er Pat­ti Smith re-inter­pret­ed Nirvana’s era-defin­ing clas­sic for her ’07 cov­ers album Twelve, she choose the lat­ter sound, a spare coun­try arrange­ment with bass, acoustic gui­tar, vio­lin, ban­jo, and Smith’s time­less voice. No need for drums, it’s been done; what we hear instead is the essence of the song’s lyri­cal and melod­ic pow­er.

As most song­writ­ers will tell you, a good song should strip down to voice and gui­tar with­out los­ing its heart. Smith’s ver­sion of “Smells Like Teen Spir­it” proves that Kurt Cobain’s song­writ­ing stands up to the test, and the black and white video recalls Smith’s own pho­tog­ra­phy. It’s a par­tic­u­lar­ly Pat­ti Smith memo­r­i­al.

Loss defines so much of Smith’s late peri­od work—of Cobain, her broth­er, late hus­band Fred “Son­ic” Smith, and close friend Robert Mapplethorpe—but her com­mem­o­ra­tion of those loss­es has also renewed her cre­ative­ly. In a way, her career revival began with a memo­r­i­al to Cobain, with the song “About a Boy” from her 1996 “come­back” record Gone Again, a par­tial col­lab­o­ra­tion with her hus­band not long before his death. Watch Smith below deliv­er a spell­bind­ing live per­for­mance of “About a Boy” from a June 23, 2000 con­cert in Seat­tle.

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Relat­ed Con­tent:

Watch Pat­ti Smith Read from Vir­ginia Woolf, and Hear the Only Sur­viv­ing Record­ing of Woolf’s Voice

Pat­ti Smith Remem­bers Robert Map­plethor­pe

The First Live Per­for­mance of Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spir­it” (1991)

Josh Jones is a writer, edi­tor, and musi­cian based in Wash­ing­ton, DC. Fol­low him @jdmagness