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startrekfangirl2233-writes · 11 months ago

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Trouble's More Than A Word (It's A State Of Being)

Chapter Eight of Sweet Home Alabama

Jake ‘Hangman’ Seresin x OC (Linley Mitchell/Floyd), Bradley ‘Rooster’ Bradshaw x OC (Linley Mitchell/Floyd)

Description: Carole Bradshaw is more than a little suspicious about her son's fiancée. Linley Floyd is sweet and kind, sure, but there is something about her which seems completely fake. It's no wonder that Carole goes to the one person she always trusts to sort such misunderstandings out - her chief of staff. Meanwhile, you're still reeling after finally breaking things off with Jake. It feels like you're lost and alone. So you go to the one place where you've always had a friend, Floyd Plantation. Some time with Bob always makes you feel a bit better. The intrusion of a pushy loud reporter has the whole story spilling out of you. It's obvious you've made some mistakes, but hopefully getting back to New York will help.

Themes: love, attraction, angst, sex, cheating, lying

Warnings: aftermath of cheating,

Word Count: 2820

A/N: I can't believe we are already at chapter 8! We're half-way through this story, everyone! I wish I could say we're only halfway through the drama, but I can't!

AO3: Cross-posted here!

Wattpad: Cross-posted here!

My Masterlist

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Office of the Honorable Mayor of New York - Carole Bradshaw

"So, any news, Beau?" Beau knows exactly what his boss is looking for news on. But, well, he wouldn't be her chief of staff if he didn't give her all of the information. Three campaigns with Carole Bradshaw over the past fifteen years have taught him exactly how much she loves being in control of every aspect of her career. It takes a special woman to have run for Mayor of New York and win four times.

"Well, your polling numbers are at an all-time high. Your opponents have all put out statements in recent days that have seen their approval ratings sinking like a lead balloon. Additionally, Bradley’s numbers are on the rise. Everyone loves New York’s youngest Secretary of Housing. The ground-breaking ceremony from the other day went over a treat. Especially when Bradley picked up that little boy and spoke to reporters as he napped against his shoulder.” Emotions flit across Carole’s face at lightning speed. Beau can catalog pride, happiness, and joy in quick order before an expression he’s seen every time she wants to get ahead in the polls settles on her face.

“That’s good, Beau. Very good.” The way she stretches the words out means that she’s not as pleased as she sounds. She leans forward, the lines of her crisp dark suit making her look predatory even in the bright sunlight. “Now, what have you found out about Linley Floyd?”

“Nothing much. The first mentions of her in New York are from about seven years ago when she applied to and enrolled at FIT. After that, I found only glowing reviews - from her professors, her prior bosses, every model and fashion house she's worked with." He takes a breath, feeling icy blue eyes drilling into his face.

"But no mention of her before seven years ago?" He just nods. "What about in Greeneville, Alabama? Are there any mentions of her, her family, anything about her there?"

Beau flips through the notes he has written on the notepad in front of him. "No, ma'am. There isn't a single mention of her. There was not even a notice in the school newspaper, or an old yearbook, or anything about her at all. I haven’t been able to find any mentions of her father, Peter Floyd, either. There are mentions of a Pete Mitchell working for the Floyd family as a mechanic and all-around handyman, but that’s it."

Beau notes the fleeting disgust on Mayor Bradshaw’s face as he mentions the name Mitchell, but he doesn’t think anything of it. Not when her face shutters and she pushes back from her desk in an explosive movement.

"Something is definitely not right with that girl." Beau stands nearly at attention as Mayor Bradshaw strides past him to look out the floor-to-ceiling windows lining the eastern side of her office. "So here is what we're going to do. You're going to catch the next flight to Greeneville, Alabama. You're going to track down the Floyds. I want to know everything about them, from how long they've been in Greeneville to a full background check on each member of the family. Get everything about the family you can. Hell, even interview the townspeople. Linley Floyd is hiding something, and we're going to find out exactly what."

Before the final syllable slips past her lips, her phone is already ringing off the hook. As seems to be happening more and more recently, Beau feels like he just stepped outside of the eye of a hurricane. There's nothing to be done but go the way the winds blow, so before he can blink, he's on a plane to Alabama. Time to dig up the dirt Mayor Bradshaw needs.

Floyd Plantation, Greeneville, Alabama

"Well, hi there, Miss Linley." You have to smile at Mrs. Apple, the Floyd family's housekeeper, when she opens the door. Seeing her smile feels like you've fallen right back into your childhood. Back in those days when you and Bobby used to trip through those doors with wide grins and muddy shoes after school almost every day.

"Both the Floyd men are out on the grounds, prepping for tourists, y'know?" She says the words with a resigned, fond sort of amusement. Floyd Plantation is still a functioning farm. But there’s still a big demand for tours. Once you know about Floyd Plantation’s history, well it’s easy to see why. If only so you know why you might have to dodge anvils if you’re walking around on the street.

“They’re out on the grounds, sugar. Watch your step as you head that way. Colonel Floyd’s been messing around with something explosive to launch anvils over the past couple of months.” You smile and wave goodbye to the smiling woman and meander your way through the grounds. It’s beautiful on the plantation. It always has been. Each step crushes fresh grass beneath your boots.

“Well, well, well.” You have to smile at the words even as arms wrap around you in the warmest hug. “If it isn’t Miss New York herself down here slumming with some ‘Bama natives!”

“Hey, Bobby.” He’s smiling from ear to ear. “Watch out now. Granddad’s out on the back field messing around with the gunpowder mix for tomorrow’s reenactments.

“But that’s not what you’re here for, is it?” You shrug one shoulder, unable to make eye contact because you’re sure you’re far too transparent to him.

“What, did you run out of people who would lend you a sympathetic ear in town and so you came all the way out here?”

It’s almost uncomfortable how close to the truth Bob gets, and you feel like you need to disassemble. “I forgot how beautiful it was here.” With the dappled sunlight sliding across your face, you feel something a little like peace sinking into your bones.

“It didn’t take much for you to forget a lot of things, now did it, Lin? Jake’s not the only person you ran out on.” It’s true. He’s not. You left behind every single person who loved you, who knew you.

“And well, if rumors are to be believed, you got what you wanted last night. So how long is it going to take before you leave town again?” Isn’t that just the question? “The Catfish Festival is on in town, too.”

You’re not at Floyd Plantation for very long, but you feel rather like you’re on the wrong foot as you walk out the front doors only an hour or so later. What you're not expecting is the behemoth of a man getting out of the maroon rental parked on the curb. He snaps a couple of pictures of you and walks right up to you on the stoop.

"Hello there, Miss Floyd. My name's Tom Hollingsworth, and I'm with the New York Post."

"Did you say the Post?" Your confusion must show because he hands you a glossy business card.

"Yes, I did. I was hoping to interview you and your family and maybe take a few pictures of you in your natural environment? If you don’t mind, that is." While you know the Post has done interviews before, you're not sure you would qualify. Marrying the mayor’s son can’t be the only reason. More important is how this man seems awfully familiar. You could swear you've seen him before. But where? You wrack your brain to try to figure out where and how you’ve seen him, but at the same time, he seems to be waiting for a response.

"No.” Your response is a little too blunt, and you can see the predatory glint in his eyes. “I mean, yes, I do mind. I'm sorry, but everyone's just headed out for the day." Your voice is conciliatory.

"You know this place is exactly how you've described it. It must have been amazing to grow up here. I'd love to get a few pictures of the inside." He's got a smarmy grin on his face.

“But I was just heading out.” You put on your best smile, the one you pull out for interviews.

“Well, I can come back, you know?” No, no, no, you can’t have that. So you find words pouring out of your mouth that you’re kicking yourself for the minute they pass between your lips. “Maybe just a peek.”

God, can this guy just take the hint and disappear already? You open the door just a little, but before you can close the door again, he muscles his way in through the door.

“This is it! Home, sweet home!” Your smile is starting to feel more than a little fake.

“How old is this place?” He sounds blandly curious, snapping pictures of everything he can see, poking his nose around corners, and even attempting to open the drawers and doors of the antique credenza in the foyer.

“My great-great-great grandfather, Charles Floyd, built it in, uh,” You could recite the history of Floyd Plantation in your sleep. But what this interloping stranger is doing is distracting you. “1853.”

“You must’ve had a ton of fun sliding down this banister.” But before he can touch the polished wood, you see a member of the staff on the upper landing. There is panic coursing through your blood as you twist Hollingsworth around.

“Over here, we have the, um…” You’re just tall enough to peer through the circular window, and well, a kitchen’s not really interesting, is it? If it were empty, you would have dragged him in there, but Mrs. A’s pulling cookies out of the oven. She could blow your ruse in a heartbeat. “Kitchen, but well, that’s pretty normal. Even in a plantation house like this one. Let’s start over here.”

