the faux bohemian

nprmusic:

‘Why?’: Remembering Nina Simone’s Tribute To The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

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.

How is it I never heard this song until today? I think every American History course covering the 1960s should include it as required reading.