Nina Simone R.I.P.

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by Dan Steely, Apr 21, 2003.

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  1. Dan Steely

    Dan Steely Hit Me! Thread Starter

    Just found out that she passed away... :( Very sad day in music!
     
  2. Tom

    Tom Senior Member

    Location:
    PA.
    Very sad news indeed. I just love "My Baby Just Cares For Me" as well as "Wild is the Wind" It's hard to believe she was 70. Where does the time go?
     
  3. teaser5

    teaser5 Cool Rockin' Daddy

    Location:
    The DMV
    Oh man

    I am so bummed. I love her stuff. She was such a personality; such an individual. I love that "Copact Jazz" album. The song Sinner Man which was used at the end of the remake of the film The Thomas Crowne Affair is just flat out unflippingbelievable. Her covers were sometimes stronger than the originals. She was an original. She will be missed

    Peace
    Norm
     
  4. Steve Hoffman

    Steve Hoffman Your host Your Host

    Darn sad news. :(
     
  5. Jeff H.

    Jeff H. Senior Member

    Location:
    Northern, OR
    I just heard this myself. She will be missed.:(
     
  6. Ed Bishop

    Ed Bishop Incredibly, I'm still here

    A very major, real loss. She was a diva in every way imaginable--both good and not so good. Yet she had an amazing voice, great presence, style, and elegance. Beyond that, she kept your attention no matter what she was up to--never lost her talent or her muse. Whether it was "I Loves You Porgy," "Trouble In Mind," "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood," "I Put A Spell On You," "(You'll) Go To Hell" or "To Be Young, Gifted And Black" you believed she meant every word. An expatriate for too long, she was only 70 years old.

    R.I.P., Eunice. Thanks for everything.

    ED:cry: :thumbsup:
     
  7. Togo

    Togo Same as it ever was

    Location:
    London UK
    Sad news indeed - my kind of woman.

    For a recommended CD try "Nina Simone And Piano" and hear the great lady at her most vivid and alive...

    She will be missed, but her music lives on!
     
  8. ksmitty

    ksmitty Senior Member

    Nina had such a unique voice. She was a jazz legend in my opinion. She will be missed dearly. She was one of my favorite Female jazz singers . My favorite Nina song has always been "Wild Is The Wind" and also really like "I Put A Spell On You".
     
  9. BradOlson

    BradOlson Country/Christian Music Maven

    She is not only a jazz legend, she is a music legend, period and will be missed.
     
  10. Larry Naramore

    Larry Naramore Bonafied Knucklehead

    Location:
    Sun Valley, Calif.
    Birds flyin' high you know how I feel
    Sun in the sky you know how I feel
    Breeze driftin' on by you know how I feel
    Its a new dawn, its a new day, its a new life for me
    yeah, its a new dawn its a new day its a new life for me ooooooooh
    AND I'M FEELING GOOD

    Fish in the sea, you know how I feel
    River runnin' free you know how I feel
    Blossom on the tree you know how I feel
    Its a new dawn, its a new day, its a new life for me
    And I'm feelin good

    Dragonfly out in the sun you know what i mean dont you know
    Butterflies all havin' fun you know what I mean
    Sleep in peace when day is done that's what I mean
    And this old world is a new world and a bold world for me

    Stars when you shine you know how I feel
    Scent of the pine you know how I feel
    Yeah, Freedom is mine, and I know how I feel
    Its a new dawn, its a new day, its a new life for me
    (Free styling)
    OH I'M FEELING GOOOOOOOOOOOOOD.
     
  11. anthony_b

    anthony_b New Member

    Location:
    New Jersey
    Big loss to the world of Jazz....LONG LIVE HER MUSIC !!
     
  12. It's odd there is nothing at her Web site ninasimone.com

    Found some stories at:

    Rolling Stone
    New York Times
    Billboard
    BBC

    Here is the New York Times story.