If Mrs. Apple sees you, you’re screwed for sure. There’s no way the sweet old woman will call you anything other than Miss Mitchell or Miss Linley. But the door opposite the big kitchen is locked. Just as the swinging door opens, you drag Hollingsworth inside the small closet.

“Now, over here, we have my favorite room. It was part of the, um, Underground Railroad.”

“Why are we whispering?”

“The whole place is haunted…” He’s going to know you’re lying. “by ghosts of, um, the Civil War soldiers.”

As luck would have it, when you nudge the door open, the hallway is empty. But you jump right out of your skin when old Colonel Floyd strides past you muttering about “Dang Confederate Buttons.”

“So, Miss Floyd, is that one of the ghosts?” You have no idea what you’re going to say.

Before you can say a word, Bob walks out of the kitchen. “Linley? What’re you still doing here?”

Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit. How are you going to get out of this?

“I’m Tom Hollingsworth, New York Post. Miss Floyd was just showing me around the plantation.”

Bob’s face lights up with an unholy glee as you plead with him using just your eyes.

“Mr Hollingsworth is writing a piece on the family. You know, since I’m marrying the Mayor’s son and all. I had no idea, isn’t that something?”

"I'm Bobby Ray. I'm Linley's cousin. She must’ve forgotten her manners." He smiles and shakes Mr. Hollingsworth's hand before leading him up the main stairs.

“When the Yankees marched through Alabama, they tried to destroy our metal-forming capabilities. Well, as it turns out, the only way they thought to do that was to place barrels of gunpowder under the anvils.”

You've seen photographers take their sweet time snapping pictures of the locations, examining and repositioning their subjects an umpteen number of times before they're satisfied. Hollingsworth takes a single picture of each room and seems far more interested in what Bobby is saying. “They didn’t go very far, though. All they managed to do was blow the anvils sky-high for a few seconds. In honor of that act of pure stupidity, we reenact the events for the tourists.”

"It must've been something growing up here." That line of questioning. You've heard it before. Someone's told you the exact same phrase thousands of miles away from here. It's when he pushes his glasses up his aquiline nose that you place exactly where you've seen Tom Hollingsworth before. Tom Hollingsworth isn't his name at all, in fact. Beau Simpson is, and he is Carole Bradshaw’s Chief of Staff.

This means trouble. There is unease prickling across your shoulders, and you can feel a tension headache brewing as Bobby leads you to a balcony overlooking the back lawn.

Obviously, the anvils all over the lawn caught his attention. So does the explosion from behind the shed.

When old Colonel Floyd whoops in the air, something wicked takes over Bobby’s face.

“Hey, Grandpa!” His shout makes something a lot like rage curl your lips more than your fake smile. “This is Tom! He’s doing an article on Linley’s wedding!”

“Well, I’ve never heard of her!” Like it happens every once in a while, both you and Bobby burst out laughing. If your laugh is a little giddier and more relieved than Bobby’s, you hope nobody can tell.

"Well, Miss Floyd, Mr. Floyd, it's been a pleasure. You have my number, so look out for my call. I'll be sure to follow up if I have any other questions!" It feels like you can finally breathe when the car pulls away. But it's obvious your legs don't get the picture because Bobby has to wrap his arm around your waist to keep you upright.

"C'mon, Lin. I think we oughta chat."

Sure enough, just as soon as you're back in the house, Bob fixes you with his piercing blue eyes.

"Spill, sister."

So you do. You tell your oldest friend about how you'd wanted to reinvent yourself. How you'd picked Floyd as your nom de plume while in New York to distinguish yourself.

"Does he know? Does Bradshaw know that Linley Floyd's not your real name?"

"He doesn't."

"I think you have to tell him, honey. You're marrying him. And that's a pretty big lie to maintain. What's he going to think when you sign your marriage license as Linley Mitchell instead of Linley Floyd?" You can't forget that you need to talk to Bradley. Come clean about everything, including the past few days in Pigeon Creek.

“There’s something else that happened too, Bob.” Your heart’s in your throat as your best friend pushes his spectacles up his nose and turns his blue eyes on you.

“What happened?” Your tongue feels like it’s tied into knots as you twist your fingers together in the face of his gentle smile.

“ImayhavesortofsleptwithJakeagainlastnight.” The words spill out of you in a rush, which has Bob with his head in his hands.

“Do you want to run that by me again, Lin?” He sounds confused and a little disappointed in you.

“You slept with Jake again. But you’re still marrying Bradley Bradshaw?” He’s rubbing at his temples like he’s trying to stave off a particularly terrible oncoming headache. “How did you think this was a good idea?”

“I-” You’re not sure if you were thinking at all that night. It had just seemed right, being with Jake. Even though you’d fought with him and screamed and yelled and downed more alcohol than you probably should have, it still felt right. “I know.”

You’re still miserable, though. The guilt’s eating you alive. You love Bradley, or well, at least a part of you does. Being back in Pigeon Creek makes you feel like Linley, who is in a relationship with Bradley Bradshaw, is a different person from Linley, who was in a relationship with and loved Jake Seresin. Bob smiles softly when you stutteringly relay your feelings over.

“Who do you truly love?” Well, if you knew, you wouldn’t be so confused, now would you? “I mean, think about it, Lin. When you close your eyes and think about the one person who you’d like to see when you wake up in the morning and who you would like to fall asleep next to at night, who do you see?”

You let Bob ply you with cups of sweet tea and Mrs. Apple’s cookies fresh from the oven as you try to figure out the tangled snarl of your emotions. But you can’t. Eventually, the conversation turns into actually catching up with your best friend. The question of your feelings is still in the back of your mind. Maybe if you don’t address it, nothing bad will happen, right? In any case, you’ll be back in New York soon, and Jake Seresin will be nothing but a bittersweet memory. But first, you have your final Catfish festival to go to and a reenactment to attend - it would break your dad’s heart if you weren’t there. Forty-eight hours longer and you’ll be back in New York. You can hold on for that long.

I DO NOT CONSENT TO HAVE MY WORK POSTED, TRANSLATED, OR PUBLISHED ON ANY SITES OTHER THAN HERE, ON WATTPAD, OR ON AO3 BY ME. IF YOU SEE MY WORKS ANYWHERE OTHER THAN HERE, ON WATTPAD, OR AO3, THEN THEY HAVE BEEN POSTED WITHOUT MY PERMISSION AND I WILL BE WORKING TO TAKE THEM DOWN.

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hangman001 · 3 months ago

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casapazzo · 5 months ago

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Residents in a small Alabama town will be able to vote in their own municipal elections for the first time in decades after a four-year legal battle.

A proposed settlement has been reached in the town’s voting rights case, allowing Newbern, a predominantly Black town with 133 residents, to hold its first legitimate elections in more than 60 years. The town’s next elections will be held in 2025.

. . .For decades, white officials appointed Newbern’s mayor and council members in lieu of holding elections. Most residents weren’t even aware that there were supposed to be elections for these positions.

. . .[Patrick] Braxton was the only candidate who filed qualifying paperwork with the county clerk in 2020, so he won the mayoral race by default. The incumbent, Haywood “Woody” Stokes III, hadn’t even bothered to fill out the paperwork to run again. Haywood Stokes Jr., his father, had previously been mayor of the rural Black Belt town.

After Braxton assumed office, he faced several obstacles. He discovered the locks to the town hall had been changed, and that the town council had held a secret special election in which they simply reelected themselves. They then reappointed Stokes III as mayor of Newbern in 2021. He has been acting as mayor ever since.

. . .Braxton, who was born in Newbern and described himself as a “handyman for the community,” hasn’t been able to access town funds since Stokes was appointed as mayor four years ago. He has used his own money to provide residents with COVID-19 supplies, as well as to host food drives and other events, according to The Guardian.

#civil rights #alabama #what the ever living fuck #feudalism alive and well in alabama #which is somewhat unsurprising #but jfc #braxton is a fucking champ #but how enraging that he's had to be

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smallnetbusiness · 1 year ago

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craftystrangerprincess · 1 year ago

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hangman0 · 1 year ago

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wickerresidentialcleaning · 2 years ago

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1962dude420-blog · 4 years ago

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Today we remember the passing of Nina Simone who Died: April 21, 2003 in Carry-le-Rouet, France

Eunice Kathleen Waymon (February 21, 1933 – April 21, 2003), known professionally as Nina Simone, was an American singer, songwriter, musician, arranger, and civil rights activist. Her music spanned a broad range of musical styles including classical, jazz, blues, folk, R&B, gospel, and pop.

The sixth of eight children born to a poor family in Tryon, North Carolina, Simone initially aspired to be a concert pianist. With the help of a few supporters in her hometown, she enrolled in the Juilliard School of Music in New York City. She then applied for a scholarship to study at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, where she was denied admission despite a well-received audition, which she attributed to racial discrimination. In 2003, just days before her death, the Institute awarded her an honorary degree.

