Shop for Vinyl, CDs and more from Nina Simone at the Discogs Marketplace. Nina Simone is, in my mind, one of the most significant and influential singer-songwriters of all time. https://www.biography.com/musician/nina-simone. Her music teacher helped establish a special fund to pay for Simone's education and, after finishing high school, the same fund was used to send the pianist to New York City's famed Juilliard School of Music to train. Nina Simone was an American singer, songwriter, pianist, and arranger Born Eunice Kathleen Waymon in Tryon, North Carolina in 1933, Nina Simone went on to become one of the true icons of 20th-Century American music. Nina Simone was born Eunice Waymon in Tryon in 1933. Nina Simone Is A Member Of . Simon Cowell is a record producer and media personality known for his scathing critical remarks as a judge on the TV competition shows 'American Idol,' 'The X Factor' and 'America's Got Talent. It also included her lone Top 20 pop hit with her version of "I Loves You Porgy," from the George and Ira Gershwin musical Porgy and Bess. She died at the age of 70 on April 21, 2003, at her home in Carry-le-Rouet, France. Before long, she started singing along with her music at the behest of a bar owner. Nina Simone was born as Eunice Kathleen Waymon in 1933 in Tryon, North Carolina, daughter of John D. Waylon and Mary Kate Waymon, an ordained Methodist minister. So, saying what sort of music I played gave the critics problems because there was something from everything in there, but it also meant I was appreciated across the board – by jazz, folk, pop and blues fans as well as admirers of classical music.” Clearly Nina Simone was not an artist who could be easily classified. Her classical training showed through, no matter what genre of song she played, and she drew from a well of sources that included gospel, pop and folk. He is known for his work as part of the duo Simon & Garfunkel, and for his long-running success as a solo artist. 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. Her music was enjoyed by the masses due to the CD revolution, discovery on the Internet, and exposure through movies and television. ', Louis Armstrong was a jazz trumpeter, bandleader and singer known for songs like "What a Wonderful World,” “Hello, Dolly,” ”Star Dust” and "La Vie En Rose.”. After Nina left RCA, she spent a good deal of the 1970’s and early 1980’s living in Liberia, Barbados, England, Belgium, France, Switzerland and The Netherlands. Nina Simone Biography. She was the consummate musical storyteller, a griot as she would come to learn, who used her remarkable talent to create a legacy of liberation, empowerment, passion, and love through a magnificent body of works. The boisterous Nathan had insisted on choosing songs for her debut set, but eventually relented and allowed Nina to delve in the repertoire she had been performing at clubs up and down the eastern seaboard. Backed by a stellar cast of New York CIty session musicians, the album was far and away Nina’s most down-home recording session. Simone Signoret. It was difficult for them because I was playing popular songs in a classical style with a classical piano technique influenced by cocktail jazz. Read Full Biography… Nina Simone’s stay with Bethlehem Records was short lived and in 1959, after moving to New York City, she was signed by Joyce Selznik, the eastern talent scout for Colpix Records, a division of Columbia Pictures. 28 reviews Born Eunice Kathleen Waymon in North Carolina at the tail-end of the Great Depression, Nina Simone was a precocious child with dreams of becoming the worlds first black classical soloist. First Name Nina #7. Simone later said that during this performance, her parents, who had taken seats in the front row, were forced to move to … Jazz Singers. Months after the release of her debut LP for the label (1959‘s The Amazing Nina Simone), Nina was performing at her first major New York City venue, the mid-Manhattan-located Town Hall. Along the way at RCA, songs penned by Bob Dylan (“Just Like A Woman”), the brothers Gibb (“To Love Somebody”), and Tina Turner (“Funkier Than A Mosquito’s Tweeter”) took pride of place alongside Nina’s own anthem of empowerment, the classic “To Be Young, Gifted, & Black,” a song written in memory of Nina’s good friend Lorraine Hansberry. With two marriages behind her in 1993 she settled in Carry-le-Rout, near Aix-en-Provence in Southern France. Turning away from classical music, she started playing American standards, jazz and blues in Atlantic City clubs in the 1950s. In 1998, she appeared in the New York tri-state area, her first trip there in five years, specifically playing at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center in Newark. Most Popular #9111. Elektra tapped producer Andre Fischer, noted conductor Jeremy Lubbock, and a trio of respected musicians to provide the suitable environment for this highly personal reading of “A Single Woman,” which became the centerpiece and title track for Nina Simone’s final full length album. Nina Simone was a genre-defying musician whose recordings blended jazz, folk, classical piano and blues. She died on April 21, 2003 in Carry-le-Rouet, Bouches-du-Rhône, France. Using never-before-heard recordings, rare archival footage and her best-known songs, this is the story of legendary singer and activist Nina Simone. Word spread about this new singer and pianist 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 own original “Mississippi Goddam” was banned throughout the South but such a response made no difference in Nina’s unyielding commitment to liberty; subsequent groundbreaking recordings for Philips like “Four Women” (recorded September 1965) and “Strange Fruit” continued to keep Nina in the forefront of the few performers willing to use music as a vehicle for social commentary and change. Nina Simone was one of the most gifted vocalists of her generation, and also one of the most eclectic. with photos] on Amazon.com. Eunice Kathleen Waymon, conhecida pelo nome artístico Nina Simone (Tryon, 21 de fevereiro de 1933 — Carry-le-Rouet, 21 de abril de 2003) foi uma pianista, cantora, compositora e ativista pelos direitos civis dos negros norte-americanos. Critics gave the album a warm reception, but it did not fare well commercially. Her career took an unexpected turn, however, when she was rejected from the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia; she