Nina Simone

Nina Simone , of her true name Eunice Kathleen Waymon , born the February 21st 1933 with Tryon (North Carolina) the USA, deceased the April 21st 2003 with Curry-the-Wheel (Rhone delta), is a pianist and American singer . She had chosen the first part of her pseudonym because of an American lover latino whom she affectionnait enormously and which called it niña (girl in Spanish) and the second part of its pseudonym in homage to Simone Signoret.

Biography

Childhood and adolescence

His/her father and his mother went down from former slaves. They were both of the Christians very practitioners attempting to transmit values morals to their children. It was very attached to her father but his/her mother was very distant towards it, occupying few of her children, devoting all her time to the religion and leaving the pieces of housework to her Lucille oldest daughter.

Before the crisis of 1929, its family lived at ease. After, his/her mother was obliged to work like cleaning lady and his/her father accepted the most ungrateful tasks. A complication following an surgical operation undergone by his/her father worsened even more the financial position obliging the family to move and to settle in the most miserable districts of its city.

It grows in North Carolina in a family of eight children of which it was the sixth. It very early shows great provisions for the song and the piano which it practices with the church. She is noticed by Mrs Miller which advises with his/her mother to encourage her provisions. Mrs Miller created funds to collect the money intended to pay the formation of Eunice. She also proposed to pay during one year the courses of piano of Eunice and presented it to Muriel Massinovitch " Mazzy" miss; who will become one second mother (the white mother) for Eunice. During 6 years, every saturday mornings, it will go in Mazzy miss. It was for Eunice the discovery of a new world. She declared that the first time she failed to disappear it so much was beautiful. She passed from three hours of piano by day to six, then at seven hours.

In 1943, ten years old, it gives its first public concert in the library of the city. A couple of white requires of his/her parents, sitted with the first rank, to leave. Eunice, not including/understanding, intervenes and obliges the couple of white to give up. It is its first contact with the racial segregation.

It continues to work hard to become the first traditional concert performer black in America. Nina Simone, in her memories, allots this sentence to his/her mother. Its first platonic love was Edney Whiteside.

Miss Mazzy declared that it did not have anything any more to learn in Eunice and sought an establishment where it could develop her talents: it was the college Allen, a boarding school of young girls, located at 80 kilometers of Tryon. Its piano teacher was Joyce Caroll there. She will be there in complete pension under strict monitoring and discipline. Eunice entered there in September 1945 and major left his promotion in June 1950 there.

Miss Mazy is persuaded that only the formation of the Curtis Institute of Philadelphia can make it possible Eunice to become the first black traditional concert performer in America. But to pass the examination of entry, one always needs a preparation which will be made with the Juilliard School of New York, thanks to the financial support of its admirors. This preparation will proceed between on July 3rd and on August 11th, 1950, where it was the only black pupil of its promotion.

She is refused in Curtis Institute. Its disappointment is immense and it sinks in despair during several weeks. His/her Carrol brother is persuaded that it is the color of its skin which is the cause of this refusal. Under the influence of Carol, it decides to pass by again the contest because for it is the Curtis Institute or nothing. His/her mother finds to him an use of employee in a photographer in Philadelphia and there remains some money in the funds to pay itself a few weeks of course with Vladimir Sokhaloff, that which should have been its Master in Curtis Institute.

The beginning of the career

It quickly left its work in the photographer and worked as pianist at Arlene Smith, piano teacher, to accompany its pupils. It left this work at the end of one year and settled on its account, in its tiny studio, taking along part of the customers of its former owner. This period of its life was very hard but allowed him to be independent and to pay its courses with professor Vladimir Sokhaloff. She lived alone, without friend nor lover, going to the cinema once from time to time. It was its meeting with Faith Jackson, black prostitute of luxury known under the name of Kevin Mathias, which made known to him the life. It is Faith which took it along to Atlantic City in 1954 per two months when it took down a place of pianist in Midtown Bar & Grill, paid triple of what it gained in Philadelphia.

