Nina Simone

Eunice Kathleen Waymon, better known as Nina Simone (February 21, 1933 – April 21, 2003), was an American singer, songwriter and pianist. She generally is classified as a jazz musician, although she disliked that categorisation 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 at 30 East Livingston Street 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 & 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. (It is interesting to note that many of those who contibuted to 'The Eunice Waymon Fund' were white.)

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 African-American concert pianist. She later had an interview to study piano at the Curtis Institute, but was rejected. Simone believed it 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 (from the Spanish for "little girl"), 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 Grooverider was a UK Top 30 hit in 2006.

Nina recorded four hits from the musical, Makin' Whoopee; "My Baby Just Cares for Me","Love Me or Leave Me","Feeling Good" and "Ne Me Quitte Pas" while working with the Colpix label. When searching these songs are difficult to find, and upon much study, finding that they stem from the Broadway Play and Musical gives an explanation as to why the tunes could not be found here in the United States, until recorded on Movies in soundtracks of the late eighties and early nineties Her Colpix years are most desirable for understanding her musical genius.

In 1987 Nina experienced a resurgence in popularity when "My Baby Just Cares for Me," a track from her first Bethlehem Records album (originally released in 1958) became a huge hit in the UK and elsewhere. Nina's versatility as an artist was evident throughout 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. Simone's "Sinnerman" was featured in the films The Thomas Crown Affair, and Cellular, as well as on the soundtrack for the video game " Contents Under Pressure". 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 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 (see^*).

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 Chicagohttp://www.inthesetimes.com/site/main/article/70/, and preferred to be called "Dr. Nina Simone" after these honors were bestowed upon her. www.williams.edu/alumni/alumnireview/fall04/Signature.pdf

Her daughter, an actress/singer known only as Simone, has appeared on Broadway in Aida.

Simone's autobiography I Put a Spell on You (ISBN 0306805251) 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.

Her music continues to be featured in motion picture soundtracks, including the 1993 film Point of No Return (aka The Assassin), The Thomas Crown Affair, 2002's The Bourne Identity, and 2004's Cellular. It also featured in an episode of the sitcom, Scrubs. Also, a stunning cover of Duke Ellington's "I Got It Bad And That Ain't Good" is featured in 1998's The Big Lebowski. Her music is also used in Shallow Grave and at the end of Before Sunset. Also, the song "Feeling Good" was recently used in a Sky Movies advert and a 24 promo, whilst the song "Aint' Got No...I Got Life" was used in a Müller Light advert and returned to the UK Top 40 in a remixed version by Groovefinder, "Feeling Good" was also covered by british rock band Muse.

Quotation

"Jazz is a white term used to define Black people. My music is Black classical music."

Selected discography

Bibliography

(with Stephen Cleary) I Put a Spell on You: The Autobiography of Nina Simone (New York: Pantheon, 1991). ISBN 0679410686
Feldstein, Ruth. "'I Don't Trust You Anymore': Nina Simone, Culture, and Black Activism in the 1960s", Journal of American History, Vol. 91, No. 4, March 2005.

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
Obituary from the BBC
Mark Anthony Neal's Nina Simone: She Cast a Spell and Made a Choice- Article
The Nina Simone Web - A comprehensive Nina Simone website
Nina Simone at The Music Box - A collection of reviews
Nina Simone eCommerce - Exclusive online content from Nina Simone's ex-husband and manager

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