All of the interviews are my own unless a specific publication is cited as the source.
Tryon, North Carolina: Tryon information from various sources including Polk County, North Carolina History, Polk County Historical Association, Inc., pp. 75-77; Eunice Waymon birth certificate, Polk County records; Mike McCue interview.
“a clever man”: John Irvin Waymon and Carrol Waymon interviews; Simone, I Put a Spell on You, pp. 1-3; Carrol Waymon comments from La Légende, a 1992 French-made documentary on Nina Simone.
Kate’s heritage: Kate Waymon, written reminiscences, courtesy of John Irvin Waymon; I Put a Spell on You, pp. 1-4.
a dry cleaning plant: In I Put a Spell on You, Nina says her father moved to Tryon to open a barbershop. Her brother John, the oldest child, who was seven at the time—Nina had not yet been born—remembered that his father’s first business was a dry cleaning shop on Trade Street. The ads in the Tryon Daily Bulletin, which ran almost daily in February and March 1929, suggest that John Davan moved to Tryon to open the dry cleaning business.
For information about the black population in western North Carolina, see Davis, “The Black Heritage of Western North Carolina,” probably published in 1984, courtesy of the University of North Carolina Asheville—D.H. Ramsey Library Special Collections. Also Asheville Citizen, December 11, 1932, Section B, p. 7, for a statistical breakdown of Polk County from the 1930 census. Ruth Hannon Hamilton interview; and The Lanier Library, 1890-1965, Diamond Jubilee.
four gas stations: John Irvin Waymon, Holland Brady Jr. interviews.
nine-year-old Carrol: Poem courtesy of Carrol Waymon.
Reverend Scotland Harris: Beryl Hannon Dade interviews.
Ballenger’s department store: Holland Brady Jr. interview; Tryon Daily Bulletin, April 6, 1931, September 21, 1939, October 12, 1939, January 1, 1940, March 10, 1940.
East Livingston Street: John Irvin Waymon, Carrol Waymon, Blanche Lyles Solomon interviews.
Simpson Quartet: Tryon Daily Bulletin, August 18, 1930.
the Depression: In I Put a Spell on You, Nina writes that her father had lost everything during the Depression. Because she was not yet born, her narrative was necessarily based on others’ accounts. John Irvin Waymon, who was eight when the Depression began, remembered it differently, and it is his firsthand account that I have used.
eight months old: In the 1992 French-made documentary, Nina returned to Tryon and talked about her childhood. She stopped in front of one house on the east side of town and identified it as the house she was born in, but this is incorrect. The house she pointed to, which was demolished sometime after the documentary was made, was a temporary residence for the family, probably in 1940. Kate Waymon reminiscences, courtesy of John Irvin Waymon. See also I Put a Spell on You, p. 7.
she slept: Carrol Waymon, Dorothy Waymon Simmons interviews; I Put a Spell on You, pp. 14-17.
Lake Lanier: John Irvin Waymon interviews; Lake Lanier information, special edition of the Tryon Daily Bulletin— “Polk County Photo history—1885—2005,” Vol. 1, p. 18.
an intestinal blockage: John Irvin Waymon, Carrol Waymon, Dorothy Waymon Simmons interviews; I Put a Spell on You, pp. 9—10.
Episcopal Center: In I Put a Spell on You, pp. 9—11, Nina presents a chronology of the family’s moves in Tryon and to Lynn that is at odds with what her brothers John and Carrol remember. Some of their reminiscences are supported by contemporaneous documents. I have chosen to use their recollections in describing aspects of the family’s life between 1933 and 1940.
Lynn: I Put a Spell on You, p. 11; Dorothy Waymon Simmons interview.
heating stones: Ruth Hannon Hamilton interview.
moved back to Tryon: John Irvin Waymon, Carrol Waymon, Dorothy Waymon Simmons interviews. Carrol and Dorothy are not clear about the sequence of moves after the family came back from Lynn. There may have been three temporary stops—one on what is now Beech Street, another in a house across the railroad tracks near the depot, and a third back on the east side, a house the family refers to as the Hunter house, where Lola Hunter lived. The family eventually settled in a house on what is now Jackson Street and stayed there until they left Tryon in 1950.
