posted on April 24, 2003 04:48:35 AM new
NEW YORK (April 21) - Nina Simone, whose deep, raspy, forceful voice made her a unique figure in jazz and later helped chronicle the civil rights movement, died Monday at her home in France, according to her personal manager. She was 70.
Clifton Henderson, who was at Simone's bedside at her death, said she died of ``natural causes'' in her sleep after a long illness. He refused to provide the name of the town where she lived.
``She inspired other singers to do what they believed in,'' Henderson said, saying the musician would also be remembered for her activism. ``She'll definitely be looked at as a civil rights movement leader.''
Norah Jones, India.Arie, Peter Gabriel, Sade and Aretha Franklin, who rerecorded one of Simone's most famous songs, the anthem ``To Be Young, Gifted and Black,'' were among the artists who cited her as an influence.
``She was ahead of her time as a concert-level piano player who sang, wrote and spoke her mind,'' India.Arie wrote in an email to The Associated Press. ``I aspire to be more like her.''
Born Eunice Kathleen Waymon in 1933 in North Carolina, Simone was the sixth of seven children in a poor family. She began playing the piano at age 4 and was classically trained, attending the Juilliard School in New York for one year. She had hoped to attend the prestigious Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, but was rejected - one of many disappointments she would attribute to racism.
She turned to singing jazz and popular music as a way to make money, performing in nightclubs in Philadelphia and Atlantic City, N.J. In the late 1950s Simone recorded her first tracks, including ``Plain Gold Ring'' and ``Don't Smoke in Bed.'' But she gained fame in 1959 with her recording of ``I Loves You Porgy,'' from the opera ``Porgy & Bess.''
Simone later wove the turbulent times of the 1960s into her music. In 1963, after the church bombing that killed four young black girls in Birmingham, Ala., and the slaying of Medgar Evers, she wrote ``Mississippi Goddam,'' whose searing lyrics included the lines: ``Oh but this whole country is full of lies, You're all gonna die and die like flies.''
After the killing of The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., she recorded ``Why? The King of Love Is Dead.''
``That's what separated Nina from the other singers,'' friend and jazz concert promoter George Wein told the AP on Monday. ``Nina took civil rights and the movement, the fight to another level, and made it part of her persona.''
In a 1998 interview, Simone blamed racism in the United States for her decision to live abroad, saying that as a black person, she had ``paid a heavy price for fighting the establishment.''
She left the United States in 1973 and lived in the Caribbean and Africa before settling in Europe. She didn't return to the United States until 1985 for a series of concerts.
Wein said she was extremely bitter.
``She was a black woman who never could relate to the position of what it was to be black in America. She couldn't understand it,'' he said. ``She was an unhappy person.''
Simone enjoyed perhaps her greatest success in the 1960s and '70s, with songs such as ``I Want a Little Sugar in My Bowl'' and ``Four Women,'' a song about four black woman with varying skin colors and lifestyles. One of the verses reads, ``My skin is brown-And my manner is tough-I'll kill the first mother I see ... What do they call me? My name is PEACHES.''
Though she was a gifted songwriter, Simone also recorded songs from artists as diverse as Leonard Cohen and the Bee Gees and made them her own. Perhaps one of her more popular covers was her version of ``House of the Rising Sun.''
While she had a regal presence onstage, she could often be temperamental; she had a reputation for chewing out audience members who interrupted her performances with conversation or loud drinking or talking.
``As an entertainer, she had the world in her hands, but she never knew how to grab it,'' said Wein.
Sometimes called ``High Priestess of Soul,'' she remained a top concert draw in her later years.
However, she was quite frail. At a 2001 concert at Carnegie Hall, she had to be helped to the stage, and was later seen sitting backstage in a wheelchair.
Yet Wein called the performance, which ran a little over an hour, one of her greatest. Fans wildly applauded every song, and demanded an encore after she left the stage - to which Simone responded by returning and shouting, ``Go home!''
``This was one of the most amazing evenings I had ever seen in my years,'' he said.