For hiding with her parents this activity, it takes the name of Nina Simone. “Nina” comes from Spanish " niña" (girl) and Simone, of Simone Signoret, its favorite actress, whom she saw in the film Casque of gold in Philadelphia. The first day, it does nothing but play piano but the owner of the bar informs it that if it does not sing, it will be returned. She thus sang. Although it was not a great success in the immediate future, its style was essential little by little, involving a change in the atmosphere of the bar. Then it went back to Philadelphia where its life took again its course.

In 1955 she consulted a psychoanalyst during one year and remade the summer season in Midtown Bar & Grill. She meets there Tex Axelrod, impassioned music, which makes him discover the various types of music and in particular Billie Holiday. It is under its influence that she sings I coils you porgy . While returning from this season, it returns its pupils and tries his chance in the clubs of Philadelphia. It spends its time between the courses at Vladimir Sokhaloff and his engagements. Nobody notices it as in Atlantic City. She acknowledges with her parents from which the money comes that she sends every month to them. This revelation cuts the last bonds with his/her mother who is against the music of the devil .

1956 is the year when the supreme court judge the racial segregation in the contrary buses with the Constitution. It makes a third season in Midtown Bar & Grill where the owner awaits it impatiently: its presence enables him to post complete every evening. It meets there Don Ross, a fêtard without ambition, but which was its first true love. A New Yorkean artistic agent, Jerry Fields, are dazzled after having heard it. He proposes a contract but request to him exclusiveness. It accepts and soon receives offers of engagements in several clubs. In one of these clubs, it there meets the guitarist Alvin Schackman and signs a first contract with Syd Nathan, directing label King Records. It records a first disc of fourteen titles in only one day.

The take-off

Success comes little by little and Nina Simone records her first discs. Its first album gains a great success and the individual one which is extracted from it (I coils you porgy/He needs me) is sold to a million specimens.

In 1961, it marries Andy Stroud, a police inspector which becomes its manager. In 1962 is born their daughter LISA Celeste Stroud. Nina Simone, very concerned by the civic rights and in particular racism, records several songs on this subject. In 1969, it again obtains a great success by taking again “Ain' T got no/I got life”, resulting from the musical comedy Hair. Always very concerned by the Racism, it leaves its country and spends the years which follow between several countries: Swiss Liberia, , Trinity, Holland, Belgium, Great Britain and France. It separates from Stroud in 1970. In 1978 it is stopped (and quickly slackened) to have refused to pay its taxes at the beginning of the Années 1970, in protest against the engagement of its country in the Guerre of Vietnam.

In 1987, its song My Baby Just Cares For Me , extracted from its very first album, is used in a publicity for the perfume Chanel number 5. The disc is republished and meets an enormous success. In 1993, Jeff Buckley, the son of Tim, begins again sublimates it " Lilac Wine" in its album " Grace" , and in 2001, its tube Feeling good is taken again by the English group MUSE. In 1993, Nina Simone leaves food towards Aix-en-Provence, in the south of the France. She dies on April 21st, 2003 in the village of Carry it Rouet in the Rhone delta.

Discography

Albums Bethlehem (1958-1959)

Albums Colpix (1959-1964)

Albums Philips (1964-1967)

Albums RCA (1967-1974)

  • 1967 Nina Simone Sings the Blues

  • 1967 Silk & Drunk
  • 1968 'Nuff Said
  • 1969 Nina Simone And Piano!
  • 1969 To Love Somebody
  • 1970 Black Gold
  • 1971 Here Comes the Sun
  • 1972 Emergency Ward
  • 1974 It is Finished

Various labels (1978-1993)

  • 1978 Baltimore

  • 1982 Fodder One My Wings
  • 1985 Nina' Back
  • 1987 Live & Kickin
  • 1987 Let It Be Me
  • 1988 Live At Ronnie Scotts
  • 1993 has Individual Woman

See too

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