Usher's <i>Here I Stand</i>
Photo: LaFace

When you think of debonair R&B star Usher, you think hits — tracks like "U Remind Me," "My Boo" and "Yeah!" You think about the fact that the dude has sold more than 30 million records worldwide. You think about the legions of fans that make each of his live gigs sell-out events, and words like "icon" start popping into your head. So it should surprise you that, over the course of more than a decade, Usher has had just one album open at #1 on Billboard's albums sales chart.

That is until last week, when the soulful crooner issued his latest studio effort, Here I Stand. According to the latest Nielsen SoundScan totals, after selling more than 442,900 copies, Usher's latest knocks 3 Doors Down's self-titled album from the peak position of next week's chart. His previous release, 2004's Confessions, also bowed on top, but with significantly stronger sales: 1.1 million, to be exact.

But that stark difference in sales shouldn't taint Usher's latest victory one bit. In a market where albums are more often pilfered than purchased, 442,900 scans is no small potatoes. Besides, Usher basically crushed the rest of the field this week. His closest competitor, the "Sex and the City" soundtrack (featuring contributions from Fergie, Jennifer Hudson and Nina Simone), enters the chart at #2, with just 65,900 sold. The nation's third best-seller, 3 Doors Down, sold a mere 63,200 units.

Here I Stand and the "Sex and the City" set were among 16 new releases making their impact on next week's Top 200. Al Green's Lay It Down opened at #9 with 33,800 copies snatched up. But Green's was the only other newcomer to crack the top 10, which is rounded out by Bun B's II Trill at #4 (selling another 40,200 copies), Leona Lewis' Spirit at #5 (38,700), Frank Sinatra's Nothing but the Best at #6 (with 36,900 sold), Duffy's Rockferry at #7 (35,900), Mariah Carey's E=MC² at #8 (35,600) and Death Cab for Cutie's Narrow Stairs at #10 (with another 33,400 scanned).

Elsewhere on the chart, Fergie's Dutchess LP, which was re-issued last week with four bonus tracks, enjoyed a 131 percent spike in sales, ending the week with 14,800 and climbing from #104 to #28 on the chart. Down in the #46 spot, selling 11,400 copies, is Fergie's Dutchess EP. Meanwhile, Cyndi Lauper returns to the chart at #41, with her Bring Ya to the Brink, which generated 12,000 first-week scans. Underoath's Survive Kaleidoscope opens at #81 with 8,000 copies sold, and Charlotte Sometimes' Waves & the Both of Us enters at #145, with sales reported at 4,300.

36 Crazyfists' Tide and Its Takers bows at #155, selling 4,200 copies. Spiritualized's Songs in A&E claims the #157 spot with 4,100 sold. Lastly, debuting at #199 with 3,100 sold, is KT Tunstall's Live From Soho.

• Usher
• Fergie
• Jennifer Hudson
• Nina Simone
• 3 Doors Down

Nina Simone
Photo: Verve

Legendary jazz and blues singer Nina Simone died in her sleep at her home in Southern France on Monday, Reuters reports.

The 70-year-old singer was known for her fiery persona, civil rights anthems and versions of the jazz standard "My Baby Just Cares for Me" and Screamin' Jay Hawkins' "I Put a Spell on You."

Famously hard to categorize, "The High Priestess of Soul" was a renaissance woman whose career spanned more than 40 jazz, soul, pop, Broadway, gospel and blues recordings, from her 1958 debut, Jazz as Played in an Exclusive Side Street Club, to a series of late '90s live albums. Simone, who had been living in France for much of the past decade, was also known for her prowess as a composer and arranger and for such social statement songs as "Mississippi Goddam" and "Old Jim Crow."

Born Eunice Kathleen Waymon into a North Carolina family of eight children on February 21, 1933, the notoriously feisty, powerful singer showed an early talent for singing and playing piano. At age 10, Simone's parents were removed from the front row of her music recital to accommodate a white couple — an incident that helped inspire her commitment to civil rights.

The singer went on to become one of the few black students at New York's celebrated Juilliard School of Music in the 1950s. She adopted her stage name in 1954 while working as the singer/pianist in residence at the Midtown Bar and Grill in Atlantic City, New Jersey, taking Nina from the Spanish word for "girl," and Simone from the French actress Simone Signoret. Her first public notice came in 1959 with a top 20 hit version of George Gershwin's "I Loves You Porgy" from his opera "Porgy and Bess," a million-seller that was the only top 40 hit of her career.

In 1961 Simone recorded the traditional song "The House of the Rising Sun," which would also appear on Bob Dylan's debut a year later and become a hit for the Animals in 1964. In 1965 Simone recorded "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood," also a hit for the Animals, who covered it later that year.

During this period, Simone became a vocal civil rights campaigner, penning the protest song "Mississippi Goddam," written after the 1963 murders of civil rights leader Medgar Evers and four black schoolgirls in an Alabama church bombing. She also wrote "The King of Love Is Dead" as an homage to slain civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and she penned the song that became known as the black national anthem, "To Be Young, Gifted and Black," inspired by Lorraine Hansberry's play of the same name. In between, Simone recorded everything from instrumental piano albums to lightweight pop and interpretations of French ballads.

Simone continued to chart with her interpretations from a variety of genres in the late 1960s, including a medley of "Ain't Got No/I Got Life" from the hippie musical "Hair" and a soulful version of the Bee Gees' "To Love Somebody," which hit the British top 10 in 1969.

Fed up with racism in the United States, Simone led an itinerant life beginning in 1974, living in Liberia, Barbados, Switzerland, France, Trinidad, Belgium and England. She collaborated with Who guitarist Pete Townshend in 1989 on his musical "The Iron Man," and she underwent a brief career revival in 1993 when her five of her songs were used on the soundtrack to the film "Point of No Return." Simone moved to France in 1993 and mounted a world tour in 2001, though her health was beginning to fail at the time.

Renowned for her signature timing, which often employed silence as a musical element, Simone's rich, multifaceted singing inspired everyone from Fiona Apple to India.Arie, who recently recorded "Come Ye" as Simone for the soundtrack to the "American Dreams" television show.

• Nina Simone