    Nina Simone, 70, Soulful Diva and Voice of Civil Rights, Dies
    By PETER KEEPNEWS


    Nina Simone, a singer whose distinctively emotional style blended elements of jazz, gospel, blues, European art song and other influences, died yesterday at her home in Carry-le-Rouet, France, near Marseille. She was 70.

    Her manager, Clifton Henderson, said she had been ill for some time, but he released no cause of death.

    Ms. Simone had only one Top 20 hit in her long career — her very first single, "I Loves You, Porgy," released in 1959 — but her following was large and loyal and her impact deep and lasting. Aretha Franklin, Roberta Flack and Laura Nyro were among the singers who were influenced by her. In recent years her songs resurfaced and won new fans on television commercials and in dance-club remixes.

    Although she was most often characterized as a jazz singer, Ms. Simone, who usually performed with a rhythm section and always accompanied herself on piano, was almost impossible to classify.

    "If I had to be called something," she wrote in 1991 in her autobiography, "I Put a Spell on You," "it should have been a folk singer because there was more folk and blues than jazz in my playing."

    But her piano playing also revealed her classical training more clearly than most jazz pianists', and her singing — at times rough and raw, at other times sweet and pure — owed an unmistakable debt to black gospel music. Her repertory was similarly eclectic: it ranged from blues to Broadway, from Jacques Brel to Screamin' Jay Hawkins to the Bee Gees.

    Ms. Simone was as famous for her social consciousness as she was for her music. In the 1960's no musical performer was more closely identified with the civil rights movement. Though she was best known as an interpreter of other people's music, she eloquently expressed her feelings about racism and black pride in those years in a number of memorable songs she wrote herself.

    "Mississippi Goddam" was an angry response to the killing of the civil rights advocate Medgar Evers. "Young, Gifted and Black," written with the keyboardist Weldon Irvine Jr., became something of an anthem, recorded by Aretha Franklin and many others. "Four Women" painted a subtle but stinging picture of the suffering and the strength of African-American women.

    She was born Eunice Waymon on Feb. 21, 1933, in Tryon, N.C., and grew up singing in a church choir and studying piano. She received a scholarship to the Juilliard School of Music in 1950, although she had to work as an accompanist for singers and as a piano teacher to help support herself. She eventually ran out of money, left Juilliard and moved back in with her family, at that time living in Philadelphia.

    In 1954 she got a job playing piano at a bar and grill in Atlantic City, where she assumed her stage name — because, she later explained, she did not want her mother to find out what she was doing. After her first night on the job, she was told that she had to sing as well as play, so she began emulating Billie Holiday and other singers she admired. She later said that she kept herself from getting frustrated with the often indifferent crowds by playing the piano in a manner "as close to classical music as possible." This unusual mixture of approaches produced what the music writer Ashley Kahn has called "an impassioned, impromptu approach that became her signature."

    Ms. Simone soon began to work in better venues and develop a devoted following. In 1958 she signed with Bethlehem Records; a few months later, she was on the pop charts. One of her best-remembered hits was "My Baby Just Cares for Me."

    Her subsequent recordings for the Colpix, Philips and RCA Victor labels established her as a potent attraction on the cabaret, concert and festival circuits. Unafraid to speak her mind, she frequently clashed with promoters and occasionally berated her audiences for not paying attention, but her temperament did nothing to diminish her appeal.

    Her survivors include three brothers, a sister and a daughter, Lisa, a singer and actress known professionally as Simone who is currently appearing on Broadway in "Aida."

    In the 1970's her music fell out of fashion in the United States; she divorced her husband and manager, Andy Stroud, and beset by financial problems she left the country in 1973, living in Liberia and Barbados before settling in France. In a 1998 interview, she said she had left the United States because of a racial situation she called "worse than ever."

    In recent years, as her health began to fail, Ms. Simone performed less and less, although she continued to draw enthusiastic crowds wherever she appeared. Al Schackman, who played guitar in her backup group for four decades, said she had recently canceled a tour of Britain but had been planning a United States tour for this spring.
    ______________________________

    BBC News reports that she died in her sleep of natural causes.
     
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