‘Say love me or leave me, let me be lonely, you wont believe me, but I love you only…’
I guess, like most of my generation, I discovered Nina Simone through the resurgence of interest in classic 1950s/60s jazz around the early / mid 1980s.
She was a name I knew, mainly through seeing her albums in jazz emporiums, and it was obvious here was someone who needed investigating further and off I went. What I found was not only a vast body of work – she recorded something in the region of over 40 albums in a decade or so – and a highly talented musician and singer who was also an outspoken civil rights activists who didn’t and wouldn’t suffer fools gladly. She made it clear, you needed to be on your game if you dared to take on Ms. Simone.
She was born Eunice Waymon in North Carolina in 1933. From a large family, she took up the piano aged just 3. She was a natural, a child prodigy with perfect pitch. Mother Mary was a Methodist minster and Father John, a preacher, so church loomed large in her early life and she played in her local church from very early on.
She gave her first classical recital aged 12. Mother Mary had already stated very early that she wanted Eunice to be the world’s greatest classical pianist, and the first black one. Her parents, there to support their daughter on her big night, had sat in the front row of the auditorium. She watched as they were then forced to sit at the back to accommodate white concertgoers.
Young Eunice, in an early example of activity in the burgeoning civil rights struggle then engulfing the US, refused to play until her parents were moved back to the front.
Her school music teacher, recognising the remarkable talent she had on her hands, set up a special fund to help pay for Eunice’s studies and further musical education. She also instilled in Eunice a life long love life long love of Johan Sebastian Bach, Chopin and Brahms.
After graduation from high school, she enrolled in the prestigious Julliard School of Music in New York; with the aim to then go onto gain a scholarship at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia.
However, she was denied a place, despite an excellent audition. It was a decision Eunice was convinced was made due to prejudice, pure and simple. She had now no option, but to take private piano lessons to further her study.
To fund that, she became Nina Simone. The name change was as much as to throw her family off the scent of her now playing ‘music of the day’ instead of church or classical in local cocktail bars. There she sang as well as played piano to pick up extra money and this led to her career as a vocalist. She had soon picked up a loyal fan base as her career began to take off in 1959 and into the 1960s.
Her first recording was that of ‘I Loves You Porgy’ from the musical ‘Porgy and Bess.‘ It went on to become her one and only top 20 hit in the Billboard charts.
She would go on to record prolifically, but always maintained any money earned was only there for her to continue her classical music studies.
With her debut album on the Philips label entitled ‘Nina Simone in Concert’ she sang the song ‘Mississippi Goddam’, signalling that she would no longer hold back her political views on recordings, determined to commit them to vinyl.
The song itself was a direct response to the murder of Medger Evans, himself also a civil right activists and the killing of four young black girls in a bomb attack on a Baptist church in Alabama
‘The song came to me in a rush of fury, hatred and determination’ she would later say.
Simone would go on to speak at many civil rights rallies and protests, including Selma. Her views were more in line of that of Malcolm X and ‘by any means necessary’ rather than the more ‘non violent’ stance of Martin Luther King.
She would later admit that her political standpoint had hurt her career in general, especially in the US. Overseas, she was still in demand.
‘The High priestess of Soul’ as she was often described was a familiar face at concerts all over Europe, especially at Ronnie Scott’s on London’s Frith Street. She appeared there many times over many years. She had a reputation of being somewhat of a diva, though she was still immensely popular when playing there.
In 1987 as a result of the use on an advert for Chanel, her 1959 song ‘My Baby Just Cares For Me’ hit number 4 in the UK charts.
Like many artists signed in the 50s and early 60s, she suffered from royalty problems, though Nina had her own unique way of dealing with that. On one occasion, she fired a gun at a record executive she accused of stealing from her. She missed, fortunately for both of them.
Even as I write this, it is proving hard to select songs from that vast canon of work, but allow me to highlight some my of own personal favourites that you’ll possibly know, or be keen to explore further.
Nina moved effortlessly from classical to gospel, to jazz to the blues and so in no particular, I give you ‘I Put a Spell on You’ Aint Got No, I Got Life’ ‘I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel to be Free’ (thanks to you Barry Norman for the heads up on that one) ‘To Be Young Gifted and Black’ ‘Feeling Good’ and ‘Here Comes the Sun’ ‘Ne Me Quitte Pas’ and ‘Wild is the Wind’
Married twice, with both ending in divorce, Simone turned her back on the US and moved to France in 1993, via spells in Liberia, Switzerland and Holland. She continued to tour and record and still sold records in very decent numbers.
Ten years after her move, she finally succumbed to the breast cancer she had suffered from for several years. She died, in France, aged 70.
Three days previously, and many years after turning down her application for a scholarship, the Curtis Institute of Music bestowed upon her, an honorary degree.
The Mumper of SE5
