L'hommage: Nina Simone | Magazine Rack

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY (No. 708) 5/2003

DIVINE CHANTEUSE
by Larry Blumenfeld

   Although she had just one top 20 hit – a 1959 version of Gershwin’s “I Loves You, Porgy”
– Nina Simone’s influence never faded. When she died at 70 after a long illness on April 21, at
her home in Carry-le-Rouet, France, she was still a popular if enigmatic star.
   In the late 1980s, Simone’s haunting rendition of “My Baby Just Cares For Me” became the
theme for Chanel No.5 perfume TV ads. Like an alluring fragrance, her voice was powerful,
unforgettable, and impossible to classify. As a singer and pianist, Simone had a emotionally
direct style that freely blended jazz, blues, gospel and European art song. In the ‘60s, she was
a prominent civil rights activist. Her “Mississippi Goddam” was an impassioned response to the
murder of civil rights leader Medgar Evars. “To Be Young, Gifted and Black,” which she co-
wrote, became an anthem for Aretha Franklin.
   Born Eunice Waymon, in Tryon, NC, Simone earned a scholarship to the Juilliard School of
Music in 1950, later getting a job playing piano and singing in an Atlantic City bar. She
changed her name so her mother wouldn’t find out.
   Simone interpreted an eclectic repertoire – from Screamin’ Jay Hawinks’ “I Put a Spell on
You” to Kurt Weill and Jacques Brel to the Beatles’ “Here Comes The Sun.” In her 1991
autobiography, “I Put a Spell on You,” she wrote, “Calling me a jazz singer was a way of
ignoring my musical background, because I didn’t fit into white ideas of what a black performer
should be.” Simone left the US in 1974, settling in France. She is survived by three brothers, a
sister and a daughter, Lisa, known professionally as Simone and currently on Broadway in
Aida.