J.D.’s Social Security card application dated October 28, 1939, lists his place of employment as P.E. Christopher in Landrum, S.C., which was a dry cleaning business. Landrum is about fifteen miles south of Tryon.
“ten a.m. coffee break”: Holland Brady interview; I Put a Spell on You,
“one great commotion”: I Put a Spell on You, pp. 18-19; John Irvin Way-mon interviews.
Tryon Colored School: John Irvin Waymon interviews. The account of the school burning is taken from the contemporaneous reporting in the Tryon Daily Bulletin, June 9, 1940, June 14, 1940, June 20, 1940, June 21, 1940, August 24, 1940, August 26, 1940, August 27, 1942, December 4, 1942. Also Asheville Times, June 21, 1940, p. 12.
a serious girl: Eunice Waymon photo described from Stroud, Nina Simone: Black Is the Color…
“number one”: Fred Counts interviews; honor roll, Tryon Daily Bulletin, February 9, 1941.
Gillette Woods: Gillette Woods promotional pamphlet, courtesy of KippMclntyre; David Johnson interview.
Mrs. Miller: In a Philadelphia Bulletin article of March 6,1960, Nina told the story about Katherine Miller hearing her for the first time at a concert at the Tryon theater. In I Put a Spell on You (p. 21) Nina wrote that Mrs. Miller first heard her when she was “playing for a choir.” Given that the March 1960 interview with the Bulletin was thirty years closer to the time of the event than the autobiography, that version seems the most likely.
Muriel Mazzanovich: I Put a Spell on You, p. 22; Garland Goodwin interviews, photos, and a drawing of the Mazzanovich house courtesy of G. Goodwin; Fred Counts interviews; Thermal Belt News Journal, February 11, 1985, p. 3A, “Mrs. Mazzy—Teacher, Friend Is Dead at 102;” Tryon Daily Bulletin, May 12, 1959, Lawrence Mazzanovich obituary.
Eunice Waymon Fund: Tom Moore interviews. In I Put a Spell on You, Nina writes that Miss Mazzy created the Eunice Waymon Fund: “She wrote to the local paper explaining the situation and asking for donations… . Every church took up a collection for the Fund, the paper started an appeal and the council collected on my behalf…” (p. 24). This account does not appear to be accurate, based on a review of the five relevant years of the Tryon Daily Bulletin and interviews with residents, white and black, who were Eunice’s contemporaries.
The Waymon children’s birth certificates help confirm the changes in J.D.’s work. By the time Sam was born in 1944, J.D. listed himself as a “handyman,” as Tom Moore had remembered.
played for her friends: James Payne, Patricia Carson Caple interviews.
a recital: I Put a Spell on You, pp. 26-27.
NAACP: NAACP information, Tryon Daily Bulletin, July 27, 1944, November 22, 1944; Polk County chapter information from the NAACP state-by-state chapter files, 1940-1955, Library of Congress Manuscript Reading Room.
their son Edney: I Put a Spell on You, pp. 31-32; Edney Whiteside interviews.
Allen School: Information on Allen School from the school’s file in the North Carolina Room of the Pack Memorial Library, Asheville, N.C.
settled into a routine: Los Angeles Times, March 5, 1967, p. C25, in which Nina talks to Leonard Feather about Hazel Scott; Scott obituary, New York Times, October 3, 1981; Patricia Carson Caple, Cordelia Pedew Chambers, Willie Mae Gaston Ferguson, Christine Ivey Jowers, Ruth Walther interviews; information on Eunice’s activities at Allen from the school’s yearbooks, courtesy of Ruth Walther; Asheville Citizen, February 8, 1949, p. 14. Nina did not mention Clemens Sandresky as a teacher in her autobiography, citing only “Joyce” Carroll, though her actual name was Grace. However, Nina referred to Sandresky in a 1960 interview with Rogue (March 1960), and in October 1990 sent a publicity photo to him inscribed “To Mr. Sandresky—I love you—merci for toute les leciones [sic].” Photo from www.ninasimoneproject.org.
