Byography of

NINA SIMONE
Carolina Tapia Ávila

Byography of Nina Simone

Nina Simone is the stage name of Eunice Waymon.

She was born in Tryon, a town in North Carolina, United States, on February 21, 1933.

Eunice (Nina) was the sixth in a family of eight siblings.

Her parents had a very varied ancestry: Africans who had come as slaves to North America, Indians and Irish.

Nina Simone grew up surrounded by music. At home, all the brothers sang and played an instrument.

She had never taken classes outside the home, she had learned everything from each other, watching and listening.

Nina was a child prodigy who at 3 years old began to play the piano with great talent.

From a very young age, she stood out for her exceptional powers; when she turned 6, her parents made her follow classical piano studies.

As for the development of her voice, she started singing at her local church.
 In 1945, when she was 12 years old, she made her public debut with a piano recital as part of the school parties.

When Eunice realized what was happening, she refused to continue playing until her parents reoccupied the front chairs.

That was the way things were in those years, and that was Nina’s character.

Nina Simone had valuable help in her environment

Her piano teacher, an old white and Jewish woman, admired by the girl’s exceptional talent, wanted to help her start a musical career.

With contributions from friends and neighbors who enjoyed listening to Eunice (Nina Simone), the old woman raised funds so that her
parents could send her to study in New York.

John Waynon and Mary Kate did not hesitate for a moment to enroll her in the prestigious “Juilliard School of Music” in New York City.
 She start as a professional singer

Due to these disappointments and to help her family financially, in 1954 Eunice (Nina Simone) decided to abandon classical music; she
showed up to work at an Atlantic City nightclub.
Eunice only performed as a pianist, but the owner wanted her to sing.

During the 1960s, she became deeply involved in the Civil Rights Movement and recorded some political songs; some of them performed
by Aretha Franklin.

In 1961, Nina Simone recorded a cover of the traditional song “House of the Rising Sun“, which would also later be recorded by Bob Dylan.
 Noé Humberto Canales Cortés

In that year she recorded several more songs, which made her even more famous.

She was a very versatile artist and she loved audiences, going from one style to another in the same concert.

In 1963 there was the murder of Medgar Evers and a terrorist attack on the Birmingham church in Alabama by white supremacists, resulting in the
death of four black girls.

As a rejection of these violent crimes against black people, Nina Simone recorded several songs in defense of the right to be free and to live with
dignity.

Of that period is her first protest song, in the form of soul: “Mississippi goddam!” (‘Mississippi, damn you!’), in which she expressed her rage and
helplessness.
Since then she has been called the High Priestess of Soul.

Nina Simone’s mighty voice was heard by millions of people.

Throughout the 1960s, Nina Simone revived Billie Holiday, Bob Dylan, Johan Sebastian Bach, Ray Charles, Jacques Brel, Miriam Makeba in her songs;
all enhanced in their qualities by the genius of Nina.
 To make sure of this, just listen to their versions of “Ne me quitte pas” or “My way“. Her popularity in France reinforced that of Edith Piaf.

Some of her recitals became incendiary proclamations to white audiences who came to hear her fascinated.
She was a prime example of how racial discrimination caused extraordinary talents to be wasted in the United States.

Nina Simone was one of the famous artists who accompanied Martin Luther King in the front row in the massive marches that he organized from
1965 against racial discrimination.

The murder of Martin Luther King in April 1968 was the last straw in her boredom for living in a country that despised her black race.

On July 4, 1968, Nina Simone made her debut at the Newport Jazz Festival.

She sang “Blacklash Blues” and “Why, The King of love is Dead” in memory of Martin Luther King.

It was her definitive consecration as a diva. Among other established artists, Duke Ellington and Glenn Miller performed.

Subsequently, Nina Simone resided in Switzerland and the Netherlands before finally settling in Aix-en-Provence, in southern France, in 1992.
She traveled on average in Switzerland partly for artistic commitments and also to escape depression.

In 1992 various themes of Nina Simone appeared in the movie “The Assassin“, starring Bridget Jones, one of her great admirers.

That year she published her autobiography, entitled “I put a spell on you”, which was immediately translated into French, German and Dutch.

In 1993, she settled definitively in the south of France, and published her latest album recorded in a studio studio: “A single woman“.
 On July 24, 1998, she was one of the guests of honor at the party organized to celebrate Nelson Mandela’s 80th birthday.

In 1999, at the Dublin Guinness Blues Festival after receiving an award for artistic triumphs throughout her career, she sang duets with her daughter
Lisa Celeste.

With a complicated personality, she became arrogant, arrogant and very passionate.

Nina Simone passed away in her sleep on April 21, 2003 at her home in Carry-le-Rouet, a seaside resort town near Marseille in southern France.

The Sundance Film Festival (held annually the last two weeks of January in the town of Park City, near Salt Lake City, the capital of the state of Utah, in
the United States) opened the first night of 2015, with a documentary by the famous director Liz Garbus, with the documentary “What happened,
Miss Simone?”

In this magnificent documentary, the director immerses herself, through testimonies, music files and interviews, in Nina’s life and drew her with her
lights and shadows.

She expertly showed the combat of a woman who fought for the freedom of her art and music, and for her identity as a black American.