Look Back In Anger

One expects Nina Simone to be angry. In fact, if rage is life made manifest in its most fervent form, Nina just may be rage personified. And she s certainly full of life this morning. It seems the wheelchair she now occasionally uses was not delivered on time to Heathrow, meaning she missed her flight to Dublin and, by way of introduction to this journalist, snarls at her manager Juan R. Yriat, how many more, after this? Treading tentatively, he almost whispers, just one. She shouts, I will not do three interviews in one morning, do you understand that? Juan replies, the last one is not an interview, just a photo shoot. She turns to me, is introduced as Dr. Nina Simone and says, let s go, ask your questions. I don t have that much time to spare.
The latter sentence, spoken in a voice so deep it seems to echo all the way back to Africa, almost sounds as though it could be deciphered as I m dying. But then Nina Simone always sang that way, as if each note she sings will be her last. Which may just be the only way to create any form of art.

Nina Simone was born Eunice Waymon in Tryon, North Carolina, February 21st 1933. But if you want to trace the true lifeline, in terms of her rage, you must fast forward twelve years.
Known locally as a child prodigy for her mastery of classical music, Nina was asked to give a recital in the Tryon Town Hall. And this really was an invitation of seminal importance to both Simone and her mom and dad. To Nina, because she finally had a chance to play, in public, music by her beloved Bach, Mozart and Beethoven; to her folks, because they d always dreamed of their family producing the first black American concert pianist.
So, picture the scene. Nina, in what she, in her 1992 biography, described as trained elegance sashays her way onto stage. Then she sits down and, almost instinctively, seeks out the faces of her parents only to find they are being moved from their front row seats in favour of a white family and, well, at this point, Nina herself can continue the tale.
That was my first recital and they told me that my mother and father had to sit in the back and, though I was only 12, I was brave enough to tell them that if my mother and father have to sit in the back I won t play, she says. So they put em back in the front. But my parents were embarrassed by it all and I saw some white folks laughing at me. That was my first encounter with racism.
So did this, specifically, leave the residue of anger that seems to have remained with Nina to this day?
Not only that, the Curtis Institute rejection, too. (At the age of 20, she was rejected by the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia because, she believes, of her colour JJ.) Because that was so deep a rejection and so, unequivocally wrong that it did stay with me. It s still with me right now. I can feel it rise again, as you ask me that question.
But, all these years later, isn t there any citation, sense of critical or establishment acceptance from America that compensates for Nina s sense of rejection back then?
No, she says, well, unequivocally.

With the Curtis Institute diploma an unattainable goal, Simone who had moved from Carolina to Harlem and studied at the Julliard School of Music turned to teaching instead, supplementing her income by playing in New York bars, often, she says in her biography, to drunken Irishmen who wanted to hear tunes like Danny Boy rather than the Bach-meets-Gershwin-meets-Bessie Smith improvisations Nina insisted on playing at the piano. It was at these venues, too, that Simone developed her famous characteristic of silencing drunken louts with just a glance, demanding they pay her the kind of respect that, obviously, wasn t shown to her folks that night when she was 12, in Tryon, Carolina. Or by the Board of directors at the Curtis Institute.
Further firing Nina s sense of racial rage was the fact that after she was discovered by beatniks in Greenwich Village and recorded her first album in 1959, for the Bethlehem record label, she learned that the scrap of paper on which she d scribbled her name after the final recording session, meant she had unknowingly signed away her rights to all future royalties.
Meaning that when tracks from that session, such as My Baby Just Cares For Me reached number five in the British Top 20 in 1987, following its use in an ad for Chanel perfume, Nina received not one penny. And given that My Baby Just Cares For Me probably was her single greatest hit and is the song with which so many associate the woman, one can, maybe now, begin to understand why she tends to toss it away during concerts.