hosted a recital: Garland Goodwin interview; Goodwin newspaper column reprinted in Goodwin, A Boy in the Amen Corner, pp. 26-29.
long-distance romance: Nina’s account of her relationship with Edney Whiteside in I Put a Spell on You (pp. 31-36) contains several inaccuracies, according to Edney. While the thrust of the story is true about their teenage romance, he said he had gone to Cleveland for nearly two years and not just a few weeks. He noted that they were going in different directions and wanted different things. He did marry Annie Mae Burns, not immediately after Eunice/Nina went to Juilliard but in 1952, right before he went into the service. They remained married until he died unexpectedly on January 23, 2006. Nina’s graduation with honors, Asheville Times, May 22, 1950, p. 4. See also Rogue, March 1960.
New York City: Dorothy W. Simmons interviews; Social Security card application of Kate Waymon.
Carl Friedberg: Information about studying with Carl Friedberg from I Put a Spell on You, pp. 40-41; New York Times, September 13, 1955, p. 31, obituary; October 2, 1955, p. X9, Myra Hess letter about Friedberg; letter to a music magazine, January 1, 1956, from a student on Friedberg’s death, Juilliard clip file on Friedberg.
a B+: According to documents from the Juilliard archives, Eunice studied at Juilliard only for six weeks, during the July 3-August 11, 1950, summer session. Accounts over the years have put her time of study at one year, one and a half years, even two years. But these do not seem to be accurate. It is probable that Eunice stayed in New York a full six months, studying privately with Carl Friedberg after summer school through the end of 1950.
Curtis Institute: Information about the audition procedures, including the timing, from the Curtis Institute library, based on the school’s archives. In I Put a Spell on You, Nina writes of auditioning “at the end of the year,” but this would appear to be an error. According to Curtis records, applications for the 1951-52 year, which would have been Nina’s year, were due February 1, 1951, and auditions were in April.
south Philadelphia: Information on the Waymon family’s early days in Philadelphia from I Put a Spell on You, pp. 40-41; Carrol Waymon, Doris Mack interviews.
Natalie Hinderas: Natalie Hinderas studied at Juilliard in the summer of 1946 and 1947 with Olga Samaroff and in the summer of 1950 with Edward Steurermann, according to the Juilliard archives.
a photographer’s darkroom: Eunice Waymon’s application for a Social Security card was dated April 24, 1951. She listed 2447 Grays Ferry Avenue as her address and her employer as Maurice E. Abuhove at 110 South Sixteenth Street, which was just a few blocks from where her uncle, Walter Waymon, lived.
Town and Country Club: Philadelphia Tribune, July 31, 1951, p. 5, August 11, 1951, p. 18.
4221 Wyalusing: Philadelphia Bulletin stories on the Mantua section of Philadelphia, which is adjacent to Wyalusing, December 7, 1951; February 2, 1956, from the Temple University Urban Archives; Philadelphia census information from 1950 courtesy of the Temple University Government Documents division. By 1953, when the Waymons moved to Wyalusing, blacks outnumbered whites by nearly three to one. Philadelphia Tribune, March 3, 1953, p. 14, for seventh-grade assembly Chopin performance.
Mayer Sulzberger: Philadelphia Tribune, March 31, 1953, p. 14.
5705 West Master: I Put a Spell on You, pp. 44-47; Carrol Waymon, Doris Mack interviews; Philadelphia phone book to confirm Eunice Waymon’s address at 5705 West Master; Taylor, Notes and Tones, p. 149, for Nina’s observations about singers she had heard.
New Century Auditorium: Ticket to Philadelphia recital, Stroud, Nina Simone: Black Is the Color, p. 14; Philadelphia Tribune, September 25, 1954, p. 1; Doris Mack interview.
Faith Jackson: Carrol Waymon interviews; I Put a Spell on You, p. 48.
Atlantic City: Davis, Atlantic City Diary: A Century of Memories, 1880-1980, pp. 109-11. Among those expected for the summer of 1954, Atlantic City’s centennial, were Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis, Julius LaRosa, the Mills Brothers, and the Gene Krupa Trio. Paul Whiteman, who liked to be called the “King of Jazz,” was originating his ABC-TV show in town.
