She recorded so many wonderful song's, leaving behind an immense archive of music for any kind of mood you may find yourself in, from up tempo raucous soul shakers to spiritually healing classical compositions to thought provoking statements that actually have an effect on the way you view our world and society. Her civil rights songs of the mid-sixties contain some of the most blazing lyrics you will ever hear from that period.

My skin is brown
And my manner is tough
I'll kill the first mother I see
Cos my life has been too rough
I'm awfully bitter these days
because my parents were slaves

She had a remarkable ability to create intoxicating visual images through her songs, for example take “See-Line Woman” a tale about a woman of dubious morals. This is the kind of lady your mother warned you about. Out of a slow building conga fade-in Nina’s voice comes in, softly chanting her yeah yeah’s over the beat, the song builds with the other instrumentation coming in. An infectious flute carryies the lyrical flow as she barely pauses from start to finish singing her sweet poetry, pausing only fleetingly to catch her breath. This is one of Nina’s sexiest moments taking the provocative subject matter and presenting it in a way that makes you really feel the sexuality of the subject come through.

See-line woman
black dress on
for a thousand dollars
she wail and she moan
see-line woman
wiggle wiggle
turn like a cat

Born Eunice Kathleen Waymon in 1933, in the segregated town of Tyron, North Caroline. She was the sixth of eight children born to her father, a local handyman and mother a local minister who also took regular work as a maid to help make ends meet.
Considered a child prodigy on the piano, at the age of six she began attending piano classes where she made so much progress that in 1943, at the age of 10, she gave her first piano recital at the town library. There she tasted racism, perhaps not for the first time, during the recital her parents were removed from the first row to accommodate some whites. This episode was a traumatic experience for her and may be the origin of her commitment to the fight for freedom and civil rights. She later received a prestigious scholarship to Julliard where she trained as a classical pianist. However it is suggested that through lack of funds she had to leave the school before graduating. A need to help feed herself and her family led to taking on work in a local club the Midtown Bar and Grill in Atlantic City playing the piano and singing. To save her mothers shame she worked under the pseudonym "Nina Simone" Nina being the Spanish word for "girl" taken from a pet name that a boyfriend gave her, and Simone from the French actress Simone Signoret for its dignified sound. She quickly became a big pull at the club with her unique fusion of folk, gospel, classical, blues and soul.

Picked up initially by Bethlehem Records in 1957, she cut the LP “Jazz as played in an Exclusive Side Street Club” the single from this LP "I Loves You Porgy” became a national rhythm & blues hit in the summer of 1959, selling over a million copies and reaching number 13. In 1959 she signed with the larger Colpix (Columbia Pictures Records) a deal that lasted until 1964. She would record 10 albums on this label.

In 1964 she moved over to Philips, a subsidiary of Mercury. This deal lasted for three years during which Nina recorded seven albums. One of the first songs recorded during the Philips period is "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood", later to be covered by the Animals in 1965 the same year Nina put out her killer version of the Screamin' Jay Hawkins classic "I Put a Spell on You”. Nina was starting to record more daring and exciting records and a new, more dangerous, side to her music was starting to emerge.
Never one to warm to classification of her art, she openly hated the term 'Jazz Singer' when referring to her sound, seeing this as a deeply racist slur, nor did she care too much for easy comparisons to the narcotic-ally fuelled Billie Holliday. "Jazz is a white term to define black people. My music is black classical music" she once said in interview. Now while that may certainly be true of the bulk of her work over the years it does not quite so easily categorise the recording she cut between the mid sixties and early seventies in reaction to the American civil rights movement of which she became closely associated with.

Her involvement with the civil rights movement provided a soundtrack to the beliefs being brought to public attention through powerful figures like the black Muslim leader Louis Farrakhan, Black Panther activist Stokely Carmichael and the legendary Malcolm X. Through powerful songs such as "Mississippi Goddam' written after the murder of black activist Medgar Evers in Mississippi in 1963 and containing the deadly lyrics "Oh but this whole country is full of lies, You're all gonna die and die like flies.", "Four Women" a deeply moving song written in 1966 concerning the circumstances of 4 very different black women living in America, and most importantly the song she wrote alongside the legendary Weldon Irvine jr in 1969 "To be 'Young, Gifted and Black" she chronicled the pain, pride and hope of the civil rights movement in America.

