Nina Simone

by Acker, Kerry

• ISBN13: 9780791074565
• ISBN10: 0791074560
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2003-10-01
• Publisher: Facts on File

Summary

Nina Simone: classically trained pianist, skilled improviser, heartbreaking chanteuse, tempestuous diva, champion of civil rights, bitter expatriate, and ever-controversial figure. Like the woman herself, her music defies categorization; fusing elements of classical, pop, jazz, gospel, folk, rhythm and blues, and soul, her sound is unique. Her live performances were as legendary for their passion and urgency as she was for her temper. Simone was profoundly sensitive to the African-American experience. She was among the first popular performers ever to talk about race in song, and she lent her weight to the Civil Rights Movement from the outset. In the late 1960s and 1970s, her politics even threatened to overshadow her art -- but even then, her ability to transform a simple song into a religious experience captivated the masses. Throughout her fifty-year career, the incomparable High Priestess of Soul remained both astonishingly gifted and absolutely uncompromising. Book jacket.

Table of Contents

Introduction
Congresswoman Betty McCollum	8	(4)
l. Nina at Carnegie Hall	12	(8)
2. The Prodigy	20	(12)
1933-1944
3. The Concert Pianist	32	(12)
1944-1954
4. The Chanteuse	44	(10)
1954-1959
5. The Star	54	(18)
1958 -1962
6. The Activist	72	(16)
1963-1966
7. The High Priestess of Soul	88	(10)
1967-1969
8. The Expatriate	98	(10)
1970-1978
9. The Diva	108	(10)
1978-2003
Chronology	118	(4)
Works by Nina Simone	122	(2)
Bibliography	124	(2)
Further Reading	126	(2)
Index	128

Excerpts

Eunice Waymon was a prodigy on the piano, but it was only through charity that she could be trained classically. Her career in song began by chance, but she went on to create a musical style all her own. The High Priestess of Soul sings of love, loss, and the injustices of race and gender in American society.