Midtown Bar: Atlantic City Press, entertainment pages June-July 1954.
“Nina”: Philadelphia Bulletin, March 6, 1960; Rogue, March 1960; I Put a Spell on You, p. 49. For the first few years when she was asked about her name, Nina stuck closely to the explanation she had given the Bulletin. She referred to the boyfriend as an inspiration for Nina in a 1969 interview and then first cited Simone Signoret as the inspiration for her last name in her 1991 autobiography. She had told the New York Post in a March 15, 1969, story that “I have no idea” where Simone came from. “It just fitted.”
“the two halves together”: I Put a Spell on You, pp. 50-53; Garland, The Sound of Soul, pp. 184-87; Taylor, Notes and Tones, pp. 149-53; Kenneth Hill interview.
Word spread quickly: Atlantic City Press entertainment pages, principally Wednesdays and Fridays for June, July, and August 1954. Precisely when Nina started to play at the Midtown is unclear. In I Put a Spell on You she says it was the summer of 1954. Carrol Waymon remembered that when she started, she only played weekends, which means she was not the Midtown’s principal act. The ads in the Atlantic City Press seem to confirm this. The first ads mentioning Nina Simone are not until June 1955, and the first one appears on Wednesday, June 1, 1955, which suggests that she was performing several days a week. Stan Facey, who had gotten top billing in May, was listed in smaller type as the second act.
“Why don’t you pursue this”: Vladimir Sokoloff from La Légende, the French-made 1992 documentary.
“Bohemian”: Kenneth Hill interview.
Don Ross: I Put A Spell on You, p. 55.
Ed: I Put a Spell on You, p. 47.
Jerry Field: I Put a Spell on You, p. 57. Though Nina refers to Jerry Fields in her autobiography, she most likely meant Jerry Field, who had an office in 1956, when they met, at 1619 Broadway in New York. He listed himself in the Manhattan phone book as “artists rep.”
Rittenhouse Hotel: Philadelphia Bulletin, May 27, 1957, July 13, 1969, for history of the Rittenhouse Hotel; August 16, 1956, for police raid on the Queen Mary Room.
intricate accompaniment: These descriptions are taken from Starring Nina Simone, a bootleg album that was made up in part of a tape of one of Nina’s Philadelphia club dates. Philadelphia Tribune, March 26, 1957, p. 5, for photo of Nina at a charity event.
Al Schackman: This account is based on newspaper articles that put Nina at the Rittenhouse in the spring of 1957 (Philadelphia Bulletin, May 27, 1957, March 6, 1960, which refers to the Rittenhouse job and the charity event) and ads in the Bucks County Traveler, September and October 1957 issues. The wording in the Traveler, ads suggests that the September job was Nina’s first at the Playhouse; previous issues for the year list other musicians at the Inn in the main dining room and the Bistro. Nina was apparently incorrect in I Put a Spell on You (p. 58), when she said she went to the Playhouse Inn after Christmas in 1956. According to the Traveler, Stu Ross, a piano player, performed during the week, and Mickey Palmer’s Trio played Friday and Saturday all through December. A story about Nina in the October 1960 Sepia (p. 30) also refers to the Playhouse Inn job as being in the summer of 1957.
Information also comes from Amram, Vibrations: The Adventures and Musical Times of David Amram (pp. 245-46). Amram writes about subbing at the piano for George Syran, who was part of a trio at a New Hope club that included Al Schackman through 1956. Al has said in interviews over the years that he played with his own trio while Nina was at the Playhouse Inn. See Schackman interview in Fader, May/June 2006, p. 92.