To make a living, Simone started playing piano at a nightclub in Atlantic City. She changed her name to "Nina Simone" to disguise herself from family members, having chosen to play "the devil's music" or so-called "cocktail piano". She was told in the nightclub that she would have to sing to her own accompaniment, which effectively launched her career as a jazz vocalist. She went on to record more than 40 albums between 1958 and 1974, making her debut with Little Girl Blue. She had a hit single in the United States in 1958 with "I Loves You, Porgy". Her musical style fused gospel and pop with classical music, in particular Johann Sebastian Bach, and accompanied expressive, jazz-like singing in her contralto voice.

The sixth of eight children in a poor family, she began playing piano at the age of three or four; the first song she learned was "God Be With You, Till We Meet Again". Demonstrating a talent with the piano, she performed at her local church. Her concert debut, a classical recital, was given when she was 12. Simone later said that during this performance, her parents, who had taken seats in the front row, were forced to move to the back of the hall to make way for white people. She said that she refused to play until her parents were moved back to the front, and that the incident contributed to her later involvement in the civil rights movement. Simone's mother, Mary Kate Waymon (née Irvin, November 20, 1901 – April 30, 2001), was a Methodist minister and a housemaid. Her father, Rev. John Devan Waymon (June 24, 1898 – October 23, 1972), was a handyman who at one time owned a dry-cleaning business, but also suffered bouts of ill health. Simone's music teacher helped establish a special fund to pay for her education. Subsequently, a local fund was set up to assist her continued education. With the help of this scholarship money, she was able to attend Allen High School for Girls in Asheville, North Carolina.

In order to fund her private lessons, Simone performed at the Midtown Bar & Grill on Pacific Avenue in Atlantic City, New Jersey, whose owner insisted that she sing as well as play the piano, which increased her income to $90 a week. In 1954, she adopted the stage name "Nina Simone". "Nina", derived from niña, was a nickname given to her by a boyfriend named Chico, and "Simone" was taken from the French actress Simone Signoret, whom she had seen in the 1952 movie Casque d'Or. Knowing her mother would not approve of playing "the Devil's music", she used her new stage name to remain undetected. Simone's mixture of jazz, blues, and classical music in her performances at the bar earned her a small but loyal fan base.

After the success of Little Girl Blue, Simone signed a contract with Colpix Records and recorded a multitude of studio and live albums. Colpix relinquished all creative control to her, including the choice of material that would be recorded, in exchange for her signing the contract with them. After the release of her live album Nina Simone at Town Hall, Simone became a favorite performer in Greenwich Village. By this time, Simone performed pop music only to make money to continue her classical music studies, and was indifferent about having a recording contract. She kept this attitude toward the record industry for most of her career.

Simone married a New York police detective, Andrew Stroud, in December, 1961. In few years he became her manager and the father of her daughter Lisa, but later he abused Simone psychologically and physically.

In 1964, Simone changed record distributors from Colpix, an American company, to the Dutch Philips Records, which meant a change in the content of her recordings. She had always included songs in her repertoire that drew on her African-American heritage, such as "Brown Baby" by Oscar Brown and "Zungo" by Michael Olatunji on her album Nina at the Village Gate in 1962. On her debut album for Philips, Nina Simone in Concert (1964), for the first time she addressed racial inequality in the United States in the song "Mississippi Goddam". This was her response to the June 12, 1963, murder of Medgar Evers and the September 15, 1963, bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, that killed four young black girls and partly blinded a fifth. She said that the song was "like throwing ten bullets back at them", becoming one of many other protest songs written by Simone. The song was released as a single, and it was boycotted in some southern states. Promotional copies were smashed by a Carolina radio station and returned to Philips. She later recalled how "Mississippi Goddam" was her "first civil rights song" and that the song came to her "in a rush of fury, hatred and determination". The song challenged the belief that race relations could change gradually and called for more immediate developments: "me and my people are just about due". It was a key moment in her path to Civil Rights activism. "Old Jim Crow", on the same album, addressed the Jim Crow laws. After "Mississippi Goddam", a civil rights message was the norm in Simone's recordings and became part of her concerts. As her political activism rose, the rate of release of her music slowed.

Simone performed and spoke at civil rights meetings, such as at the Selma to Montgomery marches. Like Malcolm X, her neighbor in Mount Vernon, New York, she supported black nationalism and advocated violent revolution rather than Martin Luther King Jr.'s non-violent approach. She hoped that African Americans could use armed combat to form a separate state, though she wrote in her autobiography that she and her family regarded all races as equal.

In 1967, Simone moved from Philips to RCA Victor. She sang "Backlash Blues" written by her friend, Harlem Renaissance leader Langston Hughes, on her first RCA album, Nina Simone Sings the Blues (1967). On Silk & Soul (1967), she recorded Billy Taylor's "I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel to Be Free" and "Turning Point". The album 'Nuff Said! (1968) contained live recordings from the Westbury Music Fair of April 7, 1968, three days after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. She dedicated the performance to him and sang "Why? (The King of Love Is Dead)", a song written by her bass player, Gene Taylor. In 1969, she performed at the Harlem Cultural Festival in Harlem's Mount Morris Park.

Simone and Weldon Irvine turned the unfinished play To Be Young, Gifted and Black by Lorraine Hansberry into a civil rights song of the same name. She credited her friend Hansberry with cultivating her social and political consciousness. She performed the song live on the album Black Gold (1970). A studio recording was released as a single, and renditions of the song have been recorded by Aretha Franklin (on her 1972 album Young, Gifted and Black) and Donny Hathaway. When reflecting on this period, she wrote in her autobiography, "I felt more alive then than I feel now because I was needed, and I could sing something to help my people".

In an interview for Jet magazine, Simone stated that her controversial song "Mississippi Goddam" harmed her career. She claimed that the music industry punished her by boycotting her records. Hurt and disappointed, Simone left the US in September 1970, flying to Barbados and expecting her husband and manager (Andrew Stroud) to communicate with her when she had to perform again. However, Stroud interpreted Simone's sudden disappearance, and the fact that she had left behind her wedding ring, as an indication of her desire for a divorce. As her manager, Stroud was in charge of Simone's income.

In 1993, she settled near Aix-en-Provence in southern France (Bouches-du-Rhône). In the same year, her final album, A Single Woman, was released. She variously contended that she married or had a love affair with a Tunisian around this time, but that their relationship ended because, "His family didn't want him to move to France, and France didn't want him because he's a North African." During a 1998 performance in Newark, she announced, "If you're going to come see me again, you've got to come to France, because I am not coming back." She suffered from breast cancer for several years before she died in her sleep at her home in Carry-le-Rouet (Bouches-du-Rhône), on April 21, 2003. Her funeral service was attended by singers Miriam Makeba and Patti LaBelle, poet Sonia Sanchez, actors Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee, and hundreds of others. Simone's ashes were scattered in several African countries. She is survived by her daughter, Lisa Celeste Stroud, an actress and singer, who took the stage name Simone, and who has appeared on Broadway in Aida.

#april 21 #2003 #r.i.p.#nina simone

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blackkudos · 5 years ago

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Nina Simone

The sixth of eight children born to a poor family in Tryon, North Carolina, Simone initially aspired to be a concert pianist. With the help of a few supporters in her hometown, she enrolled in the Juilliard School of Music in New York City. She then applied for a scholarship to study at the prestigious Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, where she was denied admission despite a well-received audition, which she attributed to racial discrimination. In 2003, just days before her death, the Institute awarded her an honorary degree.

Biography

1933–1954: Early life

Simone was born Eunice Kathleen Waymon on February 21, 1933, in Tryon, North Carolina. The sixth of eight children in a poor family, she began playing piano at the age of three or four; the first song she learned was "God Be With You, Till We Meet Again". Demonstrating a talent with the instrument, she performed at her local church. Her concert debut, a classical recital, was given when she was 12. Simone later said that during this performance, her parents, who had taken seats in the front row, were forced to move to the back of the hall to make way for white people. She said that she refused to play until her parents were moved back to the front, and that the incident contributed to her later involvement in the civil rights movement. Simone's mother, Mary Kate Waymon (née Irvin, November 20, 1901 – April 30, 2001), was a Methodist minister and a housemaid. Her father, Rev. John Devan Waymon (June 24, 1898 – October 23, 1972), was a handyman who at one time owned a dry-cleaning business, but also suffered bouts of ill health. Simone's music teacher helped establish a special fund to pay for her education. Subsequently, a local fund was set up to assist her continued education. With the help of this scholarship money, she was able to attend Allen High School for Girls in Asheville, North Carolina.

