Sit-ins accelerated throughout the South in response to segregation, and the NAACP’s Robert F. Additionally, the fight for civil rights was intensifying. She had found success as an artist, but the new decade was about to see a significant shift in how popular singers were expected to be songwriters in their own right. The song became a hit upon its release as a single in 1959, and it launched Simone into the spotlight.Īs the ’50s segued into the ’60s, Simone’s life was in transition. Billie happened to hear a tape I did of it long before it started selling, and she wrote me a note saying she liked it and hoped I would be successful.” Holiday’s blessing seemed to work, although it’s hard to imagine Simone needing the help. I got ‘Porgie’ from her, which I did in 1958.
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“You couldn’t find a better influence than Billie,” she told Hit Parader. The inspiration was undeniable, and Simone never denied it. Billie Holiday had made the song her own with her popular recording 10 years earlier, and Simone’s version showed a similarity in the smoky phrasing and sparse arrangement. Her most commercially successful single for Bethlehem-and ultimately for her entire career-proved to be her rendition of “I Loves You, Porgy” from Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess. The album closed with its sole Simone composition, “Central Park Blues,” a jaunty and dexterous instrumental displaying the mark of the bebop masters Oscar Peterson and Thelonious Monk. Her readings of the standards “Don’t Smoke in Bed” and “Love Me or Leave Me”-the latter notable for Simone’s playful blending of Bach’s Fugue in C Major into her piano solo-were spirited and fresh. Her voice sounded decades beyond its years, an instrument of resonant sorrow and guarded joy. Little Girl Blue reflected Simone’s integrity. Bethlehem agreed to let Simone record with a stripped-down trio that included the drummer Albert “Tootie” Heath and the bassist Jimmy Bond (who in the ’60s became a member of the legendary studio group the Wrecking Crew). In her 1992 autobiography I Put a Spell on You, she remembered of Little Girl Blue, “If I was going to make an album, I’d choose the material myself and pick the musicians I wanted to support me.” She had no national name and no industry clout yet her only leverage was her talent. ‘I Am a Writer Because of bell hooks’ Crystal WilkinsonĪt the time, only top-tier pop singers were given any significant amount of creative control over the material they would perform or the musicians they would work with. Her notoriety there grew, and in 1957, she signed with Bethlehem Records. After taking on a name she felt was better suited to show business, Simone began performing in bars in Atlantic City. I had to play that when mama was out of the house because she didn’t allow it.” Blues, jazz, and classical music-including Simone’s beloved Bach-all found their way into her playing style. That killed me, because I loved to dance. As she told the magazine Hit Parader, “We didn’t have a record player, but we had a radio and a piano, and somebody in my family was always singing or playing or dancing.
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She had grown up steeped in church music. But viewed together, her pop-oriented output on Bethlehem and Colpix form a charismatic portrait of one of the 20th century’s greatest artists in the first flush of her prowess.Įunice Waymon was born into poverty in 1933 in Tryon, North Carolina, and the precocious singer-pianist made her way to the renowned Juilliard School in New York before adopting the stage name Nina Simone in 1954. These early singles have often been overlooked in favor of her original, historically important compositions such as 1964’s “Mississippi Goddam” and 1970’s “To Be Young, Gifted, and Black,” both of which became rallying cries for the civil-rights movement. The singles she released during that period, many of them drawn from the Great American Songbook, have been collected on two anthologies out this month: Mood Indigo: The Complete Bethlehem Singles (via BMG Records) and Nina Simone: The Colpix Singles (via Stateside Records). Little Girl Blue kicked off a run of singles Simone made between 19 for both Bethlehem and another New York label, Colpix Records. Relatively unknown, Simone was a fresh face to find success by safely interpreting the standards of the day, albeit by using her uniquely husky voice and bluesy yet classically informed piano playing. Simone, on the other hand, had been signed as more of a pop-jazz artist the label, after all, was also the home of Mel Tormé. Among Bethlehem’s alumni were Duke Ellington, Charles Mingus, and a promising young saxophonist from Miles Davis’s band named John Coltrane. Her debut album, Little Girl Blue, had just been released on Bethlehem Records, an up-and-coming jazz label. The legendary singer, pianist, songwriter, and civil-rights activist-who will be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in April-turned 25 in 1958.
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Sixty years ago, Nina Simone was not yet quite an icon.