Happy Birthday Nina Simone!

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Happy Birthday to the Amazing Nina Simone!

Nina Simone was a super talented and famous musician from the 20th century. She was like a musical storyteller, using her incredible skills to share stories of freedom, strength, love, and passion through her music. She was like a griot, which is a storyteller from West Africa who keeps the history and culture alive through their stories and songs.

Griots are Gregarious

Griots are really important in West African culture. They're like the keepers of the community's history and traditions, often passing down their knowledge from one generation to the next.

They're not just entertainers, but also advisors and peacemakers, helping to keep the culture strong and alive. They use music to tell their stories, playing instruments like the kora, balafon, and ngoni.

So, when we celebrate Nina Simone's birthday, we're also celebrating her role in keeping the rich history and culture of her people alive through her music, just like the griots in West Africa.

High Priestess of Soul

She earned the moniker ‘High Priestess of Soul’ because she could weave a spell so seductive and hypnotic that the listener lost track of time and space as they became absorbed in the moment.

When she, Nina Simone, passed away on April 21, 2003, she left behind a timeless treasure trove of musical magic spanning over four decades from her first hit, the 1959 Top 10 classic “I Loves You Porgy,” to “A Single Woman,” the title cut from her one and only 1993 Elektra album.

The element of honest emotion was the glue that bound her recordings together – it was that approach to every piece of work that became her uncompromising musical trademark.

Sold Over One Million CDs

By the end of her life, she was enjoying an unprecedented degree of recognition. Her music was enjoyed by the masses due to the CD revolution, discovery on the Internet, and exposure through movies and television. She had sold over one million CDs in the last decade of her life, making her a global catalog best-seller.

Place of Birth

She was born Eunice Kathleen Waymon in Tryon, North Carolina on February 21st, 1933. Her prodigious talent as a musician was evident early on when she started playing piano by ear at the age of three.

Remarkable Talent as a Child

Raised in the church on the straight and narrow, her parents taught her right from wrong, to carry herself with dignity, and to work hard. She played piano – but didn’t sing – in her mother’s church, displaying remarkable talent early in her life.

Able to play virtually anything by ear, she was soon studying classical music with an Englishwoman named Muriel Mazzanovich, who had moved to the small southern town. It was from these humble roots that she developed a lifelong love of Johann Sebastian Bach, Chopin, Brahms, Beethoven, and Schubert.

Valedictorian of Her High School

After graduating valedictorian of her high school class, the community raised money for a scholarship for her to study at Julliard in New York City before applying to the prestigious Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia.

Denied Admission to Julliard College of Music

However, her hopes for a career as a pioneering African American classical pianist were dashed when the school denied her admission. She believed that racism was the reason she did not attend. While her original dream was unfulfilled, she ended up with an incredible worldwide career as Nina Simone.

Classical Pianist Becomes a Singer

To survive, she began teaching music to local students. One fateful day in 1954, looking to supplement her income, she auditioned to play piano at the Midtown Bar & Grill on Pacific Avenue in Atlantic City, New Jersey.

The owner informed her that not only would she be hired to play but she was also required to sing. Despite her dreams and plans to become the first Black female classical pianist, she needed the income and accepted the job.

Word spread about this new pianist and singer who was dipping into the songbooks of Gershwin, Cole Porter, Richard Rodgers, and the like, transforming popular tunes of the day into a unique synthesis of jazz, blues, and classical music.

Her rich, deep velvet vocal tones, combined with her mastery of the keyboard, soon attracted club goers up and down the East Coast. In order to hide the fact that she was singing in bars, her mother would refer to the practice as “working in the fires of hell.”

“Little One” Simone

Overnight, Eunice Waymon became Nina Simone by taking the nickname “Nina” meaning “little one” in Spanish and “Simone” after the actress Simone Signoret.

