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Eunice Kathleen Waymon, better known as Nina Simone (February 21, 1933
– April 21, 2003), was an American singer, songwriter, pianist and
activist. She generally is classified as a jazz musician, although she
disliked that categorization herself; and her work also has been
described as covering the blues, rhythm and blues, classical, and soul.
Her vocal style is characterized by passion, breathiness, and tremolo.
Biography
Youth
Simone was born Eunice Kathleen Waymon in Tryon, North Carolina, one of
eight children. Like a number of other African-American singers, she
was inspired as a child by Marian Anderson and began singing at her
local church, also showing prodigious talent as a pianist. Her public
debut, a piano recital, was made at the age of ten. Her parents, who
had taken seats in the front row, were forced to move to the back of
the hall to make way for some white people. This incident contributed
to her later involvement in the civil rights movement.
Simone's mother, Mary Kate Waymon (who lived into her late 90s) was a
strict Methodist minister; her father, John Divine Waymon, was a
handyman and sometime barber who suffered bouts of ill-health. Mrs.
Waymon worked as a maid and her employer, hearing of Nina's talent,
provided funds for piano lessons for the little girl. Subsequently, a
local fund was set up to assist in Eunice's continued education.
At seventeen, Simone moved to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where she
taught piano and accompanied singers. She was able to begin studying
piano at New York City's prestigious Juilliard School of Music but lack
of funds meant that she was unable to fulfill her dream of becoming
America's first black classical pianist. She later had an interview to
study piano at the Curtis Institute, but was rejected. Simone believed
this rejection, which fueled her hatred of racism, was because she was
black.
First success
Simone turned instead to blues and jazz after getting her start at the
Midtown Bar & Grill on Pacific Avenue in Atlantic City, taking the
name Nina Simone in 1954; "Nina" was her boyfriend's nickname for her,
and "Simone" was after the French actress Simone Signoret. She first
came to public notice in 1959 with her wrenching rendition of George
Gershwin's "I Loves You Porgy" (from Porgy and Bess), her only Top 40
hit in the United States. This was soon followed by the single "My Baby
Just Cares for Me" (this was also a hit in the 1980s in the United
Kingdom when used for television advertisements for Chanel No. 5
perfume).
Civil rights
Throughout the 1960s, Simone was involved in the civil rights movement
and recorded a number of political songs, including "To Be Young,
Gifted and Black" (later covered by Aretha Franklin and Donny
Hathaway), "Backlash Blues," "Mississippi Goddam" (a response to the
murder of Medgar Evers and the bombing of a church in Birmingham,
Alabama killing four black children), "I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel
to Be Free," and Kurt Weill's "Pirate Jenny," from The Threepenny
Opera, re-cast in a southern town.
Greatest hits
In 1961, Simone recorded a version of the traditional song "House of
the Rising Sun", which was then covered by folk-blues artist, Dave Van
Ronk, and later recorded by Bob Dylan, where it was picked up by The
Animals and became their signature hit. Other songs she is famous for
include "I Put a Spell on You" (originally by Screamin' Jay Hawkins),
The Beatles' "Here Comes the Sun", "Four Women", Bob Dylan's "I Shall
Be Released", The Bee Gees' "To Love Somebody", and "Ain't Got No (I
Got Life)." The latter, from the musical Hair, was her debut in the UK
charts, reaching No. 2 in 1968, and a remixed version of the recording
by Groovefinder was a UK Top 30 hit in 2006.
Broadway musicals also supplied several hits for Simone: "My Baby Just
Cares for Me", "Love Me or Leave Me", "Feeling Good" and "Ne Me Quitte
Pas". Also "You Can Have Him" on the LP Live at Town Hall recorded when
she was 26 years old; at the end of this operatic performance, which
displays her great skill as an actress as well as a musician, she
whoops with joy. This single recording encapsulates her extraordinary
power, wit, flexibility, sensuality and occasional menace.
In 1987, Nina experienced a resurgence in popularity when "My Baby Just
Cares for Me", a track from her first Bethlehem Records album (1958)
became a huge hit in the UK and elsewhere. Nina's versatility as an
artist was evident in all her music, which often had a folk-music
simplicity.
In a single concert, she moved easily from gospel-inspired tunes to
blues and jazz and, in numbers like "For All We Know," to numbers
infused with European classical stylings, and counterpoint fugues.
Throughout most of her career she was accompanied by percussionist
Leopoldo Flemming and guitarist and musical director Al Shackman.
Later life
In 1971, Simone left the United States following disagreements with her
agents, record labels, and the tax authorities, citing racism as the
reason. She returned in 1978 and was arrested for tax evasion (she had
withheld several years of income tax as a protest against the Vietnam
War). She lived in various countries in the Caribbean, Africa, and
Europe, continuing to perform into her 60s. In the 1980s, she performed
regularly at Ronnie Scott's jazz club in London. In 1995, Simone
reportedly shot and wounded her neighbour's son with a pneumatic pistol
after his laughing disturbed her concentration. She also fired at a
record company executive whom she accused of stealing royalties.
She had a reputation in the music industry for being volatile and
sometimes difficult to deal with, a characterization with which Simone
strenuously took issue. Though her onstage style could be somewhat
haughty and aloof, in later years, Simone particularly seemed to enjoy
engaging her adoring audiences by recounting sometimes humorous
anecdotes related to her career and music and soliciting requests.
Simone's regal bearing and commanding stage presence earned her the
title the "High Priestess of Soul".
She received two honorary degrees in music and humanities from the
University of Massachusetts and Malcolm X University in Chicago, and
preferred to be called "Dr. Nina Simone" after these honors were
bestowed upon her.
