<back - NINA SIMONE aka EUNICE WAYMON - Eunice Waymon was born on February 21, 1933 Tryon, North Carolina as the 6th of 7 children in a poor family. The child prodigy played piano at the age of 4. With the help of her music teacher, who set up the "Eunice Waymon Fund", she could continue her general and musical education. She studied at the Julliard School of Music in New York. To support her family financially, she started working as an accompanist. In the summer of 1954 she took a job in an Irish bar in Atlantic City, New Jersey. The bar owner told her she had to sing as well. Without having time to realize what was happening, Eunice Waymon, who was trained to become a classical pianist, stepped into show business.

She changed her name into Nina (little one) Simone (from the French actress Simone Signoret). Of all the major singers of the late 20th century, Nina Simone was one of the hardest to classify. She recorded extensively in Soul, Jazz, and Pop idioms, as well as Blues, Gospel, and Broadway. Like Aretha Franklin, Simone was an eclectic who brought soulful qualities to whatever material she interpreted. These qualities were among her strongest virtues, but they also may have kept her from attaining a truly mass audience. In the late '50s, Simone began recording for the small Bethlehem label (a subsidiary of King label). In 1959, her version of George Gershwin's 'I Loves You Porgy' gave her a Top 20 hit, which would, amazingly, prove to be the only Top 40 entry of her career. In the early '60s, she recorded no less than 9 albums for the Candix label, about half of them live. Her best recorded work was issued on Philips during the mid-'60s, releasing 7 titles within a 3 year period. Other highlights were her versions of Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood, and the Screamin' Jay Hawkins classic I Put a Spell on You. Simone next signed with RCA in the 60s to '70s saw the release of 9 albums. Nina Simone fell on turbulent times in the 1970s, divorcing her husband/manager Andy Stroud, encountering serious financial problems, and becoming something of a nomad. After leaving RCA, she recorded rarely, although she did make the critically well-received Baltimore in 1978 for the small CTI label. In 1993, her record A Single Woman marked her return to an American major label, and her profile was also boosted when several of her songs were featured in the film Point of No Return. She published her biography, I Put a Spell on You, in 1991, but grew increasingly frail throughout the late '90s. Nina Simone passed away after a long illness at her home in her villa in Carry-le-Rouet (South of France) on April 21, 2003. The High Priestess of Soul, who held an Honorary Doctor in Music and Humanities, has legendary status as one of the very last 'griots'. Nina Simone will forever be the ultimate songstress/storyteller of our times.   MP3- I Put A Spell on You |