Nina Simone s growing politicisation accelerated in the early 60s when she befriended black-radical playwright Lorraine Hansbury, and quickly became an enemy of the American establishment. Around the same time Nina also gave birth to a daughter, an experience which, she claims, made her take a more direct interest in the world around me. But undoubtedly, the pivotal turning point was meeting Hansbury with whom, as Nina says: we never talked about men or clothes or other such inconsequential things when we got together. It was always Marx, Lenin and revolution real girl s talk!
Not only that, but Hansbury snapped Nina awake to the fact that civil rights were only one part of a wider racial and class struggle so that she began to think of herself as a black person in a country run by white people and a woman in a world run by men. This form of politicisation she now admits, obviously worked against her in the 1960s.
It definitely did, in terms of the record company, she says, referring to RCA Victor. We did Mississippi Goddamn and sent some copies down South and they returned a whole box of them, broken in half.
The single or album?
The album, a whole box of em, Nina recalls, clearly still bitter at the memory. Speaking of which, as someone who bought the album Nuff Said a live recording of a gig Nina did the night Dr. Martin Luther King was murdered it was something of a revelation to find that a recent Nina Simone CD compilation featured far more of her rap during that gig than was present on the original album: words that make it clear that Nina was less inclined towards King s pacifist position than Malcolm X s far more militant ideology. So was Nina censored by RCA back in 68?
Yeah, they cut em, she says. Because I was advocating a more militant response at the time. I was on the side of Malcolm X. No doubt about that. I made it obvious to the audience that night Dr. King was assassinated. And my record company, as well as key people in the music business, knew that was my position, politically.
For Nina, the murder of NAACP Field Secretary Medger Evers and the bomb thrown into a church in Birmingham, Alabama, in 1963, which killed four black children attending Bible Study classes, really was a political wake-up call.
That s right, she says, that s exactly what that was. That s what woke me up, in the wider sense, politically. Made me realise that what had happened to me back in Carolina or, by being rejected by the Curtis Institute, was only the tip of what was happening to my people all over America.
And so RCA moved in to silence her?
Yes they did, says Nina, her sense of anger raging again. They censored my records, refused to send me money and they got Roberta Flack to take my place, in order to knock me down and even to pick up my Grammy in Hollywood because I had become so politicised. And what I said in that quote about Lorraine and I talking about Marx and Lenin, rather than clothes or boys was true! We were talking about the real stuff! And that s what I decided to try and get across in my music, particularly after Lorraine died, at the age of only 34 because of cancer. That s part of the reason I wrote the song Young, Gifted And Black. That was the name of a play Lorraine was writing at the time she died. In fact, following Lorraine s death and the murders of Dr. Martin Luther King and Malcolm X my music became more focused very focused, politically for at least the following ten years. During all that time, I played for them, for that cause, and that, obviously, did lead to me being black-listed by the establishment. As I still am.
What about the black community? Was there, to cull a concept from one of Nina s most powerful political songs, Backlash Blues , a negative reaction from her own people?
They didn t like Four Women , she says. Now that is strange because it is about four women who are black. But the black community seemed to feel that it was a song that took a stance against them. And they gave me trouble in the newspapers all about that.
Might they have felt Nina was tapping into the slave past many Negroes no longer wanted to be reminded of?
I think so, yeah. That is what might have happened, she says, adding that, yes, a parallel could be drawn between those particular Negroes and Irish people who no longer want to define themselves as an oppressed race. On which point, why, in her book does Nina, when referring to her grandmother s mother who was half-Irish , say that was the result of a plantation relationship my family has never been too interested in exploring.
What is so wrong with us Irish that Nina s family choose not to acknowledge that part of her past?
It wasn t my family who found that out, she explains. There is this woman, Mary Pat Kelly, and she s been a fan of mine for about 25 years. She s the one that told me there were Irish way back, in Barbados. It was not on a plantation in the South. It was way back, in the West Indies. Doesn t that make sense? You Irish, too, seem to have travelled all over the world, end up anywhere and everywhere, right?