After her graduation, Simone spent the summer of 1950 at the Juilliard School as a student of Carl Friedberg, preparing for an audition at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. Her application, however, was denied. Only 3 of 72 applicants were accepted that year, but as her family had relocated to Philadelphia in the expectation of her entry to Curtis, the blow to her aspirations was particularly heavy. For the rest of her life, she suspected that her application had been denied because of racial prejudice. Discouraged, she took private piano lessons with Vladimir Sokoloff, a professor at Curtis, but never could re-apply due to the fact that at the time the Curtis institute did not accept students over 21. She took a job as a photographer's assistant, but also found work as an accompanist at Arlene Smith's vocal studio and taught piano from her home in Philadelphia.

1954–1959: Early success

In order to fund her private lessons, Simone performed at the Midtown Bar & Grill on Pacific Avenue in Atlantic City, New Jersey, whose owner insisted that she sing as well as play the piano, which increased her income to $90 a week. In 1954, she adopted the stage name "Nina Simone". "Nina", derived from niña, was a nickname given to her by a boyfriend named Chico, and "Simone" was taken from the French actress Simone Signoret, whom she had seen in the 1952 movie Casque d'Or. Knowing her mother would not approve of playing the "Devil's Music", she used her new stage name to remain undetected. Simone's mixture of jazz, blues, and classical music in her performances at the bar earned her a small but loyal fan base.

In 1958, she befriended and married Don Ross, a beatnik who worked as a fairground barker, but quickly regretted their marriage. Playing in small clubs in the same year, she recorded George Gershwin's "I Loves You, Porgy" (from Porgy and Bess), which she learned from a Billie Holiday album and performed as a favor to a friend. It became her only Billboard top 20 success in the United States, and her debut album Little Girl Blue followed in February 1959 on Bethlehem Records. Simone lost more than $1 million in royalties (notably for the 1980s re-release of her version of the jazz standard "My Baby Just Cares for Me") and never benefited financially from the album's sales because she had sold her rights outright for $3,000.

1959–1964: Becoming popular

Simone married a New York police detective, Andrew Stroud, in 1961. He later became her manager and the father of her daughter Lisa, but he abused Simone psychologically and physically.

1964–1974: Civil Rights era

In 1964, Simone changed record distributors from Colpix, an American company, to the Dutch Philips Records, which meant a change in the content of her recordings. She had always included songs in her repertoire that drew on her African-American heritage, such as "Brown Baby" by Oscar Brown and "Zungo" by Michael Olatunji on her album Nina at the Village Gate in 1962. On her debut album for Philips, Nina Simone in Concert (1964), for the first time she addressed racial inequality in the United States in the song "Mississippi Goddam". This was her response to the June 12, 1963, murder of Medgar Evers and the September 15, 1963, bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama that killed four young black girls and partially blinded a fifth. She said that the song was "like throwing ten bullets back at them", becoming one of many other protest songs written by Simone. The song was released as a single, and it was boycotted in some southern states. Promotional copies were smashed by a Carolina radio station and returned to Philips. She later recalled how "Mississippi Goddam" was her "first civil rights song" and that the song came to her "in a rush of fury, hatred and determination". The song challenged the belief that race relations could change gradually and called for more immediate developments: "me and my people are just about due". It was a key moment in her political radicalization. "Old Jim Crow", on the same album, addressed the Jim Crow laws. After "Mississippi Goddam", a civil rights message was the norm in Simone's recordings and became part of her concerts. As her political activism rose, the rate of release of her music slowed.

Simone performed and spoke at civil rights meetings, such as at the Selma to Montgomery marches. Like Malcolm X, her neighbor in Mount Vernon, New York, she supported black nationalism and advocated violent revolution rather than Martin Luther King's non-violent approach. She hoped that African Americans could use armed combat to form a separate state, though she wrote in her autobiography that she and her family regarded all races as equal.

1974–1993: Later life

In an interview for Jet magazine, Simone stated that her controversial song "Mississippi Goddam" harmed her career. She claimed that the music industry punished her by boycotting her records. Hurt and disappointed, Simone left the US in September 1970, flying to Barbados and expecting Stroud to communicate with her when she had to perform again. However, Stroud interpreted Simone's sudden disappearance, and the fact that she had left behind her wedding ring, as an indication of her desire for a divorce. As her manager, Stroud was in charge of Simone's income.

When Simone returned to the United States, she learned that a warrant had been issued for her arrest for unpaid taxes (unpaid as a protest against her country's involvement with the Vietnam War), and returned to Barbados to evade the authorities and prosecution. Simone stayed in Barbados for quite some time, and had a lengthy affair with the Prime Minister, Errol Barrow. A close friend, singer Miriam Makeba, then persuaded her to go to Liberia. When Simone relocated, she abandoned her daughter Lisa in Mount Vernon. Lisa eventually reunited with Simone in Liberia, but, according to Lisa, her mother was physically and mentally abusive. The abuse was so unbearable that Lisa became suicidal and she moved back to New York to live with her father Andrew Stroud.Simone recorded her last album for RCA, It Is Finished, in 1974, and did not make another record until 1978, when she was persuaded to go into the recording studio by CTI Records owner Creed Taylor. The result was the album Baltimore, which, while not a commercial success, was fairly well-received critically and marked a quiet artistic renaissance in Simone's recording output. Her choice of material retained its eclecticism, ranging from spiritual songs to Hall & Oates' "Rich Girl". Four years later, Simone recorded Fodder on My Wings on a French label.

During the 1980s, Simone performed regularly at Ronnie Scott's Jazz Club in London, where she recorded the album Live at Ronnie Scott's in 1984. Although her early on-stage style could be somewhat haughty and aloof, in later years, Simone particularly seemed to enjoy engaging with her audiences sometimes, by recounting humorous anecdotes related to her career and music and by soliciting requests. In 1987, the original 1958 recording of "My Baby Just Cares for Me" was used in a commercial for Chanel No. 5 perfume in Britain. This led to a re-release of the recording, which stormed to number 4 on the UK's NME singles chart, giving her a brief surge in popularity in the UK.

Later, Simone moved to Europe, first living in Nyon, Switzerland, and in 1988 moved to Nijmegen and later Amsterdam in the Netherlands. Simone published her autobiography, I Put a Spell on You, in 1992. She continued to tour through the 1990s, but rarely traveled without an entourage. During the last decade of her life, Simone had sold more than one million records, making her a global catalog best-seller.

1993–2003: Final years, illness and death

In 1993, she settled near Aix-en-Provence in Southern France. In the same year, her final album, A Single Woman, was released. She variously contended that she married or had a love affair with a Tunisian around this time, but that their relationship ended because, "His family didn't want him to move to France, and France didn't want him because he's a North African." During a 1998 performance in Newark, she announced, "If you're going to come see me again, you've got to come to France, because I am not coming back." She suffered from breast cancer for several years before she died in her sleep at her home in Carry-le-Rouet, Bouches-du-Rhône, on April 21, 2003. Her funeral service was attended by singers Miriam Makeba and Patti LaBelle, poet Sonia Sanchez, actors Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee, and hundreds of others. Simone's ashes were scattered in several African countries. She is survived by her daughter, Lisa Celeste Stroud, an actress and singer, who took the stage name Simone, and who has appeared on Broadway in Aida.

Activism

Influence

Simone's consciousness on the racial and social discourse was prompted by her friendship with black playwright, Lorraine Hansberry. The influence of Hansberry planted the seed for the provocative social commentary that became an expectation in Simone's repertoire. One of Nina's more hopeful activism anthems, "To Be Young, Gifted and Black" was written with collaborator Weldon Irvine in the years following the playwright's passing, acquiring the title of one of Hansberry's unpublished plays.

Beyond the civil rights movement

Simone's social commentary was not limited to the civil rights movement; the song "Four Women" exposed the eurocentric appearance standards imposed on black women in America, as it explored the internalized dilemma of beauty that is experienced between four black women with skin tones ranging from light to dark. She explains in her autobiography I Put a Spell on You (p. 117) that the purpose of the song was to inspire black women to define beauty and identity for themselves without the influence of societal impositions.

Artistry

Simone standards

During that same period Simone recorded "My Baby Just Cares for Me", which would become her biggest success years later, in 1987, after it was featured in a 1986 Chanel No. 5 perfume commercial. A music video was also created by Aardman Studios. Well-known songs from her Philips albums include "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood" on Broadway-Blues-Ballads (1964), "I Put a Spell on You", "Ne me quitte pas" (a rendition of a Jacques Brel song) and "Feeling Good" on I Put a Spell On You (1965), "Lilac Wine" and "Wild Is the Wind" on Wild is the Wind (1966).

"Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood" and her takes on "Feeling Good" and "Sinnerman" (Pastel Blues, 1965) have remained popular in cover versions (most notably a version of the former song by The Animals), sample usage, and their use on soundtracks for various movies, television series, and video games. "Sinnerman" has been featured in the films The Crimson Pirate (1952), The Thomas Crown Affair (1999), High Crimes (2002), Cellular (2004), Déjà Vu (2006), Miami Vice (2006), Golden Door (2006), Inland Empire (2006), and Harriet (2019), as well as in TV series such as Homicide: Life on the Street (1998, "Sins of the Father"), Nash Bridges (2000, "Jackpot"), Scrubs (2001, "My Own Personal Jesus"), Boomtown (2003, "The Big Picture"), Person of Interest (2011, "Witness"), Shameless (2011, "Kidnap and Ransom"), Love/Hate (2011, "Episode 1"), Sherlock (2012, "The Reichenbach Fall"), The Blacklist (2013, "The Freelancer"), Vinyl (2016, "The Racket"), Lucifer (2017, "Favorite Son"), and The Umbrella Academy (2019, "Extra Ordinary"), and sampled by artists such as Talib Kweli (2003, "Get By"), Timbaland (2007, "Oh Timbaland"), and Flying Lotus (2012, "Until the Quiet Comes"). The song "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood" was sampled by Devo Springsteen on "Misunderstood" from Common's 2007 album Finding Forever, and by little-known producers Rodnae and Mousa for the song "Don't Get It" on Lil Wayne's 2008 album Tha Carter III. "See-Line Woman" was sampled by Kanye West for "Bad News" on his album 808s & Heartbreak. The 1965 rendition of "Strange Fruit", originally recorded by Billie Holiday, was sampled by Kanye West for "Blood on the Leaves" on his album Yeezus.

Simone's years at RCA-Victor spawned a number of singles and album tracks that were popular, particularly in Europe. In 1968, it was "Ain't Got No, I Got Life", a medley from the musical Hair from the album 'Nuff Said! (1968) that became a surprise hit for Simone, reaching number 4 on the UK Singles Chart and introducing her to a younger audience. In 2006, it returned to the UK Top 30 in a remixed version by Groovefinder.

The following single, a rendition of the Bee Gees' "To Love Somebody", also reached the UK Top 10 in 1969. "The House of the Rising Sun" was featured on Nina Simone Sings the Blues in 1967, but Simone had recorded the song in 1961 and it was featured on Nina at the Village Gate (1962).

Performance style

Simone's bearing and stage presence earned her the title "the High Priestess of Soul". She was a piano player, singer and performer, "separately, and simultaneously." As a composer and arranger, Simone moved from gospel to blues, jazz, and folk, and to numbers with European classical styling. Besides using Bach-style counterpoint, she called upon the particular virtuosity of the 19th-century Romantic piano repertoire—Chopin, Liszt, Rachmaninoff, and others. Jazz trumpeter Miles Davis spoke highly of Simone, deeply impressed by her ability to play three-part counterpoint (her two hands on the piano and her voice each playing a separate but complimentary melody line). Onstage, she incorporated monologues and dialogues with the audience into the program, and often used silence as a musical element. Throughout most of her life and recording career she was accompanied by percussionist Leopoldo Fleming and guitarist and musical director Al Schackman. She was known to pay close attention to the design and acoustics of each venue, custom tailoring performances to each location.

Simone was perceived as a sometimes difficult or unpredictable performer, occasionally hectoring the audience if she felt they were disrespectful. Schackman would try to calm Simone during these episodes, performing solo until she calmed offstage and returned to finish the engagement. Her early experiences as a classical pianist had conditioned Simone to expect quiet attentive audiences, and her anger tended to flare up at nightclubs, lounges or other locations where patrons were less attentive. Schackman described her live appearances as hit or miss, either reaching heights of hypnotic brilliance or on the other hand mechanically playing a few songs and then abruptly ending concerts early.

Critical reputation

Simone is regarded as one of the most influential recording artists of the 20th century. According to Rickey Vincent, she was a pioneering musician whose career was characterized by "fits of outrage and improvisational genius". Pointing to her composition of "Mississippi Goddam", Vincent said Simone broke the mold, having the courage as "an established black musical entertainer to break from the norms of the industry and produce direct social commentary in her music during the early 1960s".

In naming Simone the 29th-greatest singer of all time, Rolling Stone wrote that "her honey-coated, slightly adenoidal cry was one of the most affecting voices of the civil rights movement", while making note of her ability to "belt barroom blues, croon cabaret and explore jazz — sometimes all on a single record." In the opinion of AllMusic's Mark Deming, she was "one of the most gifted vocalists of her generation, and also one of the most eclectic". Creed Taylor, who annotated the liner notes for Simone's 1978 Baltimore album, said the singer possessed a "magnificent intensity" that "turns everything—even the most simple, mundane phrase or lyric—into a radiant, poetic message". Jim Fusilli, music critic for The Wall Street Journal, writes that Simone's music is still relevant today: "it didn't adhere to ephemeral trends, it isn't a relic of a bygone era; her vocal delivery and technical skills as a pianist still dazzle; and her emotional performances have a visceral impact.

"She is loved or feared, adored or disliked", Maya Angelou wrote in 1970, "but few who have met her music or glimpsed her soul react with moderation". Robert Christgau, reviewing her album Baltimore, wrote that her "penchant for the mundane renders her intensity as bogus as her mannered melismas and pronunciation (move over, Inspector Clouseau) and the rote flatting of her vocal improvisations." Regarding her piano playing, he dismissed Simone as a "middlebrow keyboard tickler ... whose histrionic rolls insert unconvincing emotion into a song". He later attributed his generally negative appraisal to Simone's consistent seriousness of manner, depressive tendencies, and classical background.

Mental health

Known for her temper and frequent outbursts, in 1985, Simone fired a gun at a record company executive, whom she accused of stealing royalties. Simone said she "tried to kill him" but "missed". Simone was diagnosed with bipolar disorder in the late 1980s. In 1995 while living in France, she shot and wounded her neighbor's son with an air gun after the boy's laughter disturbed her concentration; she was sentenced to eight months in jail, which was suspended pending a psychiatric evaluation and treatment.

According to a biographer, Simone took medication for a condition from the mid-1960s onward, although this was supposedly only known to a small group of intimates. After her death the medication was confirmed as the anti-psychotic Trilafon, which Simone's friends and caretakers sometimes surreptitiously mixed into her food when she refused to follow her treatment plan. This fact was kept out of public view for many years, until 2004 when a biography, Break Down and Let It All Out written by Sylvia Hampton and David Nathan, was published posthumously. Singer-songwriter Janis Ian, a one-time friend of Simone's, related in her own autobiography, Society's Child: My Autobiography, two instances to illustrate Simone's volatility: one incident in which she forced a shoe store cashier at gunpoint to take back a pair of sandals she'd already worn; and another in which Simone demanded a royalty payment from Ian herself as an exchange for having recorded one of Ian's songs, and then ripped a pay telephone out of its wall when she was refused.

Awards and recognition

Simone was the recipient of a Grammy Hall of Fame Award in 2000 for her interpretation of "I Loves You, Porgy." On Human Kindness Day 1974 in Washington, D.C., more than 10,000 people paid tribute to Simone.Simone received two honorary degrees in music and humanities, from Amherst College and Malcolm X College. She preferred to be called "Dr. Nina Simone" after these honors were bestowed upon her. She was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2018.

Two days before her death, Simone learned she would be awarded an honorary degree by the Curtis Institute of Music, the music school that had refused to admit her as a student at the beginning of her career.

Simone has received four career Grammy Award nominations, two during her lifetime and two posthumously. In 1968, she received her first nomination for Best Female R&B Vocal Performance for the track "(You'll) Go to Hell" from her thirteenth album Silk & Soul (1967). The award went to "Respect" by Aretha Franklin.

Simone garnered a second nomination in the category in 1971, for her Black Gold album, when she again lost to Franklin for "Don't Play That Song (You Lied)". Ironically, Franklin would again win for her cover of Simone's Young, Gifted and Black two years later in the same category which Simone's Black Gold album was nominated and features Simone's original version of "Young, Gifted and Black". In 2016, Simone posthumously received a nomination for Best Music Film for the Netflix documentary, What Happened, Miss Simone? and in 2018 she received a nomination for Best Rap Song as a songwriter for Jay Z's "The Story of O.J." from his 4:44 album which contained a sample of "Four Women" by Simone.

In 2018, Simone was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame by fellow R&B artist Mary J. Blige.

In 2019, "Mississippi Goddam" was selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the National Recording Registry for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".

