Nina Simone | Artist

Eunice Kathleen Waymon aka Nina Simone was an American singer, songwriter, pianist, and civil rights activist born 1933 in Tryon, North Carolina. She was one of the most gifted vocalists of her generation, and one of the most eclectic. Unconfined by boundaries; her work swung between jazz, blues, soul, classical, R&B, pop, gospel, and world music, with passion, emotional honesty, and a strong grasp of technique. As a child, sixth of eight children born into a poor family, Simone aspired to be a concert pianist. Her concert debut, a classical recital, was given when she was 12. During this performance her parents, who had taken seats in the front row, were forced to move to the back to make way for white people but Simone refused to play until they were moved to the front. After graduating High School, Simone attended private lessons at the Juilliard School New York, with the help of a few supporters in her hometown. To make a living she played piano at a nightclub in Atlantic City, changing her name to "Nina Simone" to disguise herself from family members, having chosen to play "the devil's music." By 1958 she was playing small clubs and in that year, she recorded George Gershwin's "I Loves You, Porgy", which she learned from a Billie Holiday album. It became a Billboard top 20 hit in the United States, and her debut album Little Girl Blue followed in February 1959 on Bethlehem records. Because she was convinced to sell her rights outright for $3,000, Simone lost more than $1 million in royalties and never benefited financially from the album's sales. After the success of Little Girl Blue, Simone signed a contract with Columbia and recorded many studio and live albums. After the release of her live album Nina Simone at Town Hall, she became a favourite performer in Greenwich Village. By this time, Simone performed only to make money to continue her classical music studies and was indifferent about having a recording contract. She kept this attitude toward the record industry for most of her career. Between 1959-93 Simone recorded 28 studio albums, 24 live albums, and over 100 Singles. Standouts include Little Girl Blue (1959), Forbidden Fruit (1961), I Put a Spell on You (1965), Pastel Blues (1965), Wild is the Wind (1966), High Priestess of Soul (1967), Nina Simone Sings the Blues (1967), and the live albums Nina Simone at Town Hall (1959), Nina Simone in Concert (1964), and Emergency Ward! (1971). Always stridently outspoken for the causes of black rights, Simone addressed racial inequality in the United States head-on in the song "Mississippi Goddam", which appeared on her debut album for Philips, Nina Simone in Concert. This was her response to the June 12, 1963, murder of Medgar Evers and the September 15, 1963, bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, that killed four young black girls and blinded a fifth. The conservative backlash to the song instilled in Simone the belief that the music industry punished her by boycotting her records. Hurt and disappointed, Simone left the US in September 1970, to spend the remainder of her life in Europe where she was extremely popular, particularly in the UK, France and the Netherlands. Simone was always known for her temper and outbursts of aggression, which late in her career was diagnosed as bipolar disorder. In 1993 she settled near Aix-en-Provence in southern France, and in the same year her final album, A Single Woman was released. She suffered from breast cancer for several years before she died in her sleep at her home on April 21, 2003 at the age of 70. Simone is regarded as one of the most influential recording artists of 20th-century jazz, cabaret and R&B genres. Simone had incredible musical talent and the courage as an established black entertainer to break from the norms of the industry and produce direct social commentary in her music.

Artist Website: ninasimone.com

Featured Albums: Nina Simone

Collections: Women of Note, Music Visionaries