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Simone Signoret: Nina Simone
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Nina Simone was a classically trained pianist who became a famous nightclub singer, thanks to an early hit, 1958's "I Loves You Porgy." She famously interpreted and composed classical, jazz, pop, gospel, folk and blues songs of love and bitterness and had a worldwide following over a fifty-year career that earned her the nickname of "High Priestess of Soul." A poor black girl from the American south, she was enough of a musical prodigy that community patrons financially supported her musical education. She went to the Julliard School of Music in New York and earned a living as a pianist, accompanying singers and playing in nightclubs. She began singing in 1954, and audiences loved her deep voice, raw emotions and soulful interpretations of standards. Simone was a self-described diva of the temperamental genius variety, and she so detested racial injustice in the United States she lived abroad after 1974 (in Barbados, Africa, Switzerland and, finally, France).
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Though she had developed a staunch following, it wasn't until she played New York's Town Hall on Sept. 12, 1959, that Simone became a star. Released as "Nina Simone at Town Hall," the concert placed her alongside the many writers and musicians hanging out in Greenwich Village such as Bob Dylan, James Baldwin, Odetta, Lorraine Hansberry and Joan Baez. In the liner notes to the album, Roger Caras writes, "No song that Nina sings has ever been sung before, at least as the same work. Nina brings to each number a special quality that comes from brilliant musicianship with an almost philosophical understanding of the words. When Nina sings the word 'love,' it isn't a word combined from four letters out of the alphabet but an emotional experience you can feel."
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Born Eunice Waymon in North Carolina, Simone grew up in a family with eight children. She started out as a classical pianist, but in 1954 the financial necessity of her family led her to take a job in an Atlantic City nightclub. After auditioning for the gig, the owner told her that she could have it, but only if she agreed to sing as well. Thus, Nina ("little one") Simone (French actress Simone Signoret), was born.
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After leaving Colpix in 1964, Nina Simone became more active in the Civil Rights Movement, adding her voice to many others calling for full integration of society in the United States. While continuing to record, Simone ... began to sing at rallies and other events that featured a wide range of activists. Her music also became a means of reaching out to others about the ills of segregation, utilizing such contemporary events as the Jim Crow laws and the Birmingham church bombing as subject matter.
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In the late 50's Nina Simone recorded her first tracks for the Bethlehem label. These are still remarkable displays of her talents as a pianist, singer, arranger and composer. Songs as Plain Gold Ring, Don't Smoke In Bed and Little Girl Blue soon became standards in her repertoire.
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In the mid-‘60s, inspired by the Civil Rights Movement, Simone composed several songs, including "Old Jim Crow" and "Mississippi Goddam" which were issued on her first album with Philips (Nina Simone in Concert). "Mississippi Goddam" was written in response to the death of four black children in a church bombing, in 1963. It was her protest songs that best demonstrated Simone’s amazing ability to communicate, deeply and clearly, human emotion, especially those of Black people in the U.S.A. It was around this time that people began referring to Simone as the "High Priestess of Soul," after she put out an album of the same name.
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