Bethlehem Records: Accounts of the Bethlehem session come from interviews with Bethlehem founder Gus Wildi, Albert “Tootie” Heath, Jimmy Bond, Vivian Bailey, and Irv Greenbaum; Greenbaum’s self-published In One Ear and In the Other, pp. 68-72; and I Put a Spell on You, pp. 59-60. Nina writes in those pages that Syd Nathan owned Bethlehem and came to her home in Philadelphia with songs he wanted her to record at the New York session, and that she refused to do so and insisted on doing her own music. While Nina’s description of Nathan as a bullying sort of man rings true with many who knew him, her account of the session is incorrect. Syd Nathan did not buy a piece of Bethlehem Records until the middle of 1958, months after the session was held. Gus Wildi is firm on the fact that Nathan “had absolutely nothing to do with finding or recording Nina” and that he, Wildi, wanted Nina to record whatever songs she wanted. Wildi recalled meeting Nina only once at the Bethlehem offices at 1650 Broadway in New York when she signed the standard royalty contract the label gave its artists. Though Vivian Bailey said he made all the arrangements for the Bethlehem recording, he didn’t remember meeting Gus Wildi, nor did Wildi remember meeting Bailey.
Jimmy Bond remembered the session as being difficult because Nina was cantankerous through much of it, threatening at one point to walk out. But Irv Greenbaum, the engineer, remembered an easy session. He did not recall any arguments, which he said he would have heard in the control room because the microphones were on. Bond also said he rather than Nina was responsible for most of “Central Park Blues,” although it is credited to Nina. One of Bethlehem’s publishing arms, Win-Gus, was listed as the publisher of the tune, giving it a right to a portion of any royalties.
a cash crunch: Gus Wildi interviews. Although Nina wrote in I Put a Spell on You (p. 68) that Little Girl Blue (BCP 6028, Neon NE 3541) was released in the middle of 1958, this is incorrect. Trade publications as well as several newspaper stories make clear that the album was not released until the first week in February 1959. Nina’s subsquent discussion of events in response to the release is thus also chronologically in error.
a brief civil ceremony: I Put a Spell on You, pp. 62-63. A thorough check of Philadelphia marriage license records from 1957-59 unfortunately did not turn up any information about when Nina and Don were married. She could not remember the date, noting that “I have nothing from our time together to give me a clue… .”
“talk poetry”: I Put a Spell on You, pp. 63-64.
Little Girl Blue: Gus Wildi interviews. Information about the release of Little Girl Blue comes from Popular Record Aid, the monthly digest of record releases, and the Cash Box issues cited in the text.
five-act bill: Baltimore Afro-American, March 7, 1959; Washington Afro-American, March 13, 1959, p. B9. Information about the Feld show that began March 28 from Gart, First Pressings: The History of Rhythm and Blues, Vol. 9,1959, p. 30. For history on Feld see Guralnick, Dream Boogie: The Triumph of Sam Cooke, pp. 227-28. See Philadelphia Tribune, March 24, 1959, p. 12, for record ad.
Syd Nathan: Gus Wildi interviews.
Colpix: Judy Gail Krasnow interviews. Before doing the Amazing Nina Simone project, Hecky Krasnow had founded the children’s records division at Columbia, during the heyday of “kid-disks,” 1949 to 1956. One of his noteworthy accomplishments was persuading popular singers, movie stars, even baseball luminaries to record songs and albums for children, among them Gene Autry and Burl Ives. He also was behind the successful children’s television show Captain Kangaroo, with Bob Keeshan.
“scored brightly”: Billboard, July 22, 1959, p. 32; Variety, July 22, 1959, p. 51; Ben Riley interview.
“Porgy” promotion: Cash Box, Pop Singles Charts, 1950-1993, p. 316; Cash Box, August 1, 1959, p. 6, October 17, 1959, p. 6; Sid Mark, Gus Wildi interviews; Chicago Defender, August 1959, p. 18. Though stereophonic sound was just beginning to gain ground, Cash Box had recently started to show listings for “mono” and “stereo” sales. That Little Girl Blue didn’t show up on the Billboard album chart said more about the vicissitudes of the music trades than it did about an artist’s popularity.
In I Put a Spell on You Nina talks of the success of “Porgy” as happening in 1958 rather than in 1959, which all documentary evidence shows. The flip side was “Love Me or Leave Me” and not “He Needs Me,” as she states on p. 62.
“The piano is OK”: I Put a Spell on You, p. 65; July 5, 1959, letter from “Mrs. Lawrence Mazzanovich” to Garland Goodwin, courtesy of Garland Goodwin.
Town Hall: Description of the Town Hall event taken from Nina Simone at Town Hall (CP 409, COL-CD 6206).
