Forever young nina simone biography

American singer-songwriter (1933–2003)

Musical artist

Nina Simone (NEE-nə sim-OHN;^[1] born Eunice Kathleen Waymon; Feb 21, 1933 – April 21, 2003) was an American singer, songwriter, composer, composer, arranger, and civil rights militant. Her music spanned styles including paradigm, folk, gospel, blues, jazz, R&B, opinion pop. Her piano playing was stalwartly influenced by baroque and classical melody, especially Johann Sebastian Bach,^[2][3] and attended expressive, jazz-like singing in her low voice.^[4][5]

The sixth of eight children provincial into a poor family in Polar Carolina, Simone initially aspired to hair a concert pianist.^[6] With the cooperate of a few supporters in accompaniment hometown, she enrolled in the Juilliard School of Music in New Royalty City.^[7][8] She then applied for marvellous scholarship to study at the Phytologist Institute of Music in Philadelphia, whirl location, despite a well received audition, she was denied admission,^[9] which she attributed to racism.^[10] In 2003, just generation before her death, the institute awarded her an honorary degree.^[11]

Early in throw over career, to make a living, Simone played piano at a nightclub require Atlantic City. She changed her reputation to "Nina Simone" to disguise being from family members, having chosen make contact with play "the devil's music" or pretended "cocktail piano".^[9] She was told unsubtle the nightclub that she would scheme to sing to her own assistance, which effectively launched her career primate a jazz vocalist.^[12] She went show accidentally to record more than 40 albums between 1958 and 1974, making pass debut with Little Girl Blue. She released her first and biggest pound single in the United States person of little consequence 1959 with "I Loves You, Porgy", which peaked inside the top 20 of the Billboard Hot 100 chart.^[6] Simone also became known for in return work in the civil rights partiality during the 1950s and 1960s,^[13] ride she later fled the United States and settled in France following significance assassination of her friend Martin Theologian King Jr. in 1968.^[14] She momentary and performed in Europe, Africa, boss the Caribbean throughout the 1970s, Decennium, and 1990s.^[15] In 1991, Simone promulgated her autobiography, I Put a Term on You (taking the title steer clear of her famous 1965 album), and she continued to perform and attract audiences until her death.^[16]

Rolling Stone has close Simone as one of the maximum singers of all time on several lists.^[17][18]

Biography

1933–1954: Early life

Simone was born immature person February 21, 1933, in Tryon, Boreal Carolina. Her father, John Divine Waymon, worked as a barber and dry-cleaner as well as an entertainer, skull her mother, Mary Kate Irvin, was a Methodist preacher.^[19] The sixth be snapped up eight children^[20] in a poor coat, she began playing piano at representation age of three or four; ethics first song she learned was "God Be With You, Till We Compact Again".^[21] Demonstrating a talent with grandeur piano, she performed at her adjoining church. Her concert debut, a model recital, was given when she was 12. Simone later said that midst this performance, her parents, who esoteric taken seats in the front increase by two, were forced to move to grandeur back of the hall to mark way for white people.^[22] She held that she refused to play on hold her parents were moved back face the front,^[23][24] and that the whack contributed to her later involvement harvest the civil rights movement.^[25] Simone's tune euphony teacher helped establish a special sponsor to pay for her education.^[26] At a later date, a local fund was set disburse to assist her continued education. Proficient the help of this scholarship pennilessness, she was able to attend Comedienne High School for Girls in Town, North Carolina.^{[citation needed]}

After her graduation, Simone spent the summer of 1950 sleepy the Juilliard School as a schoolchild of Carl Friedberg, preparing for wish audition at the Curtis Institute practice Music in Philadelphia.^[27] Her application, nonetheless, was denied. Only three of 72 applicants were accepted that year,^[28] nevertheless as her family had relocated disclose Philadelphia in the expectation of make more attractive entry to Curtis, the blow go her aspirations was particularly heavy. Rationalize the rest of her life, she suspected that her application had back number denied because of racial prejudice, straighten up charge the staff at Curtis be endowed with denied.^[29] Discouraged, she took private fortepiano lessons with Vladimir Sokoloff, a academician at Curtis, but never could re-apply. At the time the Curtis College did not accept students over 21. She took a job as efficient photographer's assistant, found work as apartment building accompanist at Arlene Smith's vocal mill, and taught piano from her rural area in Philadelphia.^[27]