later claimed the school denied her admittance because she was African American. Nina’s prodigious talent as a musician was evident early on when she started playing piano by ear at the age of three. In 1978, for the first time since she left RCA, Nina was convinced by U.S. jazz veteran Creed Taylor to make an album for his CTI label. Lisa, from Simone's second marriage to manager Andrew Stroud, followed in her mother's footsteps. Simone aspired to become a classical pianist while working in a broad range of styles including classical, jazz, blues, soul, folk, rhythm and blues, gospel, and pop. Eunice Kathleen Waymon (21 February 1933 21 April 2003), better known by her stage name Nina Simone, was an American singer-songwriter, pianist, arranger, and civil rights activist widely associated with jazz music. And she showed her sensual side with tracks like "Take Care of Business" on 1965's I Put a Spell on You and "I Want a Little Sugar in My Bowl" on 1967's Nina Simone Sings the Blues. Nina Simone Project. Nina herself would later claimed that she ”hated” the record but many fans strongly disagreed. In her autobiography, Nina Simone writes that her function as an artist is “…to make people feel on a deep level. Singer-songwriter Paul Simon is an iconic figure in American rock music. The late Nina Simone’s younger brother, Sam Waymon, who played in her band for years, joined our Rolling Stone Music Now podcast for a uniquely intimate look … It had a beautifully constructed reggae-like beat and used some of the finest musicians producer Creed Taylor could find including Nina’s guitarist and music director, Al Schackman. Simone went through a career renaissance in the 1980s when her song "My Baby Just Cares For Me" was used in a Chanel No. an artist's duty is to reflect the times... {{classes.artistPrefix + ' ' + list.tracks[currentTrack].album_artist}}, {{list.tracks[currentTrack].track_title}}, {{list.tracks[currentTrack].album_title}}. Born Eunice Kathleen Waymon on February 21, 1933, in Tryon, North Carolina, Nina Simone took to music at an early age, learning to play piano at the age of 3 and singing in her church's choir. By the mid-1960s, Simone became known as the voice of the Civil Rights Movement. After much wining and dining, Nina finally signed on the dotted line. One of jazz music's all-time greats, bandleader-pianist Count Basie was a primary shaper of the big-band sound that characterized mid-20th century popular music. “You Can Have Him,” a glorious torch song previously cut by Peggy Lee and Ella Fitzgerald, was one of the highlights of the evening. During this time with the label, Nina recorded one civil rights song, Oscar Brown Jr.’s “Brown Baby,” which was included on her fifth album for the label, At The Village Gate. One of Nina’s 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. Born Eunice Kathleen Waymon in Tryon, North Carolina on February 21st, 1933. Nina Simone And Her Friends, which featured outtakes from the Little Girl Blue sessions, was released after Simone had switched to the Colpix Records label. She had a thriving career for many years before she lost her battle with addiction. When Nina Simone died on April 21, 2003, she left 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. After the assassination of Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968, Simone's bassist Greg Taylor penned "Why (The King of Love Is Dead)," which was performed by the singer and her band at the Westbury Music Festival. Simone's musical training over the years emphasized classical repertory along the lines of Beethoven and Brahms, with Simone later expressing the desire to have been recognized as the first major African American concert pianist. And until songs like ‘Mississippi Goddam’ just burst out of me, I had musical problems as well. Portrait of Nina Simone in concert in Morlaix, France during 1982. Jazz Singer #6. The song thus became a Top 10 hit in Britain in 1985. However, we might not have had the chance to witness the breathtaking range of material Nina could cover if she hadn’t taken the path she did. One gets a sense of that in the following passage from I Put A Spell on You where she explains her initial reluctance to perform material that was tied to the Civil Rights Movement. She would continue to tour through the 1990’s and became very much ‘the single woman’ she sang about on her last label recording. While thirty-three years separate those recordings, the element of honest emotion is the glue that binds the two together – it is that approach to every piece of work that became Nina’s uncompromising musical trademark. She died on April 21, 2003 in Carry-le-Rouet, Bouches-du-Rhône, France. Princess Noire—The Tumultuous Reign of Nina Simone (Cohodas 2010), a slew of compilation CDs, rare live footage now available online, and a controversial new biopic, Nina Simone cannot be fully comprehended by post-CRM generations. Pisces. Watch trailers & learn more. By this time, Nina had become central to a circle of African American playwrights, poets, and writers all centered in Harlem along with the previously mentioned Lorraine Hansberry, James Baldwin and Langston Hughes. By the end of her life, Nina was enjoying an unprecedented degree of recognition. Under different labels, Simone released a bevy of albums from the late '50s throughout the '60s and early '70s, including records like The Amazing Nina Simone (1959), Nina Simone Sings Ellington! With the kind of “clean” sound that was a hallmark of CTI recordings, the Nina Simone album that emerged was simply brilliant. Simone taught piano and worked as an accompanist for other performers while at Juilliard, but she eventually had to leave school after she ran out of funds. Nina’s seven years with RCA produced some remarkable recordings, ranging from two songs featured in the Broadway musical “Hair” (combined into a medley, “Ain’t Got No – I Got Life,” a #2 British hit in 1968) to a Simone-ified version of George Harrison’s “Here Comes The Sun,” which remained in Nina’s repertoire all the way through to her final performance in 2002. 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. She rarely traveled without an entourage, but if you were fortunate enough to get to know the woman behind the music you could glimpse the solitary soul that understood the pain of being misunderstood. 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