California: Los Angeles Times, November 14, 1959, p. 9, for an ad promoting Nina’s date at the Interlude, noteworthy for this mention in the city’s mainstream newspaper.
downtown Chicago: Chicago Defender, December 15, 1959, p. A16; Rogue, March 3, 1960, for Frank Holzfeind comment; Playboy’s Penthouse, Show #9, courtesy of Playboy Enterprises.
a third single: Popular Record Aid, November 1959 for the release of Bethlehem 1052, “Little Girl Blue”/”He Needs Me;” December 1959 for the release of Bethlehem 1055, “Don’t Smoke in Bed”/”African Mailman.”
“wiry, moody girl”: Ebony, December 1959, pp. 168-72; Ben Riley interview.
two full-scale albums: The Amazing Nina Simone (CP 407, COL-CD 6206); Nina Simone at Town Hall. See also I Put a Spell on You, p. 65; Cash Box, February 27, 1960, p. 27. Chicago performance, Chicago Defender, February 10, 1960, p. 41. The Jazztet with Art Framer and Benny Golson and the Kirk Stuart Trio were the other acts.
Today: Today show information comes from the NBC Masterbooks, Box MT 996, for March 24, 1960, Library of Congress Motion Picture and Television Reading Room. Nina taped her performances on March 23.
Milwaukee: Interviews with Ron Carter, Ben Riley, Chris White; Sto-ryville date, Boston Globe, April 7, 1960, p. 5; Henri’s Show Lounge, Milwaukee Journal, April 21, 1960, Part 2, p. 13. See also Atlanta Daily World, May 29, 1960, p. 3, advance notice of Nina’s shows at the Magnolia Ballroom June 3-5, 1960.
“She had a good feel”: Ben Riley interview.
Bertha Case: Bertha Case information from publicity materials of GAC, which did some booking for Nina. Today show information comes from the NBC Masterbooks, Box MT 1013, for June 9, 1960, Library of Congress Motion Picture and Television Reading Room. Nina taped her performance on June 8; Sepia, October 1960, pp. 28-31, which includes photos from the Today show performance.
Newport Jazz Festival: Newport Jazz Festival information from Nina Simone at Newport (CP 412; COL-CD 4207); Library of Congress, Recorded Sound Reference Room; Goldblatt, Newport Jazz Festival: The Illustrated History, pp. 74, 267; Chris White interviews.
Extended Play 45: La Musica, April 1960, p. 17; translation courtesy of Catherine Re.
Village Gate: Art D’Lugoff interviews; New York Times, November 10, 1958, September 25, 1966, p. 339, March 23, 1980, p. D6; I Put a Spell on You, pp. 66-67, 73; New York Citizen Call, July 23, 1960, p. 21.
Lake Meadows Restaurant: Chicago Defender, September 24, 1956, p. 16, September 24, 1960, p. 16; Chicago American, October 7, 1960, p. 15; Chris White, Bobby Hamilton, David Sharpe, John Vinci, Brigitta Peterhans, Charles Walton, Bea Buck interviews.
Hunter College: New York Amsterdam News, October 29, 1960, p. 21; New York Citizen Call, October 29, 1960, p. 22; New York Times, October 22, 1960, p. 15; Chris White, Bobby Hamilton interviews.
cabaret card regulations: New York Times, November 14, 1960, p. 1; November 21, 1960, p. 1, January 17, 1961, p. 1, September 13, 1967, p. 27 (“Cabaret Card Use Ended by Council”); Variety, December 14, 1960, p. 50; December 7, 1960, letter from Nina Simone to Arthur J. D’Lugoff. See also Chevigny, Gigs: Jazz and the Cabaret Laws in New York City, pp. 57-67.
“She is strange”: Chicago Daily Defender, week of December 18, 1960, p. 10 (editorial page).
Apollo Theater: Schiffman family Apollo Theater files, Smithsonian Museum of American History archives; New York Citizen Call, February 18, 1961, pp. 11, 15; New York Post, March 10, 1961, p. 52; I Put a Spell on You, pp. 74-75. In discussing the Apollo incident, Nina tells an imaginative story about “three Harlem ladies” walking to the stage and tossing coins at her feet. “Then they stuck their noses in the air, turned on their heels and walked out.” None of the contemporaneous reports, including Nina’s later interview with a reporter, mentioned the women.
