Coordinates | 45°30′″N73°40′″N |
---|---|
name | Nina Simone |
background | solo_singer |
birth name | Eunice Kathleen Waymon |
born | February 21, 1933Tryon, North Carolina, United States |
died | April 21, 2003Carry-le-Rouet, Bouches-du-Rhône, France |
genre | Jazz, blues, R&B;, folk, gospel |
occupation | Singer, songwriter, pianist, arranger, activist |
years active | 1954–2003 |
label | Bethlehem, Colpix, Philips, RCA Victor, CTI, Legacy Recordings |
website | http://www.ninasimone.com/ }} |
Born the sixth child of a preacher's family in North Carolina, Simone aspired to be a concert pianist as a child. Her musical path changed direction after she was denied a scholarship to the prestigious Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, despite a well-received audition. Simone was later told by someone working at Curtis that she was rejected because she was black. She then began playing in a small club in Philadelphia to fund her continuing musical education to become a classical pianist and was required to sing as well. She was approached for a recording by Bethlehem Records, and her rendition of "I Loves You Porgy" became a smash hit in the United States in 1958. and accompanied with her expressive jazz-like singing in her characteristic low tenor. She injected as much of her classical background into her music as possible to give it more depth and quality, as she felt that pop music was inferior to classical. Her intuitive grasp on the audience-performer relationship was gained from a unique background of playing piano accompaniment for church revivals and sermons regularly from the early age of six years.
After 20 years of performing, she became involved in the civil rights movement and the direction of her life shifted once again.
Simone's mother, Mary Kate Waymon, was a strict Methodist minister and a housemaid. Simone's father, John Divine Waymon, was a handyman who at one time owned a dry cleaning business, but who also suffered bouts of ill health. Mary Kate's employer, hearing of her daughter's talent, provided funds for piano lessons. Subsequently, a local fund was set up to assist in Simone's continued education. With the assistance of this scholarship money she attended high school.
After finishing high school, she had studied for an interview with the help of a private tutor to study piano further at the Curtis Institute, but she was rejected. Simone believed that this rejection was related directly to her race. Simone then moved to New York City, where she studied at the Juilliard School of Music.
In 1958, she befriended and married Don Ross, a beatnik who worked as a fairground barker, but quickly regretted their marriage. After playing in small clubs, in 1958 she recorded a rendition of George Gershwin's "I Loves You Porgy" (from ''Porgy and Bess''), which she learned from a Billie Holiday album and performed as a favor to a friend. It became her only ''Billboard'' top 40 success in the United States, and her debut album ''Little Girl Blue'' soon followed on Bethlehem Records. Simone missed out on more than $1 million in royalties (mainly because of the successful re-release of ''My Baby Just Cares for Me'' during the 1980s) and never benefited financially from the album, because she had sold her rights to it for $3,000.
Simone married a New York police detective, Andrew Stroud, in 1961; Stroud later became her manager.
From then on, a civil rights message was standard in Simone's recording repertoire, becoming a part of her live performances. Simone performed and spoke at many civil rights meetings, such as at the Selma to Montgomery marches. Simone advocated violent revolution during the civil rights period, rather than Martin Luther King's non-violent approach, and she hoped that African Americans could, by armed combat, form a separate state. Nevertheless, she wrote in her autobiography that she and her family regarded all races as equal.
She covered Billie Holiday's "Strange Fruit", a song about the lynching of black men in the South, on ''Pastel Blues'' (1965). She also sang the W. Cuney poem "Images" on ''Let It All Out'' (1966), about the absence of pride she saw among African-American women. Simone wrote "Four Women", a song about four different stereotypes of African-American women, and included the recording on her 1966 album ''Wild Is the Wind''.
Simone moved from Philips to RCA Victor during 1967. She sang "Backlash Blues", written by her friend Langston Hughes on her first RCA album, ''Nina Simone Sings The Blues'' (1967). On ''Silk & Soul'' (1967), she recorded Billy Taylor's "I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel to Be Free" and "Turning Point". The album ''Nuff Said'' (1968) contains live recordings from the Westbury Music Fair, April 7, 1968, three days after the murder of Martin Luther King, Jr. She dedicated the whole performance to him and sang "Why? (The King Of Love Is Dead)", a song written by her bass player, Gene Taylor, directly after the news of King's death had reached them. In the summer of 1969 she performed at the Harlem Cultural Festival in Harlem's Mount Morris Park.
