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<\/i><\/p>\nNina Simone is trending in 2021. Nearly two decades after her death, the Tryon, N.C.-born musician, vocalist songwriter and civil rights activist is as popular as ever. Just over a year ago, the Nina Simone Project launched a fundraising campaign to establish an official Nina Simone Archive in Tryon. In June of this year, a cache of previously-unreleased concert recordings was released as the two-disc Nina Simone: The Montreux Years<\/i>. This August, Simone\u2019s debut LP, Little Girl Blue<\/i> is receiving a vinyl reissue. Simone\u2019s stunning performance at the 1969 Harlem Cultural Festival is a major highlight of Questlove\u2019s new Summer of Soul<\/i> film. Also this year, multiple Grammy Award nominee Ledisi pays tribute to Simone with a new album, Ledisi Sings Nina<\/i>, released July 23.<\/p>\n
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Little Girl Blue<\/b>
\nClassically trained on the piano, Simone attended the Juilliard School in 1950. Living in Philadephia, she continued her studies on her own, playing jazz clubs to make ends meet. Her debut single, a reading of George Gershwin\u2019s \u201cI Loves You Porgy\u201d catapulted her into the wider limelight. Signed to Bethlehem Records, she released the album Little Girl Blue<\/i> in 1959. Featuring Simone on piano and voice, backed by a bassist and drummer, the album is a landmark jazz recording.<\/p>\n
Yale professor Daphne A. Brooks\u2019 liner note essay featured in a new remastered vinyl edition helps place the remarkable album into its historical context. Brooks remarks upon Simone\u2019s \u201cwide and robust, rich and varied knowledge of jazz, blues, American songbook, folk and spiritual standards and aesthetics.\u201d<\/p>\n
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The Montreux Years<\/b><\/i>
\nSimone would grace the stages of the Montreux Jazz Festival several times between 1968 and 1990, and a new compilation album draws from five of those performances. Her song selections featured originals like \u201cBacklash Blues,\u201d a song she co-wrote with poet Langston Hughes. And her choices of covers explored composers as varied as The Bee Gees (\u201cTo Love Somebody\u201d), Janis Ian (\u201cStars\u201d) and \u201cNo Woman No Cry,\u201d a song popularized by Bob Marley.<\/p>\n
Simone\u2019s songs explore the concerns of a woman of color in modern society. And while her approach was a balance of confrontational and nuanced, she drew the audience into her musical world. All the while, her accessible pop sensibility was never far from the surface, as a rousing reading of one of her signature tunes, \u201cMy Baby Just Cares for Me,\u201d vividly illustrates.<\/p>\n
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Ledisi Sings Nina<\/b><\/i>
\nAcclaimed jazz\/soul\/r&b singer-songwriter Ledisi carved out her own distinctive corner of the music scene with her fifth album, the breakout success 2009 album Turn Me Loose<\/i>. She has received more than a dozen Grammy Award nominations, and won her first this year. But her awe and appreciation for Nina Simone led her to her latest project.<\/p>\n
It was Simone\u2019s reading of the blues standard \u201cTrouble in Mind,\u201d that truly inspired Ledisi. \u201cI was a young, 20-something-year-old, and I was depressed and didn’t really want to live anymore,\u201d she recalls. But then she heard the song come on the radio, and she was transformed. \u201cI heard this wailing piano,\u201dshe says. \u201cAnd it woke me out of this daze of thinking about not being here on Earth anymore. It woke my whole body up! \u2018Trouble In Mind\u2019 just said everything I was feeling. And that’s the power of her music for me.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ledisi\u2019s career has touched on Simone\u2019s work before; with three other popular vocalists, she sang \u201cFour Women,\u201d a Simone original focusing on injustice toward women of color. Her acting credits include Tale of Four<\/i>, a short film based on the song. When she was first invited to perform with the National Symphony at the Kennedy Center, she insisted on adding some of Simone\u2019s material to the set.<\/p>\n
Recorded with orchestras in Europe and the U.S., Ledisi Sings Nina<\/i> is the culmination of eight years of work in between the artist\u2019s other recording and touring activities. And Ledisi underscores the timelessness of Simone\u2019s repertoire by slipping a reference to former First Lady Michele Obama into her reading of \u201cMy Baby Just Cares for Me.\u201d<\/p>\n
As Simone did when she interpreted the music of others, Ledisi puts her own stamp on the selection of songs form Simone\u2019s catalog. Yet she endeavors to be respectful. \u201cAnytime I’m rediscovering a song that’s not mine, the goal is to say thank you,\u201d she says. \u201cAlways to honor the legend.\u201d Nina Simone\u2019s music always reflects the times, Ledisi believes. \u201cBut what’s great about it is that she’ll always be for every<\/i> moment, every<\/i> mood,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
Nina Simone\u2019s legacy
\n<\/b>An informal survey of performing musicians in and around Asheville turned up at least a dozen who include songs written and\/or popularized by Nina Simone in their own repertoires. Multigenre vocalist Peggy Ratusz has long been inspired by Simone\u2019s innate ability to mix jazz, folk, blues, pop and protest. \u201cNina taught me to be fearless in marrying genres within my songwriting, and mixing genres on my set lists,\u201d she says. \u201cHer emotional intensity, her brilliance, her no-nonsense band leading and especially the empowerment she instilled directly to her audiences were unstoppable forces coming together.\u201d<\/p>\n
Simone\u2019s public persona was larger than life, a characteristic that has only increased with time. Today she\u2019s almost a mythical figure. Her globetrotting, cosmopolitan reputation focuses on her years in Barbados, Liberia, Switzerland, The Netherlands and France. But her sister Frances Waymon Fox says that the Nina Simone she knew was a mom and a grandma. \u201cPeople don\u2019t always think of public figures as individuals, as human beings,\u201d she says. \u201cThey bleed, hurt and cry just like everybody else. And Nina was family-oriented, even though [the public] didn\u2019t see that part of her.\u201d<\/p>\n
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photo by Georges Braunschweig, courtesy BMG<\/p><\/div>\n
Fox has fond memories of traveling with her elder sister on concert tours. The Nina Simone she spent time with enjoyed home cooking, even when she was on the road. And thanks to Frances, she often got it. \u201cNina didn\u2019t cook,\u201d Fox admits with a laugh. \u201cWhen I traveled with her, we would go get some soul food from the grocery stores, and I\u2019d cook wherever we were. She liked collard greens, ham hocks and cornbread.\u201d Fox acknowledges that such humble tastes are in contrast to Simone\u2019s urbane and assertive image. But her life and music synthesized those myriad qualities.<\/p>\n
Simone\u2019s younger sister, Frances Waymon Fox believes she knows why Nina Simone is still trending. \u201cBecause her music is still relevant,\u201d she says. \u201cPeople of all generations can relate to it.\u201d Fox says that Nina Simone\u2019s music \u2013 including both her original songs and the works of others that she effectively made her own \u2013 builds on a central theme: \u201cLet there be peace.\u201d And Fox says that an ongoing quest for freedom was at the heart of Simone\u2019s approach to music. \u201cAnd that\u2019s what people are still crying out for,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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