Nina Simone The Essential Nina Simone album cover Background information Birth name Eunice Kathleen Waymon Born February 21, 1933 Origin Tryon, North Carolina, United States Died April 21, 2003; Carry-le-Rouet, Bouches-du-Rhône, France Genre(s) Jazz, R&B, soul Occupation(s) Singer-songwriter, pianist Instrument(s) Singing, piano Years active 1954–2003 Label(s) RCA Records, Philips Records, Bethlehem Records, Colpix Records Website NinaSimone.com 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. Contents 1 Biography 1.1 Youth 1.2 First success 1.3 Civil rights 1.4 Greatest hits 1.5 Later life 2 In the media 3 Quotations 4 Selected discography 5 Bibliography & References 6 External links 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 [1]. She also fired at a record company executive whom she accused of stealing royalties [2]. 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 [3], and preferred to be called "Dr. Nina Simone" after these honors were bestowed upon her [4]. Simone's autobiography, I Put a Spell on You, was published in 1992 [5]. 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 [6]. 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) Bibliography & References ^ Hard Talk interview ^ [1] ^ [2] ^ [3] ^ (with Stephen Cleary) I Put a Spell on You: The Autobiography of Nina Simone (New York: Pantheon, 1991). ISBN 0-679-41068-6 or ISBN 0-306-80525-1 ^ untitled nina simone movie project at IMDB 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 Great American Songbook Songwriters Arlen | Berlin | Carmichael | Coleman | Dietz | Ellington | Fields | G. Gershwin | I. Gershwin | Hammerstein | Hart | Kern | Lerner | Loewe | Loesser | Mandel | Mercer | McHugh | Porter | Rodgers | Schwartz Singers Armstrong | Astaire | Bennett | Brice | Buble | Carter | Como | Crosby | Dearie | Eckstine | Feinstein | Fitzgerald | Garland | Holiday | Horn | Horne | Keel | Kelly | Krall | Lee | McRae | Mitchell | Rogers | Simone | Sinatra | Stewart | Streisand | Tormé | Vaughan | Washington | Williams Search Term: "Nina_Simone" Categories: 1933 births | 2003 deaths | African American musicians | American female singers | American jazz pianists | American jazz singers | American rhythm and blues singers | American soul musicians | Cancer deaths | Greenwich Village scene | Jazz songwriters | North Carolina musicians | People from North Carolina | RCA Records artists

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