Nina Simone
Born
21 February 1933, Tryon, NC, United States
Died
21 April 2003, Carry-le-Rouet, Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur, France
Notes
Married to Andy Stroud [1961-71]; mother of Lisa Simone
Also Known As
Eunice Kathleen Waymon
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pmtpimp1969
"No other artist has been as difficult to place as Nina Simone. I have no idea where to file her in my music collection: should it be blues, jazz, soul or gospel? In every genre she attempts, she excels and makes it her own. Her versatility is unlike any other singer of her time, in that she could sing a Bob Dylan song directly followed by an Irving Berlin song. Her voice is a delicate, broken and aged enigma. Nina Simone beautifully defined Black Pride during the Civil Rights Movement and managed to unify and empower audiences through her music."
RYM Rough Guide for Nina Simone
Biography
Born Eunice Waymon, she was the sixth of eight children growing up in a poor family in small-town North Carolina. Her musical talent was noticed at an early age, and funds were raised through public subscription to pay for piano lessons. In 1950, she attended the Julliard School of Music in New York in order to pursue her ambition of becoming a classical concert pianist. Having studied for so many years, her failure to be accepted for a scholarship at the prestigious Curtis Institute (very likley because of racial bias) left her devastated.
She turned to performing popular music in 1954 as a way of supplementing a meager income from teaching piano, adopting the stage name Nina Simone to avoid her religious mother discovering that she was playing secular music. Having been told to sing in addition to playing piano in order to keep her job at a small bar in Atlantic City, she built a steady local following with her striking vocal performances and eclectic shows, which lead to her being signed to the Bethlehem Records label.
After her cover of George Gershwin's "I Loves You, Porgy" became a minor hit in the late 1950s, she began an endless round of touring and releasing records during the 1960s. During this time she became increasingly drawn into the civil rights movement and, following the failure of her marriage to her partner-manager, Andy Stroud, she became an active campaigner. Her political awareness became increasingly reflected in her music, and songs such as "Mississippi Goddam" and "To Be Young, Gifted and Black" were anthems for the civil rights movement.
Having become increasingly bitter and frustrated by both the political climate and her various record companies, and with taxation problems looming, she decided to leave the United States. She moved with her daughter to Barbados in 1974, the first of many subsequent moves which would take her to Africa and eventually to Europe. The move signaled the end of the most prolific phase of her career, as subsequent concerts and releases became increasingly sporadic.
Although significant commercial success had always eluded her, compounded by having signed away most of her rights to the Bethlehem label at the start of her career, the use of the song "My Baby Just Cares For Me" on a television ad in 1987 sparked a minor revival. Her autobiography was published in 1992. She died at her home in France in 2003.
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