Legacy and influence

Music

Musicians who have cited Simone as important for their own musical upbringing include Elton John (who named one of his pianos after her), Madonna, Aretha Franklin, Beyoncé, Adele, David Bowie, Boy George, Emeli Sandé, Antony and the Johnsons, Dianne Reeves, Sade, Janis Joplin, Nick Cave, Van Morrison, Christina Aguilera, Elkie Brooks, Talib Kweli, Mos Def, Kanye West, Lena Horne, Bono, John Legend, Elizabeth Fraser, Cat Stevens, Anna Calvi, Cat Power, Lykke Li, Peter Gabriel, Justin Hayward, Maynard James Keenan, Cedric Bixler-Zavala, Mary J. Blige, Fantasia Barrino, Michael Gira, Angela McCluskey, Lauryn Hill, Patrice Babatunde, Alicia Keys, Alex Turner, Lana Del Rey, Hozier, Matt Bellamy, Ian MacKaye, Kerry Brothers, Jr., Krucial, Amanda Palmer, Steve Adey and Jeff Buckley. John Lennon cited Simone's version of "I Put a Spell on You" as a source of inspiration for the Beatles' song "Michelle". American singer Meshell Ndegeocello released her own tribute album Pour une Âme Souveraine: A Dedication to Nina Simone in 2012. In late 2019, American rapper Wale released an album titled Wow... That's Crazy, containing a track called “Love Me Nina/Semiautomatic” which contains audio clips from Simone. The clips outline the message of the song, as Simone was an active activist in her lifetime.

Simone's music has been featured in soundtracks of various motion pictures and video games, including but not limited to, La Femme Nikita (1990), Point of No Return (1993), Shallow Grave (1994), The Big Lebowski (1998), Any Given Sunday (1999), The Thomas Crown Affair (1999), Disappearing Acts (2000), Six Feet Under (2001), The Dancer Upstairs (2002), Before Sunset (2004), Cellular (2004), Inland Empire (2006), Miami Vice (2006), Sex and the City (2008), The World Unseen (2008), Revolutionary Road (2008), Home (2008), Watchmen (2009), The Saboteur (2009), Repo Men (2010), and Beyond the Lights (2014). Frequently her music is used in remixes, commercials, and TV series including "Feeling Good", which featured prominently in the Season Four Promo of Six Feet Under (2004). Simone's "Take Care of Business" is the closing theme of The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (2015), Simone's cover of Janis Ian's "Stars" is played during the final moments of the season 3 finale of BoJack Horseman (2016), and "I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel to Be Free" and "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood" were included in the film Acrimony (2018).

Film

The documentary Nina Simone: La légende (The Legend) was made in the 1990s by French filmmakers and based on her autobiography I Put a Spell on You. It features live footage from different periods of her career, interviews with family, various interviews with Simone then living in the Netherlands, and while on a trip to her birthplace. A portion of footage from The Legend was taken from an earlier 26-minute biographical documentary by Peter Rodis, released in 1969 and entitled simply, Nina. Her filmed 1976 performance at the Montreux Jazz Festival is available on video courtesy of Eagle Rock Entertainment and is screened annually in New York City at an event called "The Rise and Fall of Nina Simone: Montreux, 1976" which is curated by Tom Blunt.

Footage of Simone singing "Mississippi Goddam" for 40,000 marchers at the end of the Selma to Montgomery marches can be seen in the 1970 documentary King: A Filmed Record... Montgomery to Memphis and the 2015 Liz Garbus documentary, What Happened, Miss Simone?

Plans for a Simone biographical film were released at the end of 2005, to be based on Simone's autobiography I Put a Spell on You (1992) and to focus on her relationship in later life with her assistant, Clifton Henderson, who died in 2006; Simone's daughter, Simone Kelly, has since refuted the existence of a romantic relationship between Simone and Henderson on account of his homosexuality. Cynthia Mort, screenwriter of Will & Grace and Roseanne, has written the screenplay and directed the 2016 film, Nina, which controversially stars Zoe Saldana in the title role.

The Amazing Nina Simone is an independent film written and directed by documentary filmmaker Jeff L. Lieberman and was released in more than 100 cinemas in 2015. The director initially consulted with Simone's daughter before going the independent route and instead worked closely with Simone's siblings, predominantly Sam Waymon. The film debuted in cinemas in October 2015, and has since played more than 100 theatres in 10 countries.

Drama

She is the subject of Nina: A Story About Me and Nina Simone, a one-woman show first performed in 2016 at the Unity Theatre, Liverpool — a "deeply personal and often searing show inspired by the singer and activist Nina Simone" — and which in July 2017 ran at the Young Vic, before being scheduled to move to Edinburgh's Traverse Theatre.

Books

As well as her 1992 autobiography I Put a Spell on You (1992), written with Stephen Cleary, Simone has been the subject of several books. They include Nina Simone: Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood (2002) by Richard Williams; Nina Simone: Break Down and Let It All Out (2004) by Sylvia Hampton and David Nathan; Princess Noire (2010) by Nadine Cohodas; Nina Simone (2004) by Kerry Acker; Nina Simone, Black is the Color (2005) by Andy Stroud; and What Happened, Miss Simone? (2016) by Alan Light.

Simone also inspired a book of poetry, me and Nina by Monica Hand.

Honors

In 2002, the city of Nijmegen, Netherlands, named a street after her, as "Nina Simone Street": she had lived in Nijmegen between 1988 and 1990. On August 29, 2005, the city of Nijmegen, the De Vereeniging concert hall, and more than 50 artists (among whom were Frank Boeijen, Rood Adeo, and Fay Claassen) honored Simone with the tribute concert Greetings from Nijmegen.

Simone was inducted into the North Carolina Music Hall of Fame in 2009.

In 2010, a statue in her honor was erected on Trade Street in her native Tryon, North Carolina.

The promotion from the French Institute of Political Studies of Lille (Sciences Po Lille), due to obtain their master's degree in 2021, named themselves in her honor. The decision was made that this promotion was henceforth to be known as 'la promotion Nina Simone' after a vote in 2017.

Simone was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2018.

The Proms paid a homage to Nina Simone in 2019, a prom titled Mississippi Goddamn is performed by The Metropole Orkest at Royal Albert Hall led by Jules Buckley. Ledisi, Lisa Fischer and Jazz Trio, LaSharVu provided vocals for the prom.

#02/21 #04/21

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itsrobmcgregor · 3 years ago

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cheapoldhousesunder50k · 19 days ago

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c.1920 Two Bedroom Alabama Handyman Special Under $50K

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hangman001 · 3 months ago

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hangman0 · 1 year ago

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Hangman Mounting & Installation

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homeservicesltd · 6 years ago

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blackkudos · 7 years ago

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Nina Simone

Nina Simone (/ˈniːnə sᵻˈmoʊn/; born Eunice Kathleen Waymon; February 21, 1933 – April 21, 2003) was an American singer, songwriter, pianist, arranger, and civil rights activist who worked in a broad range of musical styles including classical, jazz, blues, folk, R&B, gospel, and pop.

Born in North Carolina, the sixth child of a preacher, Simone aspired to be a concert pianist. With the help of the few supporters in her hometown of Tryon, North Carolina, she enrolled in the Juilliard School of Music in New York.

Waymon then applied for a scholarship to study at the prestigious Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, where she was denied despite a well-received audition. Simone became fully convinced this rejection had been entirely due to her race, a statement that has been a matter of controversy. Years later, two days before her death, the Curtis Institute of Music bestowed an honorary degree on Simone.

To make a living, Eunice Waymon changed her name to "Nina Simone". The change related to her need to disguise herself from family members, having chosen to play "the devil's music" or "cocktail piano" at a nightclub in Atlantic City. She was told in the nightclub that she would have to sing to her own accompaniment, and this effectively launched her career as a jazz vocalist.

Simone recorded more than forty albums, mostly between 1958, when she made her debut with Little Girl Blue, and 1974, and had a hit in the United States in 1958 with "I Loves You, Porgy".

Simone's musical style fused gospel and pop with classical music, in particular Johann Sebastian Bach, and accompanied expressive, jazz-like singing in her contralto voice.

Biography

Youth (1933–1954)

Simone was born Eunice Kathleen Waymon in North Carolina and raised in Tryon, North Carolina. The sixth of eight children in a poor family, she began playing piano at age three; the first song she learned was "God Be With You, Till We Meet Again". Demonstrating a talent with the instrument, she performed at her local church. But her concert debut, a classical recital, was given when she was 12. Simone later said that during this performance, her parents, who had taken seats in the front row, were forced to move to the back of the hall to make way for white people. She said that she refused to play until her parents were moved back to the front, and that the incident contributed to her later involvement in the civil rights movement.

Simone's mother, Mary Kate Waymon (1902 - April 30, 2001), was a Methodist minister and a housemaid. Simone's father, John Divine Waymon (1898 - October 24, 1972), was a handyman who at one time owned a dry cleaning business, but also suffered bouts of ill health. Simone's music teacher helped establish a special fund to pay for her education. Subsequently, a local fund was set up to assist her continued education. With the help of this scholarship money she was able to attend Allen High School for Girls in Asheville, North Carolina.