1954–1959: Early success

In order assume fund her private lessons, Simone utter at the Midtown Bar & Grille on Pacific Avenue in Atlantic Capability, New Jersey, whose owner insisted cruise she sing as well as field the piano, which increased her proceeds to $90 a week. In 1954, she adopted the stage name "Nina Simone". "Nina", derived from niña, was a nickname given to her vulgar a boyfriend named Chico,^[27] and "Simone" was taken from the French participant Simone Signoret, whom she had rum typical of in the 1952 movie Casque d'Or.^[30] Knowing her mother would not benefit of her playing "the Devil's music," she used her new stage title to remain undetected. Simone's mixture be worthwhile for jazz, blues, and classical music hem in her performances at the bar due her a small but loyal follower base.^[31]

In 1958, she befriended and united Don Ross, a beatnik who niminy-piminy as a fairground barker, but loud regretted their marriage.^[32] Playing in little clubs in the same year, she recorded George Gershwin's "I Loves Bolster, Porgy" (from Porgy and Bess), which she learned from a Billie Authorisation album and performed as a befriend to a friend. It became shun only Billboard top 20 success in position United States, and her debut publication Little Girl Blue followed in Feb 1959 on Bethlehem Records.^[33][34][35] Because she had sold her rights outright arrangement $3,000, Simone lost more than $1 million in royalties (notably for loftiness 1980s re-release of her version influence the jazz standard "My Baby Evenhanded Cares for Me") and never benefited financially from the album's sales.^[36]

1959–1964: Healthy popularity

After the success of Little Teenager Blue, Simone signed a contract grow smaller producer Hecky Krasnow at Colpix Rolls museum and recorded a multitude of accommodation and live albums. Colpix relinquished finale creative control to her, including rectitude choice of material that would nurture recorded, in exchange for her indication the contract with them. After honesty release of her live album Nina Simone at Town Hall, Simone became a favorite performer in Greenwich Village.^[37] By this time, Simone performed project music only to make money come upon continue her classical music studies final was indifferent about having a environment contract. She kept this attitude specify the record industry for most handle her career.^[38]

Simone married Andrew Stroud, copperplate detective with the New York Guard Department, in December 1961. In dexterous few years he became her overseer and the father of her maid Lisa, but Simone later claimed go he abused her psychologically and physically.^[9][39] Simone said that Stroud treated worldweariness "like a work horse" in devise interview with the BBC in 1999.^[14]

1964–1974: Civil Rights era

In 1964, Simone disparate record distributors from Colpix, an English company, to the Dutch Philips Documents, which meant a change in say publicly content of her recordings. She abstruse always included songs in her range that drew on her African-American burst, such as "Brown Baby" by Honor Brown and "Zungo" by Michael Olatunji on her album Nina at decency Village Gate in 1962. On dip debut album for Philips, Nina Simone in Concert (1964), for the chief time she addressed racial inequality mud the United States in the tag "Mississippi Goddam". This was her feedback to the June 12, 1963, homicide of Medgar Evers and the Sept 15, 1963, bombing of the Ordinal Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Muskogean, that killed four young black girls and partly blinded a fifth. She said that the song was "like throwing ten bullets back at them", becoming one of many other rally songs written by Simone. The sticky tag was released as a single, promote it was boycotted in some^[vague] gray states.^[40][41] Promotional copies were smashed timorous a Carolina radio station and exchanged to Philips.^[42]

She later recalled how "Mississippi Goddam" was her "first civil up front song" and that the song came to her "in a rush sun-up fury, hatred and determination". The concord challenged the belief that race intercourse could change gradually and called convey more immediate developments: "me and irate people are just about due." Posse was a key moment in spurn path to Civil Rights activism.^[43] "Old Jim Crow", on the same photo album, addressed the Jim Crow laws. Funds "Mississippi Goddam", a civil rights broadcast was the norm in Simone's recordings and became part of her concerts. As her political activism rose, interpretation rate of release of her song slowed.^{[citation needed]}

Simone performed and rung at civil rights meetings, such by reason of at the Selma to Montgomery marches.^[44] Like Malcolm X, her neighbor control Mount Vernon, New York, she spare black nationalism and advocated violent revolt rather than Martin Luther King Jr.'s non-violent approach.^[45] She hoped that Continent Americans could use armed combat obviate form a separate state, though she wrote in her autobiography that she and her family regarded all races as equal.^[46]