At the age of twenty-four, she came to the attention of the record industry. After submitting a demo of songs, she had recorded during a performance in New Hope, Pennsylvania, she was signed by Syd Nathan, owner of the Ohio-based King Records (home to James Brown), to his Jazz imprint, Bethlehem Records.

The boisterous Nathan had insisted on choosing songs for her debut set, but eventually relented and allowed her to delve into the repertoire she had been performing at clubs up and down the eastern seaboard.

One of her stated musical influences was Billie Holiday, and her inspired reading of “Porgy” (from “Porgy & Bess”) heralded the arrival of a new talent on the national scene.

My High School Days

When one of her “To Be Young, Gifted, and Black” song hit the airwaves, it was an instant winner, especially for the students of color at Metuchen High School. It helped induce so much pride that we all needed. It really boosted confidence and pride in who we were and how we could contribute to the world.

Simone Tops the British Charts

She also cut “My Baby Just Cares For Me,” previously recorded by Nate King Cole, Count Basie, and Woody Herman. The song was used by Chanel in a perfume commercial in Europe in the 1980s and it became a massive hit for her, a British chart-topper at #5.

Interesting Facts About Nina Simone

Her Advocacy Began at Age 12

Simone's musical talent was clear from a young age, as she often played at church revivals. At just 12 years old, she had her first classical piano recital. She was shocked when her parents were asked to move to the back of the hall for white attendees.

Simone refused to play until her parents were seated at the front. "Nina never had a moment of dishonesty in her life," says Liz Garbus. "For a young girl to play a piano recital in the Jim Crow South in the 1940s and demand that her parents not be put to the back—this is a person who is incredibly bold and speaks truth to power.

Note: Liz Garbus wrote the book “What Happened, Miss Simone?” in 2015. Nina Simone married Andy Stroud and Lisa Stroud is their daughter.

And she continued doing that throughout her career.

"Can you imagine putting in five hours of practice every day for five to seven years, and then at your audition, they reject you not because you weren't good enough, but because of how you look?" – Lisa Celeste Stroud.

Rejected from Classical Music School for Being Black Simone's career as a popular singer was shaped by racial discrimination.

Denied Admission to Curtis Institute

She dreamed of becoming a classical musician, but her hopes were dashed when she was denied entry to the prestigious Curtis Institute in Philadelphia—a decision that would haunt her for the rest of her career.

The Curtis Institute awarded Simone an honorary degree two days before her death in 2003. A Revolutionary Figure "Artists today can flip off the police or tell an audience to get out, but for a dark-skinned African-American woman to be doing it at that time... it was revolutionary.

Which made a lot of people very uncomfortable, of course." Simone's involvement in the civil rights movement evolved into a militant black separatism that led her to declare American society as "nothing but a cancer."

Living next to Malcolm X in the late 1960s, she boldly introduced herself to Martin Luther King by saying, "I'm not non-violent." "One thing I hope the film does is help you understand the rage (that Nina felt)," says Garbus.

"There were those who channeled that rage into non-violence, and there were those who believed that violence should be met with violence, and I understand all of those perspectives."

Addressing Injustice in Song

"Mississippi Goddam," a furious response to the murder of Medgar Evers and the Alabama church bombing that killed four children in 1963, was a pivotal moment in the history of black protest music, released before other artists like Sam Cooke, Marvin Gaye, Curtis Mayfield, James Brown, or Stevie Wonder made their own political statements.

"Being a black person (in the 60s), there were certain things that it was understood you just didn’t talk about," says Stroud. "Because if you did, somebody might get killed, and it wasn’t going to be the white folks.

So, there is a certain code, a certain silence in order for us to survive. But after those children were blown up in church, my mom had the guts and the courage to just say, 'You know what? Forget this.'"

Simone Struggles With Depression

Battling Bipolar Disorder Simone's temper often terrified her friends and family, who were puzzled by her frequent violent mood swings. Her diaries reveal a deeply troubled individual plagued by suicidal thoughts and who responded to beatings by her husband by professing to "love physical violence."

