NINA SIMONE REMEMBERED
by David Nathan
In trying to get close to the essence of this unique woman, it’s popular to consider the musical milestones of her career; torch songs like I Loves You Porgy, her reading of the Gershwin song that catapulted her to mainstream fame in the US in 1959; or tunes expressing her outrage at injustice and prejudice such as Mississippi Goddamn, alongside anthems of empowerment and inspiration like To Be Young, Gifted and Black.
But there was also the everyday life, sex for sex’s sake stuff of I Want A Little Sugar In My Bowl, laden with double entendre, and seldom mentioned album cuts like Gimme Some (from 1965’s I Put A Spell On You), Turn Me On (from 1967’s Silk And Soul), Tell Me More And More And Then Some (from the 1965 album, Pastel Blues) and Do I Move You, a track on her 1966 RCA debut Nina Simone Sings The Blues. Even at 66, sex was still on the menu. A few years back we dined in Philadelphia after she had received one of the few music industry awards accorded her (this one, fittingly, by the International Association of African-American Music). With typical aplomb, she confided that she had a South African boyfriend. “Are you in love?” I asked. “No, I’m not in love!” she boomed back, before graphically describing one of the gentleman’s chief amorous attributes.
And then, as anyone who has studied her vast repertoire would discover, these lusty expressions were simply part of her innate desire to reflect all human emotion. No contemporary artist has ever had the sheer audacity to move from Jacques Brel’s poignant Ne Me Quitte Pas to R&B songwriter Van McCoy’s raucous Break Down And Let It All Out, and then switch to an African chant (like Zungo), an Israeli folk song (Erets Zavat Chalav), a Duke Ellington standard (Do Nothin’ Till You Hear From Me) and a Billie Holiday classic (Don’t Explain). It was as if Nina, the consummate storyteller, was determined to explore every level of human experience through her music and one could conclude that it was because she had invested herself in a life lived to the hilt, and often on the edge.
The edge? Standing in front of a mostly-white crowd at the London Palladium circa 1968 around the time she was experiencing unimaginable pop success with a combination of Ain’t Got No and I Got Life, two songs from the Broadway musical Hair, she declared that she was doing the show for “the black people in the audience”. As co-presidents of the very first Nina Simone fan club (formed in 1965), my sister Sylvia and I were aghast in the wings as Nina asked the non-white patrons (maybe 10 percent of the crowded auditorium) to stand. But such was Simone, unpredictable, volatile and sometimes quick to anger, as she was when she played the Ram Jam club in Brixton in 1967. Performing bore a mostly Jamaican audience, Nina was not expecting the increasingly verbal requests for her to sing My Baby Just Cares For Me. Fury took over: she slammed down the lid of the piano and stormed off. I ran backstage where then-husband-manager Andy Stroud was attempting to reason with his wife. “They want you to sing My Baby Just Cares For Me,” I offered with a 19-year-old’s timidity. “I ain’t singin’ that shit!” she shot back. Fervent pleas from the club owner, and a glass or two of gin from Andy, coaxed her back. “Well, this is what you want, huh?” Nina said menacingly, summoning up every piece of past life voodoo high priestess she could muster has she launched into a blistering version of the old Frank Sinatra song. The audience went crazy and once again, a defiant yet triumphant Simone left folks begging for more. With the kind of irony that could only exist in a life like hers, My Baby Just Cares For Me would become a Top 5 British hit for Nina nearly 30 years later when it was used for a Chanel perfume TV advert.
The journey from child prodigy growing up in the segregated South to the hallowed halls of Europe and beyond was no easy one for Simone. Her vision of making her mark as a prominent black female classical pianist were dashed when she was denied entry into Philadelphia’s Curtis Institute Of Music in 1954: she took to performing in dimly-lit-nightclubs, transforming herself from Eunice Waymon to Nina Simone, utilizing her training in the classics to create a style uniquely her own. Thus, she began an astonishing musical career, virtually by default. She never completely got over the rejection from Curtis, blaming it on racism. During our last dinner together in 1999, blocks away from the school that had denied her childhood dream, she said words to the effect that she had had the last laugh – but there was a wistful tone in her voice. We will never know what life Nina Simone might have had if the Curtis Institute had accepted her and she had had that career as a classical pianist. But we can speculate that the world might have been denied an incredible talent.
I will never forget standing at London airport in 1965 greeting Nina, Andy and her four-year-old daughter Lisa Celeste, flowers in hand, on her first visit to the UK. Little did we know that European audiences would play such a pivotal role in her career and life. All I knew back then was that the woman who sang Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood had a voice that would resonate in my soul for decades, evoking every possible emotion through her music. Peace be still, Nina.
by Jim Irvin
One of music’s most bountiful and rewarding catalogues is also one of its most sprawling and, until recently, nearly impossible to complete. Dr. Simone’s huge output suggests she worked hard cutting records, but this ferocious talent didn’t approach every date with equal enthusiasm or preparedness –if she wasn’t in the mood she made it plain in her performance – and, having written a good original song or diverting arrangement of a classic, she was wont to revisit it many times. Consequently, there’s a wild contrast in quality among the dozens of albums released in her lifetime and, with so many live sets I the list, enough repetition of the repertoire to baffle the casual browser in the racks.
So, where to begin? Every home should have a copy of her Bethlehem recordings. She cut just 14 sides for the label in 1957 – including the definitive version of My Baby Just Cares For Me – which have been recycled in many guises, originally on her debut, an 11-tracker called Jazz As Played In An Exclusive Side Street Club, also known as Little Girl Blue. Both editions have appeared on CD. Charly compiled them in the ‘80s and the same tracks have appeared since on budget CDs through Music Club and Zyn. Make sure you get one which includes He Needs Me.
The bulk of her work was with Colpix (1959-64), Philips (1964-7) and RCA (1967-74). The Colpix years are the least well known, with less high-profile reissues, but most of the good stuff’s on CD. Look for the studio albums The Amazing Nina Simone (1959, available on the Collectables label) and Forbidden Fruit (1961) which comes with Sings Ellington and Folksy Nina (1964), recorded live at Carnegie Hall, on a great-value Westside CD.
The first Philips studio album was I Put A Spell On You with its awesome title track and the ever-popular Feeling Good, coupled on Mercury CD with definitive live set, In Concert. A more radical side is heard on Pastel Blues (aka Tell Me More), a superb session featuring the epic Sinnerman. For her most personal and vulnerable music, seek out Wild Is The Wind, beautiful, tender and cut when her marriage to manager Andy Stroud was on the rocks.
The RCA years began with Sings The Blues and the electrifying, Grammy-nominated Nuff Said (1968), featuring smash single Ain’t Got No and Do What You Gotta Do. But Nina’s own favourite album was the poor-selling Nina Simone And Piano (1969), a spare but rich, if challenging recording that demands a listener’s utmost attention. More useful as mood music is Silk And Soul or the best recent reissue, comprising Here Comes The Sun (1971) – a near-perfect pop collection – and its nearest cousin, To Love Somebody (1969). Only the serious fan should attempt Emergency Ward (1972) – Nina preachin’ and grieving at a US army base. A fine BMG comp Sugar In My Bowl surveys the RCA years on two CDs with some rare material.
After that, it’s a bit of a gamble, with the ‘70s, ‘80s and ‘90s seeing fewer albums on more labels with ever-diminishing returns. Avoid, in-particular, the clumping ‘80s production of Nina’s Back (1985) but enjoy her lone outing for soul-jazz imprint CTI, Baltimore (1978) , a smooth, subtle session with great versions of songs by Randy Newman and Judy Collins.