Simone, who was divorced twice, is survived by a daughter, Lisa - a singer who goes by Simone. She's starring in Broadway's ``Aida'' and has recorded with the group Liquid Soul.
posted on April 24, 2003 06:32:03 AM new
When Near did the pole on favorite songs I included "Feelin Good" by Nina in my list. I was actually first introduced to her music in the Bridget Fonda "Le Femme Nikita: remake Point of No Return. The first time I heard her I feel in love with this deep raspy voice that ranged from so deep and strong it can be mistaken for a mans to sultry blues temptress. I was dying to for the end of the movie to find out who this amazing singer was and amazingly Simone and the emotion of her music because the basis of one scene. I waiting thru the credits to be sure I had heard correctly and who the singer was I walked out of the theatre and directly across the street to a music store where I bought the soundtrackas well as two other albums.
Her range of styles ran the gamut, Jazz, Blues, eeven the occasional rock and pop remake, and no matter what my mood there was always something to match it. Sexy, soulfull, angry, outpoken but always ALWAYS - original. Even when doing covers of other performers songs Simone made the song distinctly her own while still protecting the integrity of its original form and never sounding contrived. Musically she was everything an artist should be. A pure talent, her voice rang as just strong and true in live recordings as studio and portrayed as much emotion as her words.
As I started collecting more and more of her pieces I feel more in love with her music. It was strange to realize how many of her pieces brought back distinct memories in my life. Her cover of Mr Bojangles brings me to tears remembering my maternal grandfather who died when I was very young. When I would visit, he would take me to a local park by the name of Bojangles Park to run his dog and when he passed my mother had a tree planted there in his memory. I had completely forgot those times until I heard her cover one night. Many years ago I lost a friend to a long battle with AIDS, the last "night on town" he had was a BB King concert where we ended up standing mesmorized by the opening act, an amazing guitarist whose name I right now I am embarassed to say I am blanking on. On the anniversary of my friends passing I went in search of a new Nina addition since he had come to love her music too. I ended up buying an album of her performing the music from Porgy and Bess. That night as I listened to the album and read the liner notes, imagine my surprise to find that the guitarit on the album was same the one that had entranced us that last night out. Recent ly a new friend presented me with live EP recorded in her last years in the US, Once again when I read the liner notes I got a new gift. Turns out it was recorded at small little club in LA where a group of us who had been friends in the midwest and had one by one migrated to LA used to get together once a month to catch-up, share gossip and touch base with a little bit of home. Slowly life changes resulted in all of us moving away, we haven' gotten together in years and I've lost touch with most of them but as I listened to the album and could hear the sounds of club goers in the background it took me right back to those great nights.
I was saddened to read of Ninas death, and even sadder to at what little notice was taken of it. Although music has always been a big part of my life and for a short time carreer but I never really got the deep sadness that some people have felt when a favorite artist passed away. Last night I got it as I sat listening to her music, got lost in old memories from some songs, and got taken thru a full gamut of emotions from others. It saddens me that the exact thing - strength, deep emotion, brashnes - that made her music so great, prevented her from finding the mainstream success levels of other women in her genre, alot of her music will die away and younger generations may miss out on something so spectacular.
I was heartened to read that India Arie and Nora Jones name her as an influence. Maybe someday someone will cover one her songs and turn a new generation onto her amazing music.
In the meantime, I will just be thankful that one hot summer day many years ago I bought a movie ticket to escape the heat and got a lifetime of great music in exchange.
Birds in the Sky, you know how I feel...
Sun up in the Sky, you know how I feel....
Breeze driftin on by and you know how I feel...
Its a new dawn, It's a new day, It's a new life me.....
And I'm feelin good.
~~~ Feelin' Good - Nina Simone
Edited to correct the movie name.... I'm having a vicious attack of Sometimers today.......
"Mississippi Goddam" was released by Nina Simone after the murder of Medgar Evers in front of his home in Jackson, Mississippi.
At the height of her fame she was closely associated with the black civil rights movement, connected with both the radical black playwright Lorraine Hansberry and the controversial Malcolm X.
"I was on the side of Malcolm, there's no doubt about that," she later reflected.
She proved her point by releasing her song Mississippi Goddamn after the murder of black activist Medgar Evers in Mississippi 1963.
Her years of campaigning finally took their toll and in 1971 the volatile singer, nearing nervous exhaustion, decided to leave the States for good.