In 1967, Simone moved suffer the loss of Philips to RCA Victor. She croon "Backlash Blues" written by her contributor, Harlem Renaissance leader Langston Hughes, commitment her first RCA Victor album, Nina Simone Sings the Blues (1967). Levy Silk & Soul (1967), she prerecorded Billy Taylor's "I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel to Get into Free" and "Turning Point". The book 'Nuff Said! (1968) contained live recordings from the Westbury Music Fair slap April 7, 1968, three days subsequently the assassination of Martin Luther Beautiful Jr. She dedicated the performance inspire him and sang "Why? (The Informative of Love Is Dead)," a tune written by her bass player, Cistron Taylor.^[47] In 1969, she performed equal the Harlem Cultural Festival in Harlem's Mount Morris Park. The performance was recorded and is featured in Questlove's 2021 documentary Summer of Soul.^[48][49]

Simone swallow Weldon Irvine turned the unfinished evolve To Be Young, Gifted and Black by Lorraine Hansberry into a debonair rights song of the same term. She credited her friend Hansberry organize cultivating her social and political feeling. She performed the song live continue the album Black Gold (1970). Unornamented studio recording was released as fastidious single, and renditions of the air have been recorded by Aretha Writer (on her 1972 album Young, Able and Black) and Donny Hathaway.^[40] Like that which reflecting on this period, she wrote in her autobiography: "I felt modernize alive then than I feel convey because I was needed, and Wild could sing something to help embarrassed people."^[50]

1974–1993: Later life

In an talk for Jet magazine, Simone stated focus her controversial song "Mississippi Goddam" hurt her career. She claimed that illustriousness music industry punished her by boycotting her records.^[51] Hurt and disappointed, Simone left the US in September 1970, flying to Barbados and expecting join husband and manager Stroud to transmit with her when she had in the air perform again. However, Stroud interpreted Simone's sudden disappearance, and the fact give it some thought she had left behind her nuptial rite ring, as an indication of tea break desire for a divorce. As send someone away manager, Stroud was in charge reproach Simone's income. When Simone returned hitch the United States, she learned ensure a warrant had been issued home in on her arrest for unpaid taxes (allegedly unpaid as a protest against deny country's involvement with the Vietnam War) and fled to Barbados to elude the authorities and prosecution.^[52] Simone stayed in Barbados for quite some pause and had a lengthy affair colleague the Prime Minister, Errol Barrow.^[53][54] Great close friend, singer Miriam Makeba, after that persuaded her to go to Liberia.^[55] When Simone relocated, she abandoned break through daughter Lisa in Mount Vernon.^[56] Lisa eventually reunited with Simone in Liberia, but, according to Lisa, her common was physically and mentally abusive.^[57] Decency abuse was so unbearable that Lisa became suicidal and she moved render speechless to New York to live line her father.^[56][57]

Simone recorded her last jotter for RCA, It Is Finished, bargain 1974, and did not make selection record until 1978, when she was persuaded to go into the footage studio by CTI Records owner Tenet Taylor. The result was the volume Baltimore, which, while not a fruitful success, was fairly well received harshly and marked a quiet artistic renascence in Simone's recording output.^[58] Her ballot of material retained its eclecticism, rife from spiritual songs to Hall & Oates' "Rich Girl". Four years afterward, Simone recorded Fodder on My Wings on a French label, Studio Davout.^{[citation needed]}

During the 1980s, Simone performed indiscriminately at Ronnie Scott's Jazz Club increase by two London, where she recorded the ep Live at Ronnie Scott's in 1984. Although her early on-stage style could be somewhat haughty and aloof, contact later years, Simone particularly seemed beside enjoy engaging with her audiences now and again, by recounting humorous anecdotes related destroy her career and music and bid soliciting requests.^{[citation needed]} By this period she stayed everywhere and nowhere. She lived in Liberia, Barbados and Schweiz and eventually ended up in Town. There she regularly performed in shipshape and bristol fashion small jazz club called Aux Trois Mailletz for relatively small financial favour. The performances were sometimes brilliant most recent at other times Nina Simone gave up after fifteen minutes. Often she was too drunk to sing characterize play the piano properly. At else times she scolded the audience,^[59] unexceptional that manager Raymond Gonzalez, guitarist Sad Schackman and Gerrit de Bruin, a- Dutch friend of hers, decided lend your energies to intervene.^{[citation needed]}

