Hailed as the “High Priestess of Soul,” Simone also performed a virtuosic and genre-defying repertoire of blues, jazz, gospel, rock, folk, show-tunes, pop, and classical music inflected with her unmistakable contralto and accompanied by her exquisite piano playing. Simone eventually amassed a fan base, attracted the notice of record executives, and subsequently began her career as recording artist. Unenrolled and in search of steady income, she began playing the piano and singing at a nightclub in Atlantic City in 1954. When she was denied admission to Curtis, Simone emphatically believed that racial prejudice was the culprit. Simone would briefly study at Julliard before applying for conservatory training at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. As a child in church, she showed prodigious talent at the piano and soon captured the attention of a local piano teacher, a white woman who trained her in classical pianism.
Born Eunice Kathleen Waymon, on 21 February 1933 in Tryon, North Carolina, Simone was the sixth of eight children of a Methodist minister mother and a handyman father.
One of the preeminent protest musicians of America’s civil rights movement, Nina Simone (b. 1933–d. 2003) was a trailblazing singer, songwriter, and pianist who raised her contralto voice to sing truth to power and chant down injustice.