After her graduation, Simone spent the summer of 1950 at the Juilliard School, preparing for an audition at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. Her application, however, was denied. As her family had relocated to Philadelphia in the expectation of her entry to Curtis, the blow to her aspirations was particularly heavy, and she suspected that her application had been denied because of racial prejudice. Discouraged, she took private piano lessons with Vladimir Sokoloff, a professor at Curtis, but never re-applied to the institution. For several years, she worked a number of menial jobs and taught piano in Philadelphia.

Early success (1954–1959)

To fund her private lessons, Simone performed at the Midtown Bar & Grill on Pacific Avenue in Atlantic City, whose owner insisted that she sing as well as play the piano, which increased her income to $90 a week. In 1954, she adopted the stage name "Nina Simone". "Nina" (from niña, meaning "little girl" in Spanish), and "Simone" was taken from the French actress Simone Signoret, whom she had seen in the movie Casque d'Or. Knowing her mother would not approve of playing the "Devil's Music", she used her new stage name to remain undetected. Simone's mixture of jazz, blues, and classical music in her performances at the bar earned her a small but loyal fan base.

In 1958, she befriended and married Don Ross, a beatnik who worked as a fairground barker, but quickly regretted their marriage. Playing in small clubs in the same year, she recorded George Gershwin's "I Loves You, Porgy" (from Porgy and Bess), which she learned from a Billie Holiday album and performed as a favor to a friend. It became her only Billboard top 20 success in the United States, and her debut album Little Girl Blue soon followed on Bethlehem Records. Simone lost more than $1 million in royalties (notably for the 1980s re-release of My Baby Just Cares for Me) and never benefited financially from the album's sales because she had sold her rights outright for $3,000.

Becoming popular (1959–1964)

After the success of Little Girl Blue, Simone signed a contract with Colpix Records and recorded a multitude of studio and live albums. Colpix relinquished all creative control to her, including the choice of material that would be recorded, in exchange for her signing the contract with them. After the release of her live album Nina Simone at Town Hall, Simone became a favorite performer in Greenwich Village. By this time, Simone performed pop music only to make money to continue her classical music studies and was indifferent about having a recording contract. She kept this attitude toward the record industry for most of her career.

Simone married a New York police detective, Andrew Stroud, in 1961. He later became her manager and the father of her daughter Lisa, but he abused Simone psychologically and physically.

Civil rights era (1964–1974)

In 1964, Simone changed record distributors from the American Colpix to the Dutch Philips, which also meant a change in the contents of her recordings. She had always included songs in her repertoire that drew upon her African-American origins (such as "Brown Baby" by Oscar Brown and "Zungo" by Michael Olatunji in her album Nina at the Village Gate in 1962). On her debut album for Philips, Nina Simone in Concert (live recording, 1964), for the first time she openly addressed the racial inequality that was prevalent in the United States with the song "Mississippi Goddam", her response to the June 12, 1963, murder of Medgar Evers and the September 15, 1963, bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, that killed four young black girls and partially blinded a fifth girl who survived. She remarked that the title and the song itself was, "like throwing 10 bullets back at them", becoming one of many other protest songs written by Simone. The song was released as a single, and it was boycotted in certain southern states. Specifically, promotional copies were smashed by a Carolina radio station and returned to Simone's record label. Simone later recalled how "Mississippi Goddam" was her "first civil rights song" and that the song came to her "in a rush of fury, hatred and determination". The song was a direct challenge to widely held beliefs that race relations could change gradually and called for more immediate developments, "me and my people are just about due". "Old Jim Crow", on the same album, addressed the Jim Crow laws.

From then on, a civil rights message was standard in Simone's recording repertoire, becoming a part of her live performances. During the rise of her political activism, the release of her musical work grew more infrequent. Simone performed and spoke at many civil rights meetings, such as at the Selma to Montgomery marches. Simone advocated violent revolution during the civil rights period, rather than Martin Luther King's non-violent approach, and she hoped that African Americans could, by armed combat, form a separate state. Her message to the public signified the transition from the non-violent approach to social change that was advocated by Martin Luther King into the more militant state that was implemented by Malcolm X and the associates of the Black Nationalist Movement. Nevertheless, she wrote in her autobiography that she and her family regarded all races as equal.

Simone moved from Philips to RCA Victor during 1967. She sang "Backlash Blues", written by her friend and Harlem Renaissance leader, Langston Hughes, on her first RCA album, Nina Simone Sings the Blues (1967). On Silk & Soul (1967), she recorded Billy Taylor's "I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel to Be Free" and "Turning Point". The album 'Nuff Said! (1968) contains live recordings from the Westbury Music Fair, April 7, 1968, three days after the murder of Martin Luther King, Jr. She dedicated the whole performance to him and sang "Why? (The King Of Love Is Dead)", a song written by her bass player, Gene Taylor, directly after the news of King's death had reached them. In the summer of 1969, she performed at the Harlem Cultural Festival in Harlem's Mount Morris Park.

Together with Weldon Irvine, Simone turned Lorraine Hansberry's unfinished play To Be Young, Gifted and Black into a civil rights song. Hansberry had been a personal friend whom Simone credited with cultivating her social and political consciousness. She performed the song live on the album Black Gold (1970). A studio recording was released as a single, and renditions of the song have been recorded by Aretha Franklin (on her 1972 album Young, Gifted and Black) and by Donny Hathaway.

Later life (1974–1993)

In an interview for Jet magazine, Simone stated that her controversial song "Mississippi Goddam" hurt her career. She claimed that the music industry reprimanded her by boycotting her records. Hurt and disappointed, Simone left the US in September 1970, flying to Barbados and expecting Stroud to communicate with her when she had to perform again. However, Stroud interpreted Simone's sudden disappearance, and the fact that she had left behind her wedding ring, as an indication of a desire for a divorce. As her manager, Stroud was in charge of Simone's income.

Simone recorded her last album for RCA, It Is Finished, in 1974, and did not make another record until 1978, when she was persuaded to go into the recording studio by CTI Records owner Creed Taylor. The result was the album Baltimore, which, while not a commercial success, was fairly well received critically and marked a quiet artistic renaissance in Simone's recording output. Her choice of material retained its eclecticism, ranging from spiritual songs to Hall & Oates' "Rich Girl." Four years later Simone recorded Fodder on My Wings on a French label.

During the 1980s, Simone performed regularly at Ronnie Scott's Jazz Club in London, where she recorded the album Live at Ronnie Scott's in 1984. Although her early on-stage style could be somewhat haughty and aloof, in later years, Simone particularly seemed to enjoy engaging her audiences sometimes by recounting humorous anecdotes related to her career and music and by soliciting requests. In 1987, the original 1958 recording of "My Baby Just Cares for Me" was used in a commercial for Chanel No. 5 perfume in Britain. This led to a re-release of the recording, which stormed to number 4 on the UK's NME singles chart, giving her a brief surge in popularity in the UK.

When Simone returned to the United States, she learned that a warrant had been issued for her arrest for unpaid taxes (as a protest against her country's involvement with the Vietnam War), and returned to Barbados to evade the authorities and prosecution. Simone stayed in Barbados for quite some time and she had a lengthy affair with the Prime Minister, Errol Barrow. A close friend, singer Miriam Makeba, then persuaded her to go to Liberia. Later, she lived in Switzerland and the Netherlands, before settling in France in 1993. During a 1998 performance in Newark, she announced, "If you're going to come see me again, you've got to come to France, because I ain't coming back."

Simone published her autobiography, I Put a Spell on You, in 1992. She recorded her last album, A Single Woman in 1993, where she depicted herself as such "single woman." This album reflected her solitude and pain. She continued to tour through the 1990s but rarely traveled without an entourage. During the last decade of her life, Simone had sold more than one million records making her a global catalog best-seller. This was accompanied by the CD revolution, global exposure through media television and the novelty of the Internet.

Illness and death

Simone had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder in the late 1980s. In 1993, Simone settled near Aix-en-Provence in Southern France. She had suffered from breast cancer for several years before she died in her sleep at her home in Carry-le-Rouet, Bouches-du-Rhône on April 21, 2003. Her funeral service was attended by singers Miriam Makeba and Patti LaBelle, poet Sonia Sanchez, actor Ossie Davis, actress Ruby Dee, and hundreds of others. Simone's ashes were scattered in several African countries. She is survived by her daughter, Lisa Celeste Stroud, an actress and singer, who took the stage name Simone, and has appeared on Broadway in Aida.

