Nina Simone

Eunice Kathleen Waymon, later known globally as Nina Simone, was born on February 21, 1933 in the small town of Tryon, North Carolina, the sixth of eight children in a family that prized both entrepreneurship and the church. From the age of three she displayed prodigious piano talent, giving her first public recital at twelve and later earning a scholarship that sent her to Allen High School for Girls and a summer program at the Juilliard School. Although she was denied admission to the Curtis Institute of Music—a rejection she attributed to racial bias—she continued private studies with Vladimir Sokoloff while supporting herself as a photographer’s assistant and a piano accompanist. In 1954 she began performing at the Midtown Bar & Grill in Atlantic City, where an owner forced her to sing as well as play; the experience inspired her to adopt the stage name Nina Simone, a blend of a childhood nickname and the surname of French actress Simone Signoret, to conceal her new "cocktail piano" work from her devout parents. Her 1958 debut album Little Girl Blue introduced the world to her deep contralto voice and classical‑inflected piano style, and the single "I Loves You, Porgy" became a top‑20 Billboard hit that launched a recording career spanning more than forty albums. Throughout the 1960s Simone transformed into a fierce civil‑rights advocate, penning protest anthems such as "Mississippi Goddam" and "To Be Young, Gifted and Black," and performing at Selma marches; her willingness to confront racism cost her airplay in the South but cemented her role as a cultural voice of resistance. After marrying her manager Andrew Stroud in 1961, she gave birth to her daughter Lisa, but the turbulent relationship ended in divorce a decade later. Disillusioned with the American music industry, Simone relocated to Europe in the early 1970s, living in Liberia, Barbados, Switzerland, the Netherlands, and finally France, where she continued to tour, record intermittently, and experience a renaissance sparked by a 1987 Chanel commercial that revived "My Baby Just Cares for Me." Despite battles with bipolar disorder, legal troubles, and a late‑stage diagnosis of breast cancer, she performed almost until her death on April 21, 2003 in Carry‑le‑Rouet, France, leaving behind a legacy that influences countless artists and earns her a permanent place in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, the Grammy Hall of Fame, and countless "greatest singers" lists.