Souls in exile, souls in flight.
That s right! In fact when I was in Guyana I went to a Swiss restaurant and they had there a man from England and a man from Ireland. And this man from Ireland never ate, he only drank. And I used to say to him hey man, you never eat? And he d say: No! I drink! And then he d look in the mirror and say, I may be white but I m Irish so you should know where I m coming from .
So was he, maybe, agreeing with Roddy Doyle who once described the Irish as the Niggers of Europe?
Is that what you guys are called? Why? Because of the way the English enslaved your people, messed you up big-time.
Partly.
They re still doin it, right? For how long they been doin it now?
Give or take a century, some would say eight hundred years.
My God! Why don t you just kill them?
(During the concert two days after this interview, Nina stopped short of publicly declaring the same sentiment but did refer to the Northern Ireland situation during her Martin Luther King Tribute: The King Is Dead. She also delivered this quip: My drummer is from England, but don t kill him! And, probably most revealingly of all, at one point said If I wasn t a musician I would be a killer. )

That said, not all of Nina Simone s songs are explicit political statements. In fact, the bulk of her recordings deal with the subject of sexual politics or, more often than not, the need for love. So how does she see such songs serving an audience? By offering them a means of escape for a while, a moment of transcendence amid all the madness?
For a short time, yes, she says, softly. You wanna know what my real hope is? My hope is that the music will make you make love a little bit. Then you get back to the business in hand. The politics. You can t get away from it, so you might as well take a short break and take the one you love and make love to her or to him then get back to the real business at hand. Until you get what you want.
Does Nina Simone feel that enough popular performers maintain that balance between romantic escapism and political realism?
No! she says, emphatically. I don t know even one other popular singer who puts the love songs in that kind of political context, sees it all that way.
So would Nina say to those performers who claim to be influenced by her that they are failing her and her true legacy by not achieving this balance?
I would! And of course they are failing, not just me, but themselves and their audience. But, hey, I know the dangers involved in all this. I ve paid the price. I don t go back to the United States because I think they gonna kill me. The FBI is always after me, man. Always. That s why I refuse to go back to the United States. I m an expatriate. I live in France. I went back to the United States last year and gave two concerts, I m not going back no more. Now CBS came to me in France, and they are going to record this concert in Dublin, for 60 Minutes, and they will do it here because I will not go back to America, even to do that show which, if you know 60 Minutes, is a very important show.
What was strikingly apparent from her recent shows in Dublin and London, is the fact that Nina Simone seems to need to feed off the emotions of the audience, as if her soul, her psychic energy, is being recharged as a result of this exchange.
That is what happens! she says. I feed them and they give me the energy back and the two of us merge. You know what I m saying. And if you felt I was being energised by that audience in London, you re damn right! I had the flu that night, if you remember, so when I did this (gestures with hand as if beckoning the audience to give, to let go) I could feel that energy revive my ailing body. And soul. And my audiences are like that, least most of them are.
This perception of performing stems from Nina s background in gospel music. However, she also freely acknowledges that her father and mother very much helped push her down the path she s chosen in life. In fact, when I mention her recording of the Judy Collins song My Father , shadows suddenly rise in her eyes, and she seems momentarily phased by recollected emotions. She asks an aide to light her cigarette.
Why, you may ask, is she suddenly upset? While she takes a break to have a smoke I ll try to summarise the story. Because Nina sure as hell ain t about to tell us the whole story right now.
On the RCA releaseThe Very Best Of Nina Simone: Sugar In My Bowl 1967-1972 Nina can be heard, at one point, halting a recording session for My Father saying this song is not me, my father never promised me we would go to France. He did promise me that one day we would be free. So we re going to have to leave this till another time. Indeed, Nina Simone didn t finally record the song until 1978, following the death of her father. Tragically, she had not spoken to him since 1970.