Simone's autobiography, I Put a Spell on You, was published in 1992. In
1993, she settled near Aix-en-Provence in the south of France. She had
been ill with cancer for several years before she died in 2003, aged
70, in her sleep at her home in Carry-le-Rouet. She left behind
daughter Lisa Stroud, an actress/singer who took the stagename Simone.
She has appeared on Broadway in Aida.
In the media
Nina Simone's music has featured in soundtracks of various motion
pictures. Her music is frequently used in remixes, commercials and tv
series. A lot of artists have covered Nina Simone's songs (or even her
rendition of songs originally sung by other artists).
Soundtracks on which her songs feature are for example those for the
movies Point of No Return (1993), The Thomas Crown Affair (1999), The
Bourne Identity (2002), The Big Lebowski (1998, featured a cover of
Duke Ellington's "I Got It Bad And That Ain't Good"), Billy's Hollywood
Screen Kiss (1998, featured "Love Me Or Leave Me") Shallow Grave
(1994), Cellular (2004) and Before Sunset (2004). Various songs
featured in the film Point Of No Return (1993), a remake of La Femme
Nikita (1990) by Luc Besson. The main character, played by Bridget
Fonda, listens to Nina Simone on headphones during a drug-crazed
robbery and asks for her albums while imprisoned. Songs that featured
on the soundtrack: "Here Comes The Sun", "I Want A Little Sugar In My
Bowl", "Feeling Good", "Wild Is the Wind", "Black Is The Color Of My
True Love's Hair".
"Feeling Good" (from the 1965 album I Put A Spell On You) was used in a
Sky Movies advertisement, a 24 promotional advertisement, and in the
drama series Six Feet Under (a promo for the 4th season). Several cover
versions were made, most notably by British rock band Muse and Michael
Bublé. It was sampled in a song by Mary J Blige on her album The
Breakthrough (2006). "Aint' Got No...I Got Life" (from the 1968 album
Nuff Said) has been used in a television advertising campaign in the
United Kingdom for Müller Dairy and returned to the UK Top 40 in a
remixed version by Groovefinder. "Sinnerman" (from the 1966 album
Pastel Blues) featured in the films The Thomas Crown Affair (1999), and
Cellular (2004), an episode of the tv series Scrubs and on the
soundtrack for the videogame Marc Ecko's Getting Up: Contents Under
Pressure. Hip-hop producer Kanye West sampled "Sinnerman" for the Talib
Kweli single "Get By". Recently, a remixed version by Felix da Housecat
was used in the soundtrack of the film Miami Vice (2006). It was also
covered by 16 Horsepower.
The documentary Nina Simone: La Legende was made in the 90's by french
filmakers. It was based on her autobiography I Put A Spell On You and
features live footage from different periods of Nina's career,
interviews with friends and family, various interviews with Nina
herself while she was living in the Netherlands, and on a trip to her
birthplace.
Plans for a Nina Simone biographical picture were released at the end
of 2005. The movie will be based on Nina Simone's autobiography I Put A
Spell On You (1992) and will also focus on her relationship in later
life with her assistant Clifton Henderson. Tv-writer Cynthia Mort (Will
& Grace, Roseanne) is working on the script, and singer Mary J
Blige will take on the lead role. The movie is scheduled for 2007.
In their song "God Bless Our Dead Marines," Canadian band A Silver Mt.
Zion sang, "who among us will avenge Ms. Nina Simone?"
Quotations
"Jazz is a white term used to define Black people. My music is Black
classical music."
"You can see colors through music... Anything human can be felt through
music, which means there is no limit to the creating that can be
done... it's infinite. It's like God... you know?"
Selected discography
Bethlehem Recordings
Jazz As Played In An Exclusive Side Street Club/Little Girl Blue
(Bethlehem, 1958)
Nina Simone And Her Friends (Bethlehem, 1959)
Colpix Recordings
The Amazing Nina Simone (1959)
Nina Simone At Town Hall (1959)
Nina Simone At Newport (1960)
Forbidden Fruit (1960)
Nina At The Village Gate (1962)
Nina Simone Sings Ellington (1962)
Nina’s Choice (1963)
Nina Simone At Carnegie Hall (1963)
Folksy Nina (1964)
Nina Simone With Strings (1966)
Philips Recordings
Nina Simone In Concert (1964)
Broadway-Blues-Ballads (1964)
I Put A Spell On You (1965)
Pastel Blues (1966)
Let It All Out (1966)
Wild Is The Wind (1966)
High Priestess Of Soul (1967)
RCAvictor Recordings
Nina Simone Sings The Blues (1967)
Silk & Soul (1967)
Nuff Said (1968)
Nina Simone And Piano (1969)
To Love Somebody (1969)
Black Gold (1970)
Here Comes The Sun (1971)
Emergency Ward (1972)
It Is Finished (1974)
Other Recordings
Baltimore (CTI, 1978)
Fodder On My Wings (Carrere, 1982)
Nina’s Back (VPI, 1985)
Live & Kickin (VPI, 1985)
Let It Be Me (Verve, 1987)
Live At Ronnie Scott's (Hendring-Wadham,1987)
A Single Woman (Elektra, 1993)
A Very Rare Evening (1969)
The Very Best of Nina Simone (2006)
External links
Nina Simone - Official
Site
An
obituary by an Irish socialist, "JUST GIVE ME MY EQUALITY" Gary
Mulcahy: Written for Socialist View, No. 11, Summer 2003
L'hommage: Nina
Simone - Tribute and Archival Site
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