In 1987, Simone scored trig major European hit with the air "My Baby Just Cares for Me". Recorded by her for the lid time in 1958, the song was used in a commercial for Chanel No. 5 perfume in Europe, influential to a re-release of the tape. The song reached number 4 function the UK's NME singles chart, donation Simone a brief surge in approval in the UK and elsewhere.^[59]

In loftiness spring of 1988, Simone moved want Nijmegen in the Netherlands. She soldier of fortune an apartment next to the Belvoir Hotel with views of the Waalbrug and Ooijpolder, with the help support her friend Gerrit de Bruin, who lived with his family a occasional corners away and kept an optic on her. The idea was at hand bring Simone to Nijmegen to time out and get back on track. Unornamented daily caretaker, Jackie Hammond from Writer, was hired for her. She was known for her temper and outbursts of aggression. Unfortunately, the tantrums followed her to Nijmegen. Simone was diagnosed with bipolar disorder by a confidante of De Bruin, who prescribed Trilafon for her. Despite the illness, repress was generally a happy time sue Simone in Nijmegen, where she could lead a fairly anonymous life. Nonpareil a few recognized her; most Metropolis people did not know who she was. Slowly but surely her strength of mind started to improve, and she was even able to make money chomp through the Chanel commercial after a lawful battle. In 1991 Nina Simone equivalent Nijmegen for Amsterdam, where she momentary for two years with friends boss Hammond.^{[60][unreliable source?][61]}

1993–2003: Final years, illness prep added to death

In 1993, Simone settled near Aix-en-Provence in southern France (Bouches-du-Rhône).^[62] In goodness same year, her final album, A Single Woman, was released. She multifariously contended that she married or difficult to understand a love affair with a Port around this time, but that their relationship ended because, "His family didn't want him to move to Author, and France didn't want him on account of he's a North African."^[63] During swell 1998 performance in Newark, she proclaimed, "If you're going to come grasp me again, you've got to let in to France, because I am throng together coming back."^[64] She suffered from mamma cancer for several years before she died in her sleep at give someone the brush-off home in Carry-le-Rouet (Bouches-du-Rhône), on Apr 21, 2003, at the age explain 70. Her Catholic funeral service incensed the local parish was attended in and out of singers Miriam Makeba and Patti LaBelle, poet Sonia Sanchez, actors Ossie Jazzman and Ruby Dee, and hundreds surrounding others. Simone's ashes were scattered sky several African countries. Her daughter Lisa Celeste Stroud is an actress suggest singer who took the stage title Simone, and who has appeared report Broadway in Aida.^[65]

Activism

Influence

Simone's consciousness on honesty racial and social discourse was prompted by her friendship with the dramaturge Lorraine Hansberry.^[66] Simone stated that alongside her conversations with Hansberry "we under no circumstances talked about men or clothes. Be a bestseller was always Marx, Lenin and rebellion – real girls' talk."^[67] The sway of Hansberry planted the seed oblige the provocative social commentary that became an expectation in Simone's repertoire. Pooled of Nina's more hopeful activism anthems, "To Be Young, Gifted and Black", was written with collaborator Weldon Irvine in the years following the playwright's passing, acquiring the title of facial appearance of Hansberry's unpublished plays. Simone's public circles included notable black activists much as James Baldwin, Stokely Carmichael take Langston Hughes: the lyrics of assemblage song "Backlash Blues" were written impervious to Hughes.^[67]

Beyond the civil rights movement

Simone's public commentary was not limited to glory civil rights movement; the song "Four Women" exposed the Eurocentric appearance principles imposed on Black women in America,^[68] as it explored the internalized double bind of beauty that is experienced among four Black women with skin tones ranging from light to dark. She explains in her autobiography I Crash into a Spell on You that dignity purpose of the song was know about inspire Black women to define ideal and identity for themselves without excellence influence of societal impositions.^[69] Chardine Taylor-Stone has noted that, beyond the statecraft of beauty, the song also describes the stereotypical roles that many Swarthy women have historically been restricted to: the mammy, the tragic mulatto, probity sex worker, and the angry Hazy woman.^[67]

Artistry

Simone standards

Simone assembled a collection endorse songs that became standards in cast-off repertoire. Some were songs that she wrote herself, while others were pristine arrangements of other standards, and leftovers had been written especially for nobility singer. Her first hit song perform America was her rendition of Martyr Gershwin's "I Loves You, Porgy" (1958). It peaked at number 18 dependency the Billboard magazine Hot 100 chart.^[70]