In 1966 she moved over to RCA where she stayed until 1974, this would be her last long-term affiliation with an American Record label. And where she would find much commercial and artistic success.
The strain of campaigning mixed with problematic relations with record labels and the breakdown of her second marriage to business partner Andrew Stroud who managed to swindle her out of a quarter of a million dollars before he was done led to a situation of near nervous exhaustion. Nina left America in 1969 denouncing “Racist and backwards America” wandering the world and living in Liberia, Barbados, Switzerland, France, Trinidad, the Netherlands, Belgium and UK at various times before finally settling in France where she remained for the remainder of her life, only returning to the states to perform occasionally and after a long 12-year gap!

"No way I am ever going to go back there and live," she said. "You get racism crossing the street, it's in the very fabric of American society."

She became notorious in later life as tales started to come through of how she could be a problematic person and was difficult to deal with. I am not so sure how much of this was fed by the media at meeting a real person for a change who knew who she was and where she came from and had experienced events that most of us will hopefully never have to deal with. she refused to be fucked over and rightly so! But, possibly her methods verged on the extreme. She recalled in an interview with the BBC…

"There was a record company that stole my albums and didn't pay me and they came to Switzerland and I said, 'Where's my money?' and they said, 'We're not going to give you any money,' and I said, 'Oh yes, you are.'

"And I got a gun, it was a gun, it wasn't a knife, and I followed him to a restaurant and I tried to kill him”.

Nina was a true legend, she contributed so much to the development of not only black music but indeed music in a global sense. She will be sadly missed.

*Four Women*
Nina Simone

My skin is black
My arms are long
My hair is wooly
My back is strong
Strong enough to take the pain
It's been inflicted again and again
What do they call me
My name is AUNT SARAH
My name is Aunt Sarah
My skin is yellow
My hair is long
Between two worlds
I do belong
My father was rich and white
He forced my mother late one night
What do they call me
My name is SIFFRONIA
My name is Siffronia
My skin is tan
My hair's alright, it's fine
My hips invite you
And my lips are like wine
Whose little girl am I?
Well yours if you have some money to buy
What do they call me
My name is SWEET THING
My name is Sweet Thing
My skin is brown
And my manner is tough
I'll kill the first mother I see
Cos my life has been too rough
I'm awfully bitter these days
because my parents were slaves
What do they call me
My
name
is
PEACHES

*Mississippi Goddam*
Nina Simone
   
  The name of this tune is Mississippi Goddam
And I mean every word of it
Alabama's gotten me so upset
Tennessee made me lose my rest
And everybody knows about Mississippi Goddam
Alabama's gotten me so upset
Tennessee made me lose my rest
And everybody knows about Mississippi Goddam
Can't you see it
Can't you feel it
It's all in the air
I can't stand the pressure much longer
Somebody say a prayer
Alabama's gotten me so upset
Tennessee made me lose my rest
And everybody knows about Mississippi Goddam
This is a show tune
But the show hasn't been written for it, yet
Hound dogs on my trail
School children sitting in jail
Black cat cross my path
I think every day's gonna be my last
Lord have mercy on this land of mine
We all gonna get it in due time
I don't belong here
I don't belong there
I've even stopped believing in prayer
Don't tell me
I tell you
Me and my people just about due
I've been there so I know
They keep on saying "Go slow!"
But that's just the trouble
"do it slow"
Washing the windows
"do it slow"
Picking the cotton
"do it slow"
You're just plain rotten
"do it slow"
You're too damn lazy
"do it slow"
The thinking's crazy
"do it slow"
Where am I going
What am I doing
I don't know
I don't know
Just try to do your very best
Stand up be counted with all the rest
For everybody knows about Mississippi Goddam
I made you thought I was kiddin' didn't we
Picket lines
School boy cots
They try to say it's a communist plot
All I want is equality
for my sister my brother my people and me
Yes you lied to me all these years
You told me to wash and clean my ears
And talk real fine just like a lady
And you'd stop calling me Sister Sadie
Oh but this whole country is full of lies
You're all gonna die and die like flies
I don't trust you any more
You keep on saying "Go slow!"
"Go slow!"
But that's just the trouble
"do it slow"
Desegregation
"do it slow"
Mass participation
"do it slow"
Reunification
"do it slow"
Do things gradually
"do it slow"
But bring more tragedy
"do it slow"
Why don't you see it
Why don't you feel it
I don't know
I don't know
You don't have to live next to me
Just give me my equality
Everybody knows about Mississippi
Everybody knows about Alabama
Everybody knows about Mississippi Goddam
That's it!

