CUT THE RIBBON, NINA SIMONE

Posted on December 18, 2013 by Editorial Staff

For unforgettable music she left us, for her civil rights battles and marches with Martin Luther King. For her two careers in one; she left it  in 1978 and disappeared. Then, due to a Chanel advertising that brought back on charts “My Baby Don’t Love Me”, she had some few more years. For her no diva approach, for her unique life made of good and bad, for concerts where she used to introduce “her music” with her own words. “Her music”, as she declared in several interviews, was the most important thing. Then there was love, not marriage of course, she was twice, but love. Born in North Carolina in 1933 under the name of Eunice Kathleen Waymon, she started singing in the local church with her two sisters. It took not much time to everybody in her small town community to understand that Eunice was gifted. She was so talented to deserve a proper course of studies in New York City. Her neighbors promoted a foundation and managed to collect money in order to make her flying. In 50ies she was paying one’s dues as a nightclub singer and changed her name in honor of actress Simone Signoret that she adored. In 1958 Simone’s debut album. In 1968, after King’s and Kennedy’s assassination she left Us and settle down in Barbados, Egypt, Holland and Switzerland. After this betrayal nobody were publishing her records any longer but she kept on composing and playing piano until the very last days of her life. Simone left not only her music but examples, not only Jazz but hope for a better life to African American. A cut the ribbon for this complex, yet genius persona, was compulsory here at The Harlow.