Most artists in the music filed fall into one of two categories, either fine vocalists or great musicians, but Nina shows both talents with equal brilliance. It would be a musical inaccuracy to categorize her singing as strictly popular, jazz, folk or gospel, because while she sings in all of these idioms she cannot be pigeonholed in any one of them exclusively.
Her keyboard ability, too, displays a rare extent of musical breadth, ranging from the studied discipline of a concert pianist to the improvisational and imaginative scope of a jazz musician.
She became a top name entertainer during the summer of 1959 through her recording of “I Love You Porgy.” Then began a long series of highly acclaimed personal appearances in leading clubs and concert halls throughout the country.
Born Eunice Waymon on February 21, 1935, in the obscure North Carolina town of Tryon, Nina was the sixth of eight children. Her father was a handyman, and her mother worked as a housekeeper during the day, but at night donned the robes of an ordained Methodist minister.
At the age of four Nina was playing piano by ear; at seven she was also playing organ. A few years later she began taking classical piano lessons. Nina attended high school in Asheville, NC, graduated valedictorian and then studied for a year and a half at the Juilliard School of Music in New York. There she studied piano and theory with Carl Friedberg.
During this period, Nina’s family moved to Philadelphia to be close to her. Nina soon joined her family, went to work as an accompanist for vocal students at the Arlene Smith Studio and also gave private lessons. With her earnings she studied with Valdimer Sokooff at Curtis Institute of Music. Although her formal training had always been the classical medium, she had a natural flair for improvising and did just that on classical music, spirituals and popular tunes.
In 1954, when the studio closed for the summer, Nina tried to get a job in one of the local clubs. She got one in Atlantic City for $90 a week. On the first night she reported for work, she had a terrifying experience, but on which proved to be a major turning point in her career.
As she started playing, the club owner approached the piano and told her she had to sing as well. She had never sung in her entire life. Out of desperation she tried, and no one was more amazed that Nina when she saw she was wowing the audience – an audience made up primarily of college students and young people who even today represent her most enthusiastic group of followers.
It was that same night, too, that she changed her name to Nina Simone for fear that night club work would displease her parents as well as the parents of her students. She chose the name Nina because in childhood she had been called Nina, meaning “little one.” Simone just happened to go well with it.
The entertainment world hailed her as one of the greatest musical finds of all time.