*See-Line Woman*
George Bass

yeah
yeah yeah yeah yeah
alright ye
see-line woman
she drink coffee
she drink tea
and then go home
see-line woman
see-line woman
dressed in green
wears silk stockings
with golden seams
see-line woman
see-line woman
dressed in red
make a man lose his head
see-line woman
see-line woman
black dress on
for a thousand dollars
she wail and she moan
see-line woman
wiggle wiggle
turn like a cat
wink at a man
and he wink back
now child
see-line woman
empty his pockets
and wreck his days
make him love her
and she'll fly away
see-line woman
take it on out now
empty his pockets
and she wreck his days
and she make him love her
then she sure fly away
she got a black dress on
for a thousand dollars
she wail and she moan...

*Funkier Than A Mosquito's Tweeter*
Aillene Bullock

You're nothing but a dirty, dirty old man
You do your thinking with a one track mind
Keep talkin' about heaven glory but
On your face is a different story
Clean up your rap your story's getting dusty
Wash out your mouth
Your lies are getting rusty
Can't believe nothing you say
'Cause I'm around and I see what you do
You know you're funky as a mosquito's tweeter
You gotta mouth like a herd of boll weevils
Same old game, same old thing
You never changed
Always rappin 'bout the same old thing
I got something to tell ya
I got something to tell you baby
But you ain't hip to baby
Blowin' minds is a thing of the past
You blew your chance that's why you never last
You want to be a graduate mother
But in reality just another brother
You think you slick but could
Stand a lot of greasing
The things you do ain't never really pleasin'
Can't believe nothin' you say
'Cause I'm around and I see what you do
You know you funky as a mosquito's tweeter
You got a mouth like a herd of boll weevils
Same old game, same old thing
A...lways rappin 'bout the same old thing
You beautiful, beautiful
Beautiful, beautiful
Brought yoursef a pot of baked stew
Nothin' worse than an educated fool
Talkin' sex is your favorite conversation
But peace and love is a famous generation
What's in your head has really started
Showing your conversation gettin' kinda boring
Can't believe nothin' you say
'Cause I'm around and I see what you do
You know you funky as a mosquito's tweeter
You got a mouth like a herd of boll weevils
Same old game, same old game
Same old thing you never change
Same old game, same old thing
Always rappin' 'bout the same old thing

The following is an interview by Brantley Bardin from 1997.

Legend-with-an-attitude Nina Simone breaks her silence. And you'd better listen.

Is it true that nothing irks you more than being labelled a jazz singer, albeit one of the greatest?
To most white people, jazz means black and jazz means dirt and that's not what I play. I play black classical music. That's why I don't like the term "jazz," and Duke Ellington didn't either - it's a term that's simply used to identify black people.

As in the late '50s, when you became a star and were compared to Billie Holiday?
Yeah--what an insult!

An insult not because she wasn't a great artist but because--
Because she was a drug addict! They only compared me to her because we were both black - they never compared me to Maria Callas, and I'm more of a diva like her than anybody else.

Really? How so?
She was tempestuous. She was a complete one-of-a-kind and she studied her music more than anyone else in her generation. She could make the rules and break them whenever she pleased, and the world would listen because she was Callas.

Do you get off on being tempestuous?
What do you mean, "get off"? That's just the way I am.

Actually, it's hard to compare you to anybody.
Well, thank you.

You studied to be a classical musician, but instead became the High Priestess of Soul. Though you've introduced such classics as "House of the Rising Sun," "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood," and "Lilac Wine" during forty-years-and-counting reign, you don't much like show business.
Can't stand it! I like being onstage, but when it comes to show business itself and the pirates that run it, no, I don't like it at all.

You feel you've been ripped off
Yes, sir! Completely ripped off. I've never been paid all royalties for the five hundred songs I've composed.

How did that happen?
Obviously you're naive about show business.

In a very un-show-business move, you're famous for berating audiences whose behaviour isn't up to your requirements.
My original plan was to be the first black concert pianist--not a singer--and it never occurred to me that I'd be playing to audiences that were talking and drinking and carrying on when I played the piano. So I felt that if they didn't want to listen, they could go the hell home.

