Nina Simone

Nina Simone is the stage name of Eunice Kathleen Waymon, an American singer, pianist, arranger and civil rights activist from Tryon, North Carolina. Born in 1933 and active until her death in 2003, she is closely associated with jazz, but her work also draws on blues, classical, folk, soul, rhythm and blues, gospel and pop. She is often called the “High Priestess of Soul”.

Early life and musical training

Simone is one of eight children. As a child she sings in her local church and shows unusual ability as a pianist. Her public debut is a piano recital at the age of ten. Her parents are made to move from the front row to the back of the hall so that white audience members can take their seats, an experience that later helps shape her involvement in the civil rights movement. Her mother, Mary Kate Waymon, works as a maid and is a strict Methodist minister; her father, John Divine Waymon, is a handyman and occasional barber. An employer of her mother helps fund piano lessons, and a local fund is later set up to support her education.

At seventeen she moves to Philadelphia, where she teaches piano and accompanies singers. She studies piano at the Juilliard School of Music in New York, but lacks the money to complete her ambition of becoming a classical pianist. She also auditions for the Curtis Institute and is rejected, which she believes is because she is black.

Recording career

She begins performing blues and jazz after starting out at the Midtown Bar & Grill on Pacific Avenue in Atlantic City. She takes the name Nina Simone in 1954; “Nina” comes from her boyfriend’s nickname for her, and “Simone” from the French actress Simone Signoret.

She first draws wide attention in 1959 with her version of George Gershwin’s “I Loves You Porgy”, her only Top 40 hit in the United States. “My Baby Just Cares for Me” follows, and later becomes a major hit again in the United Kingdom in the 1980s after being used in television advertising for Chanel No 5 perfume. Her first Bethlehem Records album appears in 1958, and the same track becomes a major revival hit in 1987.

Her repertoire includes Broadway and standard material such as “Love Me or Leave Me”, “Feeling Good”, “Ne Me Quitte Pas” and “My Baby Just Cares for Me”, alongside interpretations of songs by other writers and artists including Screamin’ Jay Hawkins, The Beatles, Bob Dylan and the Bee Gees. She is also known for “I Put a Spell on You”, “Here Comes the Sun”, “Four Women”, “I Shall Be Released”, “To Love Somebody” and “Ain’t Got No (I Got Life)”. The last of these, from the musical Hair, reaches number two in the UK in 1968, and a Groovefinder remix later enters the UK Top 30 in 2006.

Her live version of “You Can Have Him” on Live at Town Hall is noted for combining theatrical delivery with strong musicianship. Other songs associated with her include “For All We Know”, which reflects her use of European classical stylings and counterpoint in performance.

Style, collaborations and performance

Simone’s music moves between gospel-influenced songs, blues, jazz and material with classical elements. She often plays with folk-like simplicity, and her concerts can range from spiritual songs to blues, jazz and contrapuntal passages. For much of her career she is accompanied by percussionist Leopoldo Flemming and guitarist and musical director Al Shackman.

She also records political songs linked to the civil rights movement, including “To Be Young, Gifted and Black”, “Backlash Blues”, “Mississippi Goddam”, “I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel to Be Free” and her version of Kurt Weill’s “Pirate Jenny”. “Mississippi Goddam” responds to the murder of Medgar Evers and the Birmingham church bombing that kills four Black children. Her 1961 recording of “House of the Rising Sun” is also part of the song’s later performance history, with versions by Dave Van Ronk, Bob Dylan and The Animals following in its wake.

Later life and recognition

In 1971 Simone leaves the United States after disagreements with her agents, record labels and the tax authorities, and says racism is the reason. She later returns in 1978 and is arrested for tax evasion after withholding income tax as a protest against the Vietnam War. She lives in several countries in the Caribbean, Africa and Europe, and continues to perform into her sixties. In the 1980s she performs regularly at Ronnie Scott’s jazz club in London.

She settles near Aix-en-Provence in southern France in 1993 and dies in her sleep at her home in Carry-le-Rouet in 2003, after several years of illness with cancer. She receives a Grammy Hall of Fame Award in 2000 for “I Loves You Porgy” and has fifteen Grammy Award nominations. She also receives honorary degrees in music and humanities from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and Malcolm X College, and prefers to be called “Dr. Nina Simone” after these honours. Shortly before her death, she is awarded an honorary degree by the Curtis Institute. In 1974, more than 10,000 people pay tribute to her on Human Kindness Day in Washington, D.C.