According to her biography, one night back home in Carolina, Nina overheard her dad say to her sister how he had always made a good home for momma and us children, how no-one should ever forget that. Nina, on hearing this, walked into the room and said I have no father , apparently incensed by the fact that, ever since she d earned her first pay cheque, she d been sending cash back to her folks, basically supporting them. Her dad, on account of illness, had been out of work for years.
I had been misused and cheated all my life and, up until that point, the one person I could rely on had been my father. At least that s how I felt til I heard him say that, Nina recalls.
And so she walked away from him. And kept walking. Wouldn t even turn around when she heard he was dying as a result of cancer and her family begged her to visit him in hospital. Nor did she go to the funeral.
When I look back now I know it sounds unforgiving and proud, but I wasn t cold and unemotional. I knew I was hurting daddy and hurting myself, more, but there was nothing I could do, she said.
But this rejection of her father haunted Nina for years. So much so that when she moved to Liberia she sought help from a witch doctor who claimed to be in touch with her father and said she must forgive him and be reconciled with him.
I had to stay in the house for three days without seeing or speaking to anybody; I had to put my hair in a wrap, not smoke or drink anything and lie in bed with a tin of Carnation milk under my pillow. I had to pretend my father was sleeping in bed with me. If I obeyed the ritual everything would be forgiven and daddy s spirit would be with me again.
Carnation milk was her dad s favourite. So did the ritual work? Yes, says Nina.
After three days I awoke and felt a weight leave me. It was a distinct physical sensation, as if I had lost half my body weight in one moment. And the next moment I saw my father.
Soon afterwards Nina Simone did finally record My Father , and, on the 1993 album A Single Woman, another song she now admits was a deeply personal, totally autobiographical Nina Simone song , the immensely moving Papa Can You Hear Me.
When I tell her I recently played this song, and told this story on the radio, she reaches out, grips my right hand with both of her hands and says, Thank you, very much. No-one ever plays that song. And it does mean so much to me. Maybe more to me than, maybe any other song. At this stage she is fighting back tears. And that story is exactly how things happened. I did see my father again. We did make our peace. And, at that stage in my life that was so important to me. But later in life, as things got better for me, I felt his spirit moved more into the background leaving me to enjoy new friends. But for years I was all tangled up by what had happened. That s why I just couldn t record that song, My Father , the first time round.

Let s head towards the end of our interview by going back to where we began to those days when Nina Simone was a child, playing piano at home and she and her dad used to sing together secular songs. At least until that moment she had to switch, very quickly, to righteous music , when they realised Nina s mom was heading back home! Surely such anecdotes really do highlight how, apart from just the interactive nature of gospel performance, Nina s musical roots are deeply embedded in gospel, more than anything else. That s where it began and will probably end for her, isn t it?
It is, she says laughing at the memory. And my dad would do that. He d ask me to play songs he remembered from his bachelor days, something like The Darktown Strutters Ball which momma just didn t approve of. She was that righteous and religious! So he d sit by the window while I was playing and then whistle to let me know momma was coming back, so I d do that switch! But that s not to say I didn t like holy music. I did. Church taught me rhythm. And the music in the church during their prayer meetings was all commotion, with people testifying and shouting all night. Which, if you saw my show, you ll know is exactly what I like to drum up when I m performing.
Drum up? As in that rhythm Nina refers to which does, she insists in her book, go all the way back to Africa?
That is the music I played when I started out and still is the music I play, she enthuses. And it is that gospel rhythm. And feel. Even when I do political songs like The King Is Dead. That is a gospel song. But then so is I Want A Little Sugar In My Bowl ! You ask me about the kind of feedback I get from an audience and if that is why I still perform? The real truth is that I need to perform because I feel it was a gift from God. I ve always felt that, ever since I was a little girl back in North Carolina. And as long as there is racial prejudice in this world I shall be performing. For blacks in the Third World, in Africa. And now, of course, for you people here in Ireland. This really is what I believe I was destined to do with my life. n