Together with Weldon Irvine, Simone turned the late Lorraine Hansberry's unfinished play ''To Be Young, Gifted, and Black'' into a civil rights song. Hansberry had been a personal friend whom Simone credited with cultivating her social and political consciousness. She performed the song live on the album ''Black Gold'' (1970). A studio recording was released as a single, and renditions of the song have been recorded by Aretha Franklin (on her 1972 album ''Young, Gifted and Black'') and by Donny Hathaway.
When Simone returned to the United States she learned that a warrant had been issued for her arrest for unpaid taxes (as a protest against her country's involvement with the Vietnam War), causing her to return to Barbados again to evade the authorities and prosecution. Simone stayed in Barbados for quite some time and she had a lengthy affair with the Prime Minister, Errol Barrow. A close friend, singer Miriam Makeba, then persuaded her to go to Liberia. After that she lived in Switzerland and the Netherlands, before settling in France during 1992.
She recorded her last album for RCA, ''It Is Finished'', during 1974. Simone did not make another record until 1978, when she was persuaded to go into the recording studio by CTI Records owner Creed Taylor. The result was the album ''Baltimore'', which, while not a commercial success, did get good reviews and marked a quiet artistic renaissance in Simone's recording output. Her choice of material retained its eclecticism, ranging from spiritual songs to Hall & Oates' "Rich Girl". Four years later Simone recorded ''Fodder On My Wings'' on a French label. During the 1980s Simone performed regularly at Ronnie Scott's jazz club in London, where she recorded the album ''Live at Ronnie Scott's'' in 1984. Although her early on-stage style could be somewhat haughty and aloof, in later years, Simone particularly seemed to enjoy engaging her audiences sometimes by recounting humorous anecdotes related to her career and music and by soliciting requests. In 1987, the original 1958 recording of "My Baby Just Cares For Me" was used in a commercial for Chanel No. 5 perfume in the United Kingdom. This led to a re-release of the recording, which stormed to number 4 on the UK's ''NME'' singles chart, giving her a brief surge in popularity in the UK. Her autobiography, ''I Put a Spell on You'', was published in 1992. She recorded her last album, ''A Single Woman'', in 1993.
In 1993, Simone settled near Aix-en-Provence in Southern France. She had suffered from breast cancer for several years before she died in her sleep at her home in Carry-le-Rouet, Bouches-du-Rhône on April 21, 2003. (In addition, Simone received a diagnosis of bipolar disorder in the late 1980s). Her funeral service was attended by singers Miriam Makeba and Patti Labelle, poet Sonia Sanchez, actor Ossie Davis, and hundreds of others. Elton John sent a floral tribute with the message "You were the greatest and I love you". Simone's ashes were scattered in several African countries. She left behind a daughter, Lisa Celeste Stroud, an actress and singer, who took the stage name Simone, and has appeared on Broadway in ''Aida''.
Simone's years at RCA-Victor spawned a number of singles and album songs that were popular, particularly in Europe. In 1968, it was "Ain't Got No, I Got Life", a medley from the musical ''Hair'' from the album '''Nuff Said!'' (1968) that became a surprise hit for Simone, reaching number 4 on the UK pop charts and introducing her to a younger audience. In 2006, it returned to the UK Top 30 in a remixed version by Groovefinder. The following single, the Bee Gees' rendition of "To Love Somebody" also reached the UK top 10 in 1969. "House of the Rising Sun" was featured on ''Nina Simone Sings The Blues'' in 1967, but Simone had recorded the song in 1961 and it was featured on ''Nina At The Village Gate'' (1962), predating the versions by Dave Van Ronk and Bob Dylan. It was later covered by The Animals, for whom it became a signature hit.
Simone had a reputation in the music industry for her volatility. In 1995, she shot and wounded her neighbor's son with a pneumatic pistol after his laughter disturbed her concentration. She also fired a gun at a record company executive whom she accused of stealing royalties. According to a biographer, Simone took medication for a condition from the mid-1960s on. All this was only known to a small group of intimates, and kept out of public view for many years, until the biography ''Break Down And Let It All Out'' written by Sylvia Hampton and David Nathan revealed this in 2004 after her death.
Her filmed 1976 performance at the Montreux Jazz Festival is available on video courtesy of Eagle Rock Entertainment, and it is screened annually in New York City at an event called, "The Rise and Fall of Nina Simone: Montreux, 1976,", which is curated by Tom Blunt.
Plans for a Nina Simone biographical film were released at the end of 2005, to be based on Simone's autobiography ''I Put A Spell On You'' (1992) and to focus on her relationship in later life with her assistant, Clifton Henderson, who died in 2006. TV writer Cynthia Mort (''Will & Grace'', ''Roseanne'') is working on the script, and singer Mary J. Blige will play the lead role. Release of the movie is scheduled for 2012.
