Nina Simone

Eunice Kathleen Waymon, was better known by her stage name Nina Simone (February 21, 1933 – April 21, 2003), was a fifteen-time Grammy Award-nominated American singer, songwriter, pianist, arranger and prominate civil rights activist. Although she disliked being categorized, she is generally classified as a jazz musician.

Raised in a family of eight children in Tryon, North Carolina, she originally harbored hopes of becoming a classical pianist, studying at New York's prestigious Juilliard School of Music — a rare position for an African-American woman in the 1950s. Needing to support herself while she studied, she generated income by working as an accompanist and giving piano lessons. Auditioning for a job as a pianist in an Atlantic City nightclub, she was told she had the spot if she would sing as well as play. Almost by accident, she began to carve a reputation as a singer of secular material, though her skills at the piano would serve her well throughout her career.

Her work covers an eclectic variety of musical styles besides her classical basis, such as jazz, soul, folk, R&B, gospel, and pop music. Her vocal style is characterized by intense passion, a loose vibrato, and a slightly androgynous timbre, in part due to her unusually low vocal range which veered between the alto and tenor ranges (occasionally even reaching baritone lows). Sometimes known as the High Priestess of Soul, she paid great attention to the musical expression of emotions. Within one album or concert she could fluctuate between exuberant happiness or tragic melancholy. These fluctuations also characterized her own personality and personal life, worsened by a bipolar disorder with which she was diagnosed in the mid-1960s, but was kept secret until 2004.

She recorded over 40 live and studio albums, the biggest body of her work being released between 1958 (when she made her debut with Little Girl Blue) and 1974. Songs she is best known for include "My Baby Just Cares for Me", "I Put a Spell on You", "I Loves You Porgy", "Feeling Good", "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood", "Sinnerman", "To Be Young, Gifted and Black", "Strange Fruit", "Ain't Got No/I Got Life" and "I Want a Little Sugar in My Bowl". Her music and message made a strong and lasting impact on African-American culture, illustrated by the numerous contemporary artists who cite her as an important influence (among them Mary J. Blige, Alicia Keys, Jeff Buckley, and Lauryn Hill), as well as the extensive use of her music on soundtracks and in remixes.

She left the U. S. in September 1970. She flew to Barbados, expecting her husband and manager, Andrew Stroud, to contact her when she had to perform again. However, Stroud interpreted her sudden disappearance (and the fact that she left behind her wedding ring) as a cue for a divorce. As her manager, Stroud was also in charge of Simone's income. This meant that after their separation she had no knowledge about how her business was run, and what she was actually worth. Upon returning to America she also learned that she was wanted for unpaid taxes, causing her to go back to Barbados again to evade the authorities and prosecution. She stayed in Barbados for quite some time, and had a lengthy affair with the Prime Minister, Errol Barrow. A close friend, singer Miriam Makeba, convinced her to come to Liberia. After that she lived in Switzerland and the Netherlands, before settling in France in 1992.

Though her on-stage style could be somewhat haughty and aloof, in later years, she particularly seemed to enjoy engaging her audiences by recounting sometimes humorous anecdotes related to her career and music and soliciting requests. Her autobiography, I Put a Spell on You, was published in 1992 and she recorded her last album, A Single Woman in 1993. That same year she settled near Aix-en-Provence in Southern France. She had been ill with 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, aged 70. Her funeral service was attended by singers Miriam Makeba and Patti Labelle, poet Sonia Sanchez, actor Ossie Davis and hundreds of others. Her ashes were scattered in several African countries. She left behind a daughter, Lisa Celeste, now an actress/singer who took on the stagename Simone who has appeared on Broadway in Aida. Find out more about her music and her life at: http://ninasimone.com/

Research info gathered at: www.wikipedia.org


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