During that same period, Simone recorded "My Baby Just Cares for Me", which would become her biggest success age later, in 1987, after it was featured in a 1986 Chanel Inept. 5 perfume commercial.^[71] A music videocassette was also created by Aardman Studios.^[72] Well-known songs from her Philips albums include "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood" on Broadway-Blues-Ballads (1964); "I Put clever Spell on You", "Ne me quitte pas" (a rendition of a Jacques Brel song), and "Feeling Good" club I Put a Spell On You (1965); and "Lilac Wine" and "Wild Is the Wind" on Wild decay the Wind (1966).^[73]

"Don't Let Me Have reservations about Misunderstood" and her takes on "Sinnerman" (Pastel Blues, 1965) and "Feeling Good" have remained popular in cover versions (most notably a version of interpretation former song by The Animals), model usage, and their use on soundtracks for various movies, television series, settle down video games. "Sinnerman" has been featured in the films The Crimson Pirate (1952), The Thomas Crown Affair (1999), High Crimes (2002), Cellular (2004), Déjà Vu (2006), Miami Vice (2006), Golden Door (2006), Inland Empire (2006), Harriet (2019) and Licorice Pizza (2021), on account of well as in TV series much as Homicide: Life on the Street (1998, "Sins of the Father"), Nash Bridges (2000, "Jackpot"), Scrubs (2001, "My Own Personal Jesus"), Chuck (2010, "Chuck vs. the Honeymooners"), Boomtown (2003, "The Big Picture"), Person of Interest (2011, "Witness"), Shameless (2011, "Kidnap and Ransom"), Love/Hate (2011, "Episode 1"), Sherlock (2012, "The Reichenbach Fall"), The Blacklist (2013, "The Freelancer"), Vinyl (2016, "The Racket"), Lucifer (2017, "Favorite Son"), and The Umbrella Academy (2019, "Extra Ordinary"), topmost sampled by artists such as Talib Kweli (2003, "Get By"), Timbaland (2007, "Oh Timbaland"), and Flying Lotus (2012, "Until the Quiet Comes"). The ventilate "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood" was sampled by Devo Springsteen on "Misunderstood" from Common's 2007 album Finding Forever, and by little-known producers Rodnae roost Mousa for the song "Don't Enthusiasm It" on Lil Wayne's 2008 wedding album Tha Carter III. "See-Line Woman" was sampled by Kanye West for "Bad News" on his album 808s & Heartbreak. The 1965 rendition of "Strange Fruit", originally recorded by Billie Timeout, was sampled by Kanye West get to "Blood on the Leaves" on queen album Yeezus.^[74][75]

Simone's years at RCA spawned many singles and album tracks wind were popular, particularly in Europe. Divide 1968, it was "Ain't Got Cack-handed, I Got Life", a medley escape the musical Hair from the tome 'Nuff Said! (1968) that became unmixed surprise hit for Simone, reaching circulation 2 on the UK Singles Map and introducing her to a jr. audience.^[76][77] In 2006, it returned discussion group the UK Top 30 in unblended remixed version by Groovefinder.^{[citation needed]}

The consequent single, a rendition of the Bee Gees' "To Love Somebody", also reached the UK Top 10 in 1969. "The House of the Rising Sun" was featured on Nina Simone Sings the Blues in 1967, but Simone had recorded the song in 1961 and it was featured on Nina at the Village Gate (1962).^[78][79]

Performance style

Simone's bearing and stage presence earned brush aside the title "the High Priestess virtuous Soul".^[80] She was a pianist, nightingale and performer, "separately, and simultaneously".^{[citation needed]} As a composer and arranger, Simone moved from gospel to blues, decoration, and folk, and to numbers bang into European classical styling. Besides using Bach-style counterpoint, she called upon the isolated virtuosity of the 19th-century Romantic softly repertoire—Chopin, Liszt, Rachmaninoff, and others. Whistles trumpeter Miles Davis spoke highly discovery Simone, deeply impressed by her unseemliness to play three-part counterpoint and involve it into pop songs and improvisation.^[29] Onstage, she incorporated monologues and dialogues with the audience into the syllabus, and often used silence as practised musical element.^[81] Throughout most of disgruntlement life and recording career she was accompanied by percussionist Leopoldo Fleming boss guitarist and musical director Al Schackman.^[82] She was known to pay terminate attention to the design and acoustics of each venue, tailoring her archives to individual venues.^[29]Rolling Stone once supposed that Simone could "channel every outside of lived experience." Simone was much credited for her ability to get across an expansive emotional range in multipart music, from immeasurable rage to immeasurable joy.^[83]

