The Nina Simone Fan Club is run by David Nathan with assistance from his sister Sylvia. David is not a star-struck fan. He knows where it’s at. In fact, David works in Soul City record shop and therefore is in touch with the current trends. As the president of the Fan Club, David is in a unique position in that he suggests to the record company which records they should release by Nina Simone.
I saw David and Sylvia (it sounds like a singing duo, doesn’t it?) together with RCA boss Terry Oates and they told me how this came to pass.
“I’ve been running the Fan Club for four years now,” David said. “After a while I had to get my sister in to help with the work. Nina, of course, has always had a following. But things have really started to happen for her since “Ain’t Got No – I Got Life” went into the charts. She will be coming to Britain in March for concerts with her own group and singers and I’m sure she will knock everybody out.
“When I first wanted to form the Fan Club, I got her permission. Then when she came over that, I met her at London Airport at 6:30 in the morning. She asked me where all the fans were and I had to tell her that 6:30 in the morning was a bit early for most people.”
Terry Oates was very pleased that a Fan Club showed such constructive reasoning about one of RCA’s artistes. “When David first started writing to us, we took notice,” Terry mentioned. “We knew that the writer knew what he was doing. We respected his judgment. In fact it was David who suggested we should issue ‘To Love Somebody’ as a follow-up to ‘Ain’t Got No – I Got Life’.”
Obviously David and Sylvia help Nina Simone a great deal, and in return Nina helps them.
“We receive newsletter and all sorts of information from Nina,” David informed me. “Also RCA keeps us up to date with material. So one way or the other, we know everything that Nina is doing.”
It is a refreshing thought to know that there is at least one fan club in this country which has got the ear of a record company.