Eunice Kathleen Waymon, better known by her stage name Nina Simone, was a fifteen-time Grammy Award-nominated American singer, songwriter, pianist, arranger and civil rights activist.Although she disliked being categorized, Simone is generally classified as a jazz musician. Simone originally aspired to become a classical pianist, but her work covers an eclectic variety of musical styles besides her classical basis, such as jazz, soul, folk, R&B, gospel, and pop music. Her vocal style is characterized by intense passion, a loose vibrato, and a slightly androgynous timbre, in part due to her unusually low vocal range which veered between the alto and tenor ranges (occasionally even reaching baritone lows). Sometimes known as the High Priestess of Soul, she paid great attention to the musical expression of emotions. Within one album or concert she could fluctuate between exuberant happiness or tragic melancholy. These fluctuations also characterized her own personality and personal life, worsened by a bipolar disorder with which she was diagnosed in the mid-1960s, but was kept secret until 2004.Simone recorded over 40 live and studio albums, the biggest body of her work being released between 1958 (when she made her debut with Little Girl Blue) and 1974. Songs she is best known for include "My Baby Just Cares for Me", "I Put a Spell on You", "I Loves You Porgy", "Feeling Good", "Sinner Man", "To Be Young, Gifted and Black", "Strange Fruit", "Ain't Got No/I Got Life" and "I Want a Little Sugar in My Bowl". Her music and message made a strong and lasting impact on African-American culture, illustrated by the numerous contemporary artists who cite her as an important influence (among them Mary J. Blige, Alicia Keys, Jeff Buckley, and Lauryn Hill), as well as the extensive use of her music on soundtracks and in remixes.
Sixth of seven children. Studied at Julliard School of Music in New York Resides in the South of France Awarded an Honorary Doctor in Music and Humanities
Her first hit recording was her rendition of the classic song "I Loves You, Porgy", from Gershwins opera "Porgy and Bess".
Daughter Lisa Celeste (Lisa Simone Kelly ), born in 1962.Shes a Broadway actress, star of the Broadway musical "Elton Johns Aida".
Her professional name is a combination of Nina ("little one"), from an Hispanic boyfriend, and Simone from French film actress Simone Signoret.
Biography in: "The Scribner Encyclopedia of American Lives". Volume 7, 2003-2005, pages 516-517. Farmington Hills, MI: Thomson Gale, 2007.
In 2010 Canadian singer Kellylee Evans paid homage to Simone by recording an album entitled "Nina" in which she sang an assortment of songs Simone had made popular during her career.
She began her career as a singer and pianist in Atlantic Citys Irish Midtown Bar & Grill.
In 1995 she was given a suspended eight-month jail term after firing a scatter-gun at a pair of noisy teenagers playing next to her home in Bouc-Bel-Air near Aix-en-Provence. That same year she was fined $US 5,000 for leaving the scene of a car accident that had occurred in 1993.
She lived at various times in Barbados, Switzerland, France, Liberia, Trinidad and Britain before moving to the south of France in 1993.
Had a reputation for being moody and difficult.
Friends with Carmen McRae , and Dick Gregory.
Jazz is a white term to define Black people. My music is Black classical,music.
Jazz is a white term to define black people. My music is black classical music.
I would like a man now who is rich, and who can give me a boat - a sailboat. I want to own it and let him pay for it. My first love is the sea and water, not music. Music is second.
I had spent many years pursuing excellence, because that is what classical music is all about. . . Now it was dedicated to freedom, and that was far more important.
The worst thing about that kind of prejudice. . . is that while you feel hurt and angry and all the rest of it, it feeds you self-doubt. You start thinking, perhaps I am not good enough.