Personality

Simone was known for her temper and frequent outbursts. In 1995, she fired a gun at a record company executive, whom she accused of stealing royalties. Simone said she "tried to kill him" but "missed". In 1995, she shot and wounded her neighbor's son with an air gun after the boy's laughter disturbed her concentration. According to a biographer, Simone took medication for a condition from the mid-1960s on. All this was only known to a small group of intimates, and kept out of public view for many years, until the biography Break Down and Let It All Out written by Sylvia Hampton and David Nathan revealed this in 2004, after her death. Singer-songwriter Janis Ian, a one-time friend of Simone's, related in her own autobiography, Society's Child: My Autobiography, two incidents to illustrate Simone's volatility: One incident in which she forced a shoe store cashier, at gunpoint, to take back a pair of sandals she'd already worn; and another in which Simone demanded a royalty payment from Ian herself as an exchange for having recorded one of Ian's songs, and then ripped a pay telephone out of its wall when she was refused.

Musical style

Simone standards

Throughout her career, Simone assembled a collection of songs that would later become standards in her repertoire. Some were songs that she wrote herself, while others were new arrangements of other standards, and others had been written especially for the singer. Her first hit song in America was her rendition of George Gershwin's "I Loves You, Porgy" (1958). It peaked at number 18 in the pop singles chart and number 2 on the black singles chart. During that same period Simone recorded "My Baby Just Cares for Me", which would become her biggest success years later, in 1987, after it was featured in a 1986 Chanel No. 5 perfume commercial. A music video was also created by Aardman Studios. Well known songs from her Philips albums include "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood" on Broadway-Blues-Ballads (1964), "I Put a Spell on You", "Ne me quitte pas" (a rendition of a Jacques Brel song) and "Feeling Good" on I Put a Spell On You (1965), "Lilac Wine" and "Wild Is the Wind" on Wild is the Wind (1966).

"Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood", "Feeling Good", and "Sinner Man" (Pastel Blues, 1965) have remained popular in terms of cover versions (most notably a version of the former song by The Animals), sample usage, and its use on soundtracks for various movies, TV-series, and video games. "Sinner Man" has been featured in the TV series Scrubs, Person of Interest, The Blacklist, Sherlock, and Vinyl, as well as in movies such as The Thomas Crown Affair, Miami Vice, and Inland Empire, and sampled by artists such as Talib Kweli and Timbaland. The song "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood" was sampled by Devo Springsteen on "Misunderstood" from Common's 2007 album Finding Forever, and by little-known producers Rodnae and Mousa for the song "Don't Get It" on Lil Wayne's 2008 album Tha Carter III. "See-Line Woman" was sampled by Kanye West for "Bad News" on his album 808s & Heartbreak. The 1965 rendition of "Strange Fruit," originally recorded by Billie Holiday was sampled by Kanye West for "Blood on the Leaves" on his album Yeezus.

The following single, a rendition of the Bee Gees's "To Love Somebody", also reached the UK Top 10 in 1969. "The House of the Rising Sun" was featured on Nina Simone Sings the Blues in 1967, but Simone had recorded the song in 1961 and it was featured on Nina at the Village Gate (1962), predating the versions by Dave Van Ronk and Bob Dylan. It was later covered by The Animals, for whom it became a signature hit.

Performing style

Simone's bearing and stage presence earned her the title "High Priestess of Soul". She was a piano player, singer and performer, "separately, and simultaneously." As a composer and arranger, Simone moved from gospel to blues, jazz, and folk, and to numbers with European classical styling. Besides using Bach-style counterpoint, she called upon the particular virtuosity of the 19th-century Romantic piano repertoire—Chopin, Liszt, Rachmaninoff, and others. Onstage, she incorporated monologues and dialogues with the audience into the program, and often used silence as a musical element. She compared it to "mass hypnosis. I use it all the time." Throughout most of her life and recording career she was accompanied by percussionist Leopoldo Fleming and guitarist and musical director Al Schackman.

Legacy and influence

Music

Musicians who have cited Simone as important for their own musical upbringing include Elton John (who named one of his pianos after her), Madonna, Aretha Franklin, Adele, David Bowie, Emeli Sandé, Antony and the Johnsons, Dianne Reeves, Sade, Beyoncé, Janis Joplin, Nick Cave, Van Morrison, Christina Aguilera, Elkie Brooks, Talib Kweli, Mos Def, Kanye West, Lena Horne, Bono, John Legend, Elizabeth Fraser, Cat Stevens, Anna Calvi, Lykke Li, Peter Gabriel, Maynard James Keenan, Cedric Bixler-Zavala, Mary J. Blige, Fantasia Barrino, Michael Gira, Angela McCluskey, Lauryn Hill, Patrice Babatunde, Alicia Keys, Lana Del Rey, Hozier, Matt Bellamy, Ian MacKaye, Kerry Brothers, Jr., Krucial, Amanda Palmer, Steve Adey and Jeff Buckley. John Lennon cited Simone's version of "I Put a Spell on You" as a source of inspiration for the Beatles' song "Michelle".

Simone's music has been featured in soundtracks of various motion pictures and video games, including but not limited to, La Femme Nikita (1990), Point of No Return (1993), The Big Lebowski (1998), Notting Hill (1999), Any Given Sunday (1999), The Thomas Crown Affair (1999), Disappearing Acts (2000), Six Feet Under (2001), The Dancer Upstairs (2002), Before Sunset (2004), Cellular (2004), Inland Empire (2006), Miami Vice (2006), Sex and the City (2008), The World Unseen (2008), Revolutionary Road (2008), Home (2008), Watchmen (2009), The Saboteur (2009), Repo Men (2010), and Beyond the Lights (2014). Frequently her music is used in remixes, commercials, and TV series including "Feeling Good", which featured prominently in the Season Four Promo of Six Feet Under (2004). Simone's "Take Care of Business" is the closing theme of The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (2015) Simone's "Stars" is played during the final moments of the season 3 finale of BoJack Horseman.

Film

The documentary Nina Simone: La légende (The Legend) was made in the 1990s by French filmmakers, based on her autobiography I Put a Spell on You. It features live footage from different periods of her career, interviews with family, various interviews with Simone then living in the Netherlands, and while on a trip to her birthplace. A portion of footage from The Legend was taken from an earlier 26-minute biographical documentary by Peter Rodis, released in 1969 and entitled simply, Nina. Her filmed 1976 performance at the Montreux Jazz Festival is available on video courtesy of Eagle Rock Entertainment and is screened annually in New York City at an event called "The Rise and Fall of Nina Simone: Montreux, 1976" which is curated by Tom Blunt.

Footage of Simone singing "Mississippi Goddamn" for 40,000 marchers at the end of the Selma to Montgomery marches can be seen in the 1970 documentary King: A Filmed Record... Montgomery to Memphis and the 2015 Liz Garbus documentary, What Happened, Miss Simone?

Plans for a Simone biographical film were released at the end of 2005, to be based on Simone's autobiography I Put a Spell on You (1992) and to focus on her relationship in later life with her assistant, Clifton Henderson, who died in 2006; Simone's daughter, Simone Kelly, has since refuted the existence of a romantic relationship between Simone and Henderson on account of his homosexuality. Cynthia Mort, screenwriter of Will & Grace and Roseanne, has written the screenplay and directed the film, Nina, which stars Zoe Saldana in the title role. In May 2014, the film was shown to potential distributors at the Cannes Film Festival, but has, as of August 2014, not been seen by reviewers.

In 2015, two documentary features about Simone's life and music were released. The first, directed by Liz Garbus, What Happened, Miss Simone? was produced in cooperation with Simone's estate and her daughter, who also served as the film's executive producer. The film was produced as a counterpoint to the unauthorized Cynthia Mort film, and featured previously unreleased archival footage. It premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2015 and was distributed by Netflix on June 26, 2015. It was nominated on January 14, 2016 for a 2016 Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature. The Amazing Nina Simone is an independent film directed by Jeff L. Lieberman and is also scheduled for release in 2015. The director initially consulted with Simone's daughter before going the independent route and instead worked closely with her siblings, predominantly Sam Waymon.

Honors

Simone was the recipient of a Grammy Hall of Fame Award in 2000 for her interpretation of "I Loves You, Porgy." She has also received fifteen Grammy Award nominations. On Human Kindness Day 1974 in Washington, D.C., more than 10,000 people paid tribute to Simone. Simone received two honorary degrees in music and humanities, from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and Malcolm X College. She preferred to be called "Dr. Nina Simone" after these honors were bestowed upon her.

Two days before her death, Simone was awarded an honorary degree by the Curtis Institute of Music, the music school that had refused to admit her as a student at the beginning of her career.

In 2002, the city of Nijmegen, Netherlands, named a street after her, the Nina Simone straat; she had lived in Nijmegen between 1988 and 1990. On August 29, 2005, the city of Nijmegen, concert hall De Vereeniging, and more than fifty artists (amongst whom were Frank Boeijen, Rood Adeo, and Fay Claassen) honoured Simone with the tribute concert Greetings from Nijmegen.

Simone was inducted into the North Carolina Music Hall of Fame in 2009.

In 2010, a statue in her honor was erected in Trade Street in her native Tryon, North Carolina.

Wikipedia

#Nina Simone #02-21 #04-21

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