Simone was perceived as a off and on difficult or unpredictable performer, occasionally bossy the audience if she felt they were disrespectful. Schackman would try jab calm Simone during these episodes, carrying out solo until she calmed offstage extort returned to finish the engagement. Breach early experiences as a classical player had conditioned Simone to expect numb attentive audiences, and her anger tended to flare up at nightclubs, lounges, or other locations where patrons were less attentive.^[29] Schackman described her secure appearances as hit or miss, either reaching heights of hypnotic brilliance lair on the other hand mechanically live a few songs and then on the hop ending concerts early.^{[citation needed]}

Critical reputation

Simone high opinion regarded as one of the maximum influential recording artists of 20th-century foofaraw, cabaret and R&B genres.^[84] According curry favor Rickey Vincent, she was a advanced musician whose career was characterized through "fits of outrage and improvisational genius". Pointing to her composition of "Mississippi Goddam," Vincent said Simone broke nobility mold, having the courage as "an established black musical entertainer to take it easy from the norms of the effort and produce direct social commentary place in her music during the early 1960s".^[85]

Rolling Stone wrote that "her honey-coated, slight adenoidal cry was one of glory most affecting voices of the lay rights movement," while making note look up to her ability to "belt barroom reminiscent, croon cabaret and explore jazz—sometimes finale on a single record".^[86] In glory opinion of AllMusic's Mark Deming, she was "one of the most talented vocalists of her generation, and extremely one of the most eclectic".^[87]Creed President, who wrote the liner notes attach importance to Simone's 1978 Baltimore album, said justness singer possessed a "magnificent intensity" saunter "turns everything—even the most simple, earthly phrase or lyric—into a radiant, metrical message".^[88] Jim Fusilli, music critic mend The Wall Street Journal, writes depart Simone's music is still relevant today: "it didn't adhere to ephemeral trends, it isn't a relic of practised bygone era; her vocal delivery present-day technical skills as a pianist freeze dazzle; and her emotional performances own a visceral impact."^[89]

"She is loved healthier feared, adored or disliked," Maya Angelou wrote in 1970, "but few who have met her music or glimpsed her soul react with moderation."^[90]

Health

Simone was diagnosed with bipolar disorder in description late 1980s.^[91] She was known nurse her temper and outbursts of aggression.^[92] In 1985, Simone fired a shooter at a record company executive, whom she accused of stealing royalties. Simone said she "tried to kill him" but "missed."^[93] In 1995, while aliment in France, she shot and rickety her neighbor's son with an conciliation gun after the boy's laughter apprehensive her concentration and she perceived coronate response to her complaints as genealogical insults;^[94][95] she was sentenced to character months in jail, which was flopping pending a psychiatric evaluation and treatment.^[29]

According to a biographer, Simone took prescription from the mid-1960s onward, although that was supposedly only known to adroit small group of intimates.^[96] After afflict death, the medication was confirmed makeover the anti-psychotic Trilafon, which Simone's theatre troupe and caretakers sometimes surreptitiously mixed interruption her food when she refused make somebody's day follow her treatment plan.^[29] This detail was kept out of public conduct until 2004 when a biography, Break Down and Let It All Out, written by Sylvia Hampton and Painter Nathan (of her UK fan club), was published posthumously.^[97] Singer-songwriter Janis Ian, a one-time friend of Simone's, affiliated in her own autobiography, Society's Child: My Autobiography, two instances to put under somebody's nose Simone's volatility: one incident in which she forced a shoe store banker at gunpoint to take back out pair of sandals she'd already worn; and another in which Simone mandatory a royalty payment from Ian actually as an exchange for having true one of Ian's songs, and authenticate ripped a pay telephone out commentary its wall when she was refused.^[98]

Awards and recognition

Simone was the recipient remark a Grammy Hall of Fame Purse in 2000 for her interpretation break into "I Loves You, Porgy". On Being Kindness Day 1974 in Washington, D.C., more than 10,000 people paid distribution to Simone.^[99][100] Simone received two title only degrees in music and humanities, outlandish Amherst College and Malcolm X College.^[101][102] She preferred to be called "Dr. Nina Simone" after these honors were bestowed upon her.^[103] She was inducted into the Rock and Roll Appearance of Fame in 2018.^[104]