Her music was used in the S4C show, "Alys", in 2010.
A song sung by Nina Simone on her 1970 live album, ''Black Gold'', is used in the film ''The Dancer Upstairs''.
In the film ''Point of No Return'', the protagonist choses "Nina" as her codename in honor of Simone, her mother's favorite musical artist as well as her own. Simone's music features prominently in the film.
! Year | ! Album | ! Type | ! Label | ! Billboard |
1958 | Studio | |||
'' Nina Simone and Her Friends '' | Studio | |||
'' The Amazing Nina Simone '' | Studio | |||
'' Nina Simone at Town Hall '' | Live and studio | |||
'' Nina Simone at Newport '' | Live | |||
Studio | ||||
'' Nina at the Village Gate '' | Live | |||
'' Nina Simone Sings Ellington '' | Live | |||
'' Nina's Choice '' | Compilation | |||
'' Nina Simone at Carnegie Hall '' | Live | |||
'' Folksy Nina '' | Live | |||
'' Nina Simone in Concert '' | Live | |||
'' Broadway-Blues-Ballads '' | Studio | |||
Studio | ||||
'' Pastel Blues '' | Studio | |||
'' Nina Simone with Strings '' | Studio (strings added) | Colpix | ||
'' Let It All Out '' | Live and studio | |||
Studio | ||||
'' High Priestess of Soul '' | Studio | |||
'' Nina Simone Sings the Blues '' | Studio | |||
'' Silk & Soul '' | Studio | |||
1968 | '' Nuff Said '' | Live and studio | ||
'' Nina Simone and Piano '' | Studio | |||
Studio | ||||
''A Very Rare Evening'' | Live | PM Records | ||
1970 | Live | RCA Records | ||
Studio | RCA Records | |||
''Gifted & Black'' | Studio | Canyon Records | ||
1972 | Live and studio | RCA Records | ||
''Live at Berkeley'' | Live | Stroud | ||
''Gospel According to Nina Simone'' | Live | Stroud | ||
'' It Is Finished '' | Live | RCA Records | ||
''Sings Billie Holiday'' | Live | Stroud | ||
1978 | Studio | CTI Records | ||
1980 | '' The Rising Sun Collection '' | Live | Enja | |
1982 | '' Fodder on My Wings '' | Studio | ||
1984 | '' Backlash '' | Live | StarJazz | |
1985 | '' Nina's Back '' | Studio | ||
1985 | '' Live & Kickin '' | Live | ||
'' Let It Be Me '' | Live | |||
Live | Hendring-Wadham | |||
'' The Nina Simone Collection '' | Compilation | Deja Vu | ||
1993 | ''A Single Woman'' | Studio | Elektra Records | |
Additional releases | ||||
1975 | ''The Great Show Live in Paris'' | Live | RCA? | |
1997 | ''Released'' | Compilation | RCA Victor Europe | |
''Gold'' | Studio remastered | Universal/UCJ | ||
''Anthology'' | Compilation (from many labels) | RCA/BMG Heritage | ||
2004 | ''Nina Simone's Finest Hour'' | Compilation | Verve/Universal | |
''The Soul of Nina Simone'' | Compilation + DVD | RCA DualDisc | ||
''Nina Simone Live at Montreux 1976'' | DVD only | Eagle Eye Media | ||
''The Very Best of Nina Simone'' | Compilation | Sony BMG | ||
Remix | Legacy/SBMG | 5 (contemp.jazz) | ||
''Songs to Sing: the Best of Nina Simone'' | Compilation/Live Compilation | Deluxe | ||
''Forever Young, Gifted, & Black: Songs of Freedom and Spirit'' | Remix | RCA | ||
2008 | ''To Be Free: The Nina Simone Story'' | Compilation | Sony Legacy | |
2009 | ''The Definitive Rarities Collection - 50 Classic Cuts'' | Compilation | Artwork Media | |
? | ''Nina Simone Live'' | DVD only: Studio 1961 & '62 | Kultur/Creative Arts Television |
Category:1933 births Category:2003 deaths Category:American Methodists Category:African American female activists Category:African American female singer-songwriters Category:African Americans' rights activists Category:American expatriates in France Category:American jazz pianists Category:American jazz singers Category:American rhythm and blues singer-songwriters Category:American soul musicians Category:Cancer deaths in France Category:Charly Records artists Category:Deaths from breast cancer Category:Jazz songwriters Category:Juilliard School alumni Category:Musicians from North Carolina Category:People from Polk County, North Carolina Category:People from Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur Category:People with bipolar disorder Category:Soul-jazz musicians Category:Torch singers Category:Women in jazz
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