Nina Simone made her debut at New York’s Village Vanguard over 55 years ago this month, in a run of shows that would cement her as one of the most groundbreaking and influential music talents of our time. On July 20,1959, Billboard praised Simone’s “refreshing singing-style” and a “first-rate” technique,” and her ability to cross from pop, to blues, and jazz music.
Simone’s childhood dream was to become the world’s first Black female classical pianist, and although she didn’t reach the goal, her influence far outpaced what she could have predicted for her own future. In the 1960s and ’70s, the woman born Eunice Kathleen Waymon, was more than just an artist, she was an unapologetic figure within the Civil Rights Movement, using her music as a method to speak to, and for, a generation fighting for it’s voice.
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Photos: youtube
But, as seen in the new documentary What Happened, Miss Simone?, battling inner demons, would prove to be the biggest challenge of her life.
Click to see some quotes from Simone on music, love, and what it means to be Black in America.
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Photo: youtube
“Music, it’s as close to God as I know.”
It was more than what she did for a living, music was engrained in her being. Simone talked about the spiritual side of art in a 1984 interview.
“I think women play a major part in opening the doors for better understanding around the world.”
By changing tides in a male dominated industry, Simone was a feminist, in her own right.
“My job is to somehow make them curious enough, or persuade them to get more aware of themselves, and where they came from, and what is already there, [but] just to bring it out. This is what compels me to compel them, and I will do it by whatever means necessary…They need me, and when I’m needed, I have to give.”
No mater what anyone thought about it, she was unrepentant about her “Blackness.”
“There is no Civil Rights Movement. Everybody’s gone.”
At a point in her career Simone lived next door to Malcolm X and his family, but after Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated, she spoke to the extermination of Black leaders, and how it dismantled the Civil Rights Movement.“We can’t afford anymore losses, they’re killing us one by one.”
“People lust for fame, like athletes in a game.”
Some 35 years later, Nina Simone’s lyrics to the 1975 songs “Stars” couldn’t be more on point.
“I’m sorry that I didn’t become the world’s first black classic pianist… I think I would’ve ben happier. I’m not very happy now…I wouldn’t change being part of the Civil Rights Movement but some of the songs hurt my career. All of the controversial songs, the industry decided to punish me for.”
Simone got candid in a 1984 interview in France on her happiness and being punished for her honesty.
“You’ve got to learn to leave the table, when love’s no longer being served.”
For all her personal troubles with relationships, Simone always knew her worth.