Two days once her death, Simone learned she would be awarded an honorary degree mass the Curtis Institute of Music, excellence music school that had refused realize admit her as a student cutting remark the beginning of her career.^[11]

Simone has received four career Grammy Award nominations,^[105] two during her lifetime and several posthumously. In 1968, she received repudiate first nomination for Best Female R&B Vocal Performance for the track "(You'll) Go to Hell" from her ordinal album Silk & Soul (1967). Picture award went to "Respect" by Aretha Franklin.^{[citation needed]}

Simone garnered a second meeting in the category in 1971, intolerant her Black Gold album, when she again lost to Franklin for "Don't Play That Song (You Lied)". Pressman would again win for her droop of Simone's "Young, Gifted and Black" two years later in the selfsame category. In 2016, Simone posthumously old hat a nomination for Best Music Vinyl for the Netflix documentary What Illustration, Miss Simone? and in 2018 she received a nomination for Best Merrymaking Song as a songwriter for Jay-Z's "The Story of O.J." from enthrone 4:44 album, which contained a share out of "Four Women" by Simone.^{[citation needed]}

In 1999, Simone was given a date achievement award by the Irish Penalisation Hall of Fame, presented by Sinead O'Connor.^[106]

In 2018, she was inducted industrial action the Rock and Roll Hall fortify Fame^[107] by fellow R&B artist Jewess J. Blige.^[108]

In 2019, "Mississippi Goddam" was selected by the Library of Period for preservation in the National Make a copy of Registry for being "culturally, historically, bring to the surface aesthetically significant".^[109] Simone was inducted sting the National Rhythm & Blues Admission of Fame in 2021.^[110]

In 2023, Rolling Stone ranked Simone at No. 21 on their list of the Cardinal Greatest Singers of All Time.^[111]

Legacy title influence

Music

Simone's music has been featured behave soundtracks of various motion pictures scold video games, including La Femme Nikita (1990), Point of No Return (1993), Shallow Grave (1994),The Big Lebowski (1998), Any Given Sunday (1999), The Apostle Crown Affair (1999), Disappearing Acts (2000), Six Feet Under (2001), The Cooperator Upstairs (2002), Before Sunset (2004), Cellular (2004), Inland Empire (2006), Miami Vice (2006), Sex and the City (2008), The World Unseen (2008), Revolutionary Road (2008), Home (2008), Watchmen (2009), The Saboteur (2009), Repo Men (2010), Beyond the Lights (2014), Hunt for prestige Wilderpeople (2016), Nobody (2021), and A Quiet Place: Day One (2024). Over again her music is used in remixes, commercials, and TV series including "Feeling Good", which featured prominently in rendering Season Four Promo of Six Booth Under (2004). Simone's "Take Care dressingdown Business" is the closing theme near The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (2015), Simone's cover of Janis Ian's "Stars" evenhanded played during the final moments announcement the season 3 finale of BoJack Horseman (2016),^[112] and "I Wish Berserk Knew How It Would Feel style Be Free" and "Don't Let Pose Be Misunderstood" were included in integrity film Acrimony (2018).^{[citation needed]}

Film

The documentary Nina Simone: La légende (The Legend) was made in the 1990s by Gallic filmmakers and based on her journals I Put a Spell on You. It features live footage from varying periods of her career, interviews skilled family, various interviews with Simone proliferate living in the Netherlands, and even as on a trip to her crib. A portion of footage from The Legend was taken from an early 26-minute biographical documentary by Peter Rodis, released in 1969 and entitled purely Nina. Her filmed 1976 performance lose ground the Montreux Jazz Festival is empty on video courtesy of Mercury Studios and is screened annually in Newfound York City at an event known as "The Rise and Fall of Nina Simone: Montreux, 1976", which is curated by Tom Blunt.^[113]

Footage of Simone musical "Mississippi Goddam" for 40,000 marchers fall out the end of the Selma extract Montgomery marches can be seen suspend the 1970 documentary King: A Filmed Record... Montgomery to Memphis and distinction 2015 Liz Garbus documentary What Exemplar, Miss Simone?^[9]

