Yes, I am a sucker. When the email comes from Amazon, I open and look at it. This I should not do, because what happens next is a descending spiral which almost always ends in my buying something I should not. It probably started with some free MP3s. Or perhaps it was those cheap Grateful Dead albums. What in the world?
Anyway, there was one in the inbox, and I should have deleted it. You know opening it is not going to get me anywhere. But $5 albums? Come on, I’ve got to look. If it’s the Black Eyed Peas, I’m not buying, no matter how good that Oprah video was. Nah ganna doit, wouldn’t be prudent, at this juncture. So, I’ll just look, that’ll be ok, right?
OH MY GOD. Nina Simone. 50 Songs. 5-0. “In My Life.” “I Shall Be Released.” “When the King of Love is Dead.” Come on. COME AWN. There is nothing I can do about that, right?
Nina Simone was born Eunice Waymon in Tryon, NC in 1933. She was the 6th of 7 children. Despite naming itself “The Friendliest Town in the South” the experience of black children growing up in Tryon was — and still is — very different than the experience of white children. Waymon’s teacher saw that she was a prodigy on the piano at age 4 and took a collection to send her to Julliard.
With a training in classical piano and a voice both haunting and humble, Eunice Waymon became Nina Simone as she entered show business in the mid 1950s. In the move, she did not leave behind the pain of the Jim Crow South or forget those who were still suffering. She did not hide her anger but she did not fail to love deeply. After living in several places in Africa and Europe, Simone settled in the south of France.
I don’t know if her music is an acquired taste. I did not get it right off, as her voice and phrasing do take some getting used to. But now, as I listen to these 50 tracks, goosebumps continuously appear. Her righteousness and passion pour out of every song, justifying in every verse her title as “The High Priestess of Soul.”
Nina Simone’s birthplace still stands, if just barely, outside of Tryon. An effort is underway to restore and preserve it.