"It was very sad to see the depth of Nina’s depression," says Garbus, "and she certainly said in numerous pages of her diary that she wanted to die. It makes you understand and appreciate her survival through it all."

She was diagnosed with bipolar disorder in the 1980s and was prescribed Trilafon to help manage her mood swings. "My mother suffered greatly, but she also left us with pearls and gifts of wisdom," says Lisa Stroud (one of her children).

"Sometimes I try to put myself in her shoes and ask what I would have done if I was her. Would I have curled up in a fetal position in the nearest closet I could find? Would I have taken a one-way ticket to Tibet? Would I have tried to commit suicide? I don’t know, but I don’t know I would have had the same strength that she did."

Simone Receives and Honorary Degree

In 1991, Simone released her autobiography titled "I Put a Spell on You," named after her renowned 1965 song. The Curtis Institute of Music, which had previously rejected her in 1950, honored her with a doctorate in music and humanities in 2003. Two days later, she passed away from cancer at her residence in Carry-le-Rouet, France.

Simone Inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame

Although scholars have often overlooked Simone's legacy due to her genre-crossing music, she significantly impacted American music. Artists such as Aretha Franklin, Rufus Wainwright, and Roberta Flack have acknowledged her as a major influence. In 2008, Rolling Stone included Simone in its list of the 100 Greatest Singers of All Time, and she was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2018.

Lena Horne, Another Powerful Legend

Lena Horne was born on June 30, 1917, in Brooklyn, New York. Her parents separated when she was just three years old, so she spent a lot of time with her grandparents and traveling with her mom, who was an actress. Her father was a banker and professional gambler that was never available to her.

When she was 16, Lena dropped out of school and started performing at the Cotton Club in Harlem. She made her Broadway debut in 1934 and even joined a few bands as a singer. But she faced a lot of challenges because of racial prejudice, so she couldn't always stay or socialize at the places where she performed.

In 1943, Lena got a big break and became the highest-paid Black entertainer at the time. She signed a contract with MGM Studios and appeared in movies like "Cabin in the Sky" and "Stormy Weather," which became her signature song.

She also got involved in the Civil Rights Movement and spoke out against discrimination. In the 1950s, Lena was blacklisted during the McCarthy era, but she continued to perform in nightclubs and on TV. In the 1960s, she released albums like "Feelin' Good" and "Lena in Hollywood" and participated in the 1963 March on Washington.

In 1981, Lena made a big comeback with her one-woman show, "Lena Horne: The Lady and Her Music," which won awards and toured internationally. She gave one of her last concerts in 1994 and then mostly stayed out of the public eye.

Lena was married twice and had two children. Her life had its ups and downs, but music was always her refuge and salvation. She died of heart failure on May 9, 2010, in New York City, but she hoped her legacy as a Black woman, artist, and activist would live on. She was 92 and had lived a full life.

Both Lena Horne and Nina Simone suffered through harsh discrimination and social injustice. However, they rose to higher heights and today their legacies are left for generations to come. They both left their indelible marks of creativity and excellence in their respective fields of entertainment and in the theatrical world. Their legacies were not forged in vain.

Lena Horne QUOTES

My identity is very clear to me now. I am a Black woman. I’m free. I no longer have to be a ‘credit.’ I don’t have to be a symbol to anybody; I don’t have to be a first to anybody. I don’t have to be an imitation of a white woman that Hollywood sort of hoped I’d become. I’m me, and I’m like nobody else.

No one bothered to put me in a movie where I talked to anybody, where some thread of the story might be broken if I were cut. I had no communication with anybody. I began to feel depressed about it, wasted emotionally.

It’s taken me 40-some-odd years to grow comfortable with this song ["Stormy Weather"]. My skin has grown around it. And no matter where it came from or how I got it, I’m allowed to sing it the way I feel.

My life has been about surviving. Along the way I also became an artist. It's an interesting journey. One in which music became my refuge and then my salvation.

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TheRachele