She could belt barroom blues, croon cabaret and explore jazz – sometimes all on a single record.”-Rolling Stone
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "I WISH I KNEW HOW IT WOULD FEEL TO BE FREE")
SIMONE: (Singing) I wish I knew how it would feel to be free. I wish I could break all the chains holding me.
Nina Simone's daughter explores her mother's life and career.
Nina's daughter Simone explores the career of her mother – as protest singer, jazz chanteuse, blues artist and fearless live performer – offering a personal view of the life of one of popular music's ...
Comparisons in music are often frivolous, but with Nina Simone they bend toward the absurd. Simone, Aretha Franklin and Billie Holiday are probably the most revered female American musicians of the 20th century.
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Of that trio, Simone is the least easily imitated and the hardest act to follow as a self-possessed artist. Reckon with her as a popular and unrepentant political singer and she clearly occupies an even more rarefied category-one where Bob Dylan and Bob Marley are her only contemporaries.
We’re said to be going through something of a Simone Renaissance now, given the harrowing documentary about her life currently streaming on Netflix and the tribute album, Nina Revisited: A Tribute to Nina Simone (Revive/RCA), produced to accompany it. There is also, twisting in the wings, a narrative film that many hoped would never see the light of day, starring an ill-cast Zoe Saldana in what publicity stills reveal as bad wigs, insulting dental prostheses and blackface cosmetics.
We’re said to be going through something of a Simone Renaissance now, given the harrowing documentary about her life currently streaming on Netflix and the tribute album, Nina Revisited: A Tribute to Nina Simone (Revive/RCA), produced to accompany it. There is also, twisting in the wings, a narrative film that many hoped would never see the light of day, starring an ill-cast Zoe Saldana in what publicity stills reveal as bad wigs, insulting dental prostheses and blackface cosmetics.
After a first night of interspersing gospel songs with Bach, Czerny and Liszt at the Midtown Bar and Grill, Simone was told she'd have to sing in future if she wanted to keep her job. She quickly ...
Singing in a club in Holland, in 1965, Nina Simone introduced a song she had written about what she called “four Negro women” .... Our bad! It looks like we're experiencing playback ...
Simone, daughter of Nina Simone, reflects on her mother’s time of transition.
Dr. Nina Simone: 2/21/33-4/21/03
Dr. Nina Simone: 2/21/33-4/21/03
It was a beautiful day in early March 2003 and spring was in the air. We lived in Stroudsburg, PA and I was chatting with my mother who was relaxing at her new home in Carry le Rouet, France. She loved her home and extended another invitation for me to visit. I demurred, reminding her how we had not gotten along well the last time we’d visited together for an extended period. She chuckled and poo-poo’d my concerns, reassuring me that her house was so big we would not get in each other’s way. Her lunch was brought and as she began to eat, she complained how tired she was of eating “cow food” – raw greens.
My mother had been living with cancer since 1998 having undergone chemo for 6 years and was still going strong. I asked if she’d lost any weight and the conviction in her voice startled me as she said “OH YES!!”. When we hung up I went to my room and cried. Something within me knew she was dying and it was this feeling that inspired me to write her a song. Over the next week as I was driven to/from my job on Broadway as AIDA I worked on the song. I wanted her to know how often I thought of her yet how often life’s responsibilities got in the way of me reaching out. I finished writing it and recorded it 4 days before she left this world. It is entitled BREAKDOWN, and the first verse is as follows:
My mother had been living with cancer since 1998 having undergone chemo for 6 years and was still going strong. I asked if she’d lost any weight and the conviction in her voice startled me as she said “OH YES!!”. When we hung up I went to my room and cried. Something within me knew she was dying and it was this feeling that inspired me to write her a song. Over the next week as I was driven to/from my job on Broadway as AIDA I worked on the song. I wanted her to know how often I thought of her yet how often life’s responsibilities got in the way of me reaching out. I finished writing it and recorded it 4 days before she left this world. It is entitled BREAKDOWN, and the first verse is as follows:
The beauty of the singer's voice touches us in a place that's as personal as the place from which that ..... Nina Simone's honey-coated, slightly adenoidal cry was one of the most affecting voices of the civil ...