As a child in Tryon, North Carolina, were you always this tough?
Oh, no. I started off very pure and very innocent and I believed till the last minute that I'd be that concert pianist. It still takes a long time for me to accept the fact that it's never going to happen the way I dreamed it. It's just too late.

Yeah, but instead you became the legendary "Nina Simone." Didn't you change your original name so your Methodist minister mother wouldn't find out you were working a summer job playing piano in an Atlantic City bar?
Yes, but I'd rather not go into what my name was. I have two honorary doctorates. I am now professionally and legally know as Dr. Nina Simone.

Ok, but the story of how you changed it from "Eunice Waymon" is right in your autobiography.
If you know that, you don't have to ask me.

Should I be calling you Dr. Simone?
Well, since we don't know each other...

Okay, next question, Dr. Simone. In Atlantic City, you developed a wildly iconoclastic style that incorporated pop, Bach, jazz, folk, and even Christmas carols. Were you aware of what a groundbreaking brew that was?
Yes and no--mainly I did it to pass the time. Because I was hired to play the piano for forty-five minutes out of each hour for six hours a night, and since I hadn't played any popular music before, I had to incorporate jazz and classical motifs into what I was doing, and that developed into the difficult role I'm playing now. I didn't start singing until the manager of the bar told me that just playing wasn't good enough.

And even though you'd never sung professionally before, you were an immediate hit and got signed to record your first of fifty-one albums. Are you excited about the Rhino anthology of your early-'60s Colpix-label recordings that just came out?
Well, I didn't know about that. Thanks for telling me.

You didn't know?! It's kind of a big deal.
Is it, now?

Yes, and actually the Verve label recently released another compilation.
Oh, for God's sake, there are pirates everywhere!

I'm sure these aren't pirates... I really think you'll get paid.
Well, I'll know as the checks come in.

Maybe if you lived in America instead of the south of France, you'd have more knowledge of your current popular resurgence here.
I don't like America, I never did, and I don't want to go back unless I have to.

I thought you were going to tour this coming year. Anyway, what do you have against America?
I think they'll sell themselves, their souls, and their brothers, sisters, and mothers for money. And prejudice there is so insidious and subtle--I've never seen anything like it! It's gotten crazy with so many skinheads, everybody gone mad, bang-bang shot dead--I don't know what's happened to the world.

Is that why, after all your high-profile civil-rights work in the '60s, you left the U.S. pretty much permanently in the early '70s?
I left because I didn't feel that black people were going to get their due, and I still don't.

In the late '60s, your song "To Be Young, Gifted and Black" was declared by the Congress of Racial Equality to be the black national anthem.
Yes, and then black America promptly refused it.

How so?
You mean "Why so?" I don't know why--it's just that they're pretty backwards.

Backwards, hmm... I guess you don't feel much was accomplished in the movement.
After Martin Luther King and Malcom X got killed, after Lorraine Hansberry and Langston Hughes and Medgar Evers died, and after Stockley Carmichael and Miriam Makeba went to Africa, yes, I felt the movement died.

So you moved to Africa. How'd you feel when you got there?
That I was at home. I took off my shoes and walked in the dirt streets, smelled all the smells... They didn't event want me to sing over there, they just wanted me to have a good time! I felt thoroughly at home there.

So much so that in your book you say that on your third night there, you danced buck naked in a nightclub for two hours.
(laughs) Yes. I don't particularly like clothes, and when I get a chance to be happy and dance with friends around me, I take them off and I dance.

And at age sixty-three, do you still do that?
Well, not here in the south of France.

You've been married and divorced and had many romances. Do you still get around?
I had an intense love affair with a Tunisian boy last year, but I don't think I want to get involved for a long time again because he opened me up like a volcano, and it almost put me under.

I'm happy to hear you have friends, because I recently read a quote of yours that said "I don't like people that much." Why's that?
Because they're basically undeveloped, stupid, and not very knowledgeable about anything--they don't think for themselves and they're not honest.

I see. And is the same true for yourself?
What do you mean? I'm very honest.

You certainly are. People play your songs when they're feeling bad. What do they hook into?
I feel what they feel. And people who listen to me know that, and it makes them feel like they're not alone.

How would you like to be remembered?
I want to be remembered as a diva from beginning to end who never compromised in what she felt about racism and how the world should be, and who to the end of her days consistently stayed the same.

But isn't life about evolving and changing?
Not for me.