Nina Simone

Happy Birthday Nina Simone 1933-2003... Born Eunice Kathleen Waymon in Tryon, North Carolina, Simone showed musical promise when she began learning the piano at age three. She played for her church as a preteen and had her first classical recital in 1945, an event that would also put her on a path toward involvement in the Civil Rights Movement. Her parents sat proudly up front until a white couple arrived and they were asked to move to the back of the auditorium. The 12 year old Simone refused to play until they were reinstated at the front.

After being rejected by the Curtis Institute, Simone move to New York to continue her classical education at Julliard, working at the Midtown Bar and Grill in Atlantic City to pay for her lessons. Singing was required as part of the job and Simone began developing her repertoire of jazz, blues, pop and classical music, gaining a small but devoted following. She began playing in small clubs in New York in 1958 and recorded her only top 40 success in the U.S.that year,"I Loves You Porgy", a song she learned off a Billie Holiday album. Her first album "Little Girl Blue" would follow shortly after.

In 1964 she signed with Dutch Philips which gave her free reign to included songs reflecting her involvement in the Civil Rights Movement. Her recording of "Mississippi Goddamn", done in protest to the church bombing in Birmingham, Alabama and the slaying of Medgar Evers, would signal inclusion of pointed political songs into all of her albums and live performances. She spoke and performed at many civil rights meetings, advocating a violent revolution even though in her autobiography she wrote that she thought all races to be equal.

Simone's singing style and haughty bearing earned her the tile "High Priestess of Soul" but she mellowed in her later years, often engaging with the audience, telling stories from her career and and taking requests. Her early volatile behavior (pulling a gun on more than one person in an argument) was later diagnosed as bi-polar disorder and put under control with medication.

Simone moved to Barbados in 1970 to avoid being arrested for tax evasion (she did not pay to protest the Viet Nam War) and later moved to Europe. As a consequence, American audiences became less familiar with her work even though she recorded frequently through the 80's. That changed in 1987 when there was a resurgence of interest in her music after a Chanel No. 5 commercial in England used her version of "My Baby Just Cares For Me". She was an enormous influence on many pop and jazz artists that came after her, many of them covering her specific renditions of songs. She died at the age of 70 after battling breast cancer for several years.