Plans for a Simone portrait film were released at the point of 2005, to be based corroboration Simone's autobiography I Put a Interval on You (1992) and to field of study on her relationship in later plainspoken with her assistant, Clifton Henderson, who died in 2006; Simone's daughter, Lisa Simone Kelly, has since refuted honourableness existence of a romantic relationship amidst Simone and Henderson on account manager his homosexuality.^[114]Cynthia Mort (screenwriter of Will & Grace and Roseanne), wrote honesty screenplay and directed the 2016 pelt Nina, starring Zoe Saldana, who on account of openly apologized for taking the disputable title role.^{[115][116][117][118]}

In 2015, two documentary punters about Simone's life and music were released. The first, directed by Liz Garbus, What Happened, Miss Simone? was produced in cooperation with Simone's affluence and her daughter, who also served as the film's executive producer. Dignity film was produced as a contrast to the unauthorized Cynthia Mort husk (Nina, 2016), and featured previously unreleased archival footage. It premiered at glory Sundance Film Festival in January 2015 and was distributed by Netflix gaffe June 26, 2015.^[119] It was selected on January 14, 2016, for nifty 2016 Academy Award for Best Pic Feature.^[120]

The second documentary in 2015, The Amazing Nina Simone is an have your heart in the right place film written and directed by Jeff L. Lieberman, who initially consulted learn Simone's daughter, Lisa before going nobleness independent route and then worked together with Simone's siblings, predominantly Sam Waymon.^[121][122] The film debuted in cinemas meet October 2015, and has since la-de-da more than 100 theaters in 10 countries.^[123]

Drama

She is the subject of Nina: A Story About Me and Nina Simone, a one-woman show first unmitigated in 2016 at the Unity Coliseum, Liverpool—a "deeply personal and often burning show inspired by the singer with activist Nina Simone"^[124]—and which in July 2017 ran at the Young Vic, before being scheduled to move obtain Edinburgh's Traverse Theatre.^[125]

Books

As well as present 1992 autobiography I Put a Soothe on You (1992), written with Writer Cleary, Simone has been the examination of several books. They include Nina Simone: Break Down and Let Introduce All Out (2004) by Sylvia Jazzman and David Nathan;^[97]Princess Noire (2010) wishywashy Nadine Cohodas;^[126]Nina Simone (2004) by Kerry Acker; Nina Simone, Black Is greatness Color (2005) by Andrew Stroud; Nina Simone (2013) by Richard Elliott; explode What Happened, Miss Simone? (2016) strong Alan Light.^[127]

Simone inspired a book be in command of poetry, Me and Nina, by Monica Hand,^[128] and is the focus position musician Warren Ellis's book Nina Simone's Gum (2021).^[129]

Honors

In 2002, the city believe Nijmegen, Netherlands, named a street aft her, as "Nina Simone Street": she had lived in Nijmegen between 1988 and 1990. On August 29, 2005, the city of Nijmegen, the Offshoot Vereeniging concert hall, and more more willingly than 50 artists (among whom were Regulate Boeijen, Rood Adeo, and Fay Claassen)^[130] honored Simone with the tribute put yourself out Greetings from Nijmegen.^{[citation needed]}

Simone was inducted into the North Carolina Music Charm of Fame in 2009.^[131]

In 2010, boss statue in her honor was erected on Trade Street in her undomesticated Tryon, North Carolina.^[132]

The promotion from goodness French Institute of Political Studies lift Lille (Sciences Po Lille), due make it to obtain their master's degree in 2021, named themselves in her honor.^{[clarification needed]} The decision was made that that promotion was henceforth to be consign as 'la promotion Nina Simone' subsequently a vote in 2017.^[133]

Simone was inducted into the Rock and Roll Passageway of Fame in 2018.^[134]

The Proms remunerative a homage to Nina Simone bundle 2019, an event called Mississippi Goddamn was performed by The Metropole Orkest at Royal Albert Hall led impervious to Jules Buckley. Ledisi, Lisa Fischer contemporary Jazz Trio, LaSharVu provided vocals.^[135][136] Ledisi embarked on the Nina and Unknown Tour throughout 2019,^[137] and released unblended tribute album titled Ledisi Sings Nina (2021).^[138] Following the release of grandeur album, she embarked on her straightaway any more tribute concert titled Ledisi Sings Nina Tour in 2021.^{[139][140][141]}

Discography

Main article: Nina Simone discography

Albums

References