Chapel Hill: Daily Tar Heel, February 7, 16, 17, and 18, 1961; News and Observer, February 16, 1961, p. 8; Chris White, Bobby Hamilton, Art D’Lugoff, Frank Craighill interviews; January 11, 2007, e-mail correspondence with Jonathan Yardley.
The concert at Memorial Hall was the highlight of the winter festival on campus called “Winter Germans,” which was sponsored by a consortium of fraternities. It was a point of pride among young men like the current president, Frank Craighill, to present a good show for their classmates; he had also booked Louis Armstrong for a later event. The previous year’s Winter Germans featured Duke Ellington and Count Basie and their orchestras, followed by Dizzy Gillespie for another concert.
Roundtable: March 25, 1961, newspaper clip from unnamed publication; Negro Digest, February 1962, p. 23; New York Daily News, June 9, 1961, p. 4; Chicago Daily Defender, April 11, 1961, p. 16; Bobby Hamilton, Chris White interviews. Andy Stroud interview, Fader, May/June 2006, p. 100; Stroud, Black Is the Color, p. 17; I Put a Spell on You, pp. 72-73.
live recordings: Chris White and Bobby Hamilton interviews; Nina Simone at the Village Gate (CP 421, Roulette Jazz/EMI CDP795058 2); New York Times, April 6, 1961, p. 30, for John Wilson review of a Gate performance. Wilson wrote that Nina treated her eclectic musical choices “with a fertile sense of the dramatic.” But he found that her piano solos “are inclined to fall into a pattern of gradual, pounding crescendos that could qualify her as a female Dave Brubeck. These obvious instrumental routines are strangely out of character with her thoughtful, imaginative work as a vocalist.”
Right before the Village Gate performance, Nina and the trio had made a trip to Toronto to be part of a new show, Impulse, that featured them and several other musicians, whose performances were to be tied together by the poet Brendan Behan. But the event was a bust, and contrary to plans never opened in New York after the Toronto run. New York Times, February 23, 1961; New York Amsterdam News, March 18, 1961, p. 17, March 25, 1961, p. 19, April 1, 1961, p. 15; Chicago Defender, March 23, 1961, p. 23; Toronto Globe and Mail, March 24, 1961, March 25, 1961, p. 10; Toronto Star, March 1, 1961, p. 21, March 23, 1961, p. 37; Chris White personal papers; Chris White, Art D’Lugoff interviews.
Pye Records: Melody Maker, February 4, 1961, p.2.
Carnegie Hall: New York Times, May 22, 1961, p. 37; May 5, 1961, p. 24.
Andy Stroud: Philadelphia Tribune, July 1, 1961, p. 1; New York Post, July 2, 1961, p. 18; Pittsburgh Courier, July 15, 1961, p. 12; I Put a Spell on You, pp. 75-76, although Nina remembered incorrectly when this episode occurred and where she was performing. Contemporaneous news articles show that her illness occurred the last few days of June 1961, when she was scheduled to perform at Pep’s.
Olatunji: Chris White interviews.
seventeen days: New York Amsterdam News, July 22, 1961, p. 13; Stroud, Black Is the Color, pp. 22-23.
American Jazz Festival: Detroit News, August 7, 1961, p. 8B; Detroit Free Press, August 8, 1961, p. 21; Variety, January 25, 1961, p. 54, for “AfroSimone.”
Camera Three: Camera Three, August 13, 1961, courtesy of Creative Arts Television.
Roberts Show Lounge: Chicago Defender, August 18, 1961, p. 16; week of August 26-September 1, 1961, p. 12; Chris White, Brigitta Peterhans, John Vinci, David Sharpe interviews.
Forbidden Fruit (CP 419, COL-CD6207), produced by Cal Lampley, featured three Oscar Brown songs, including the one picked for the title track, “Forbidden Fruit.” The humorous up-tempo take on Adam and Eve was part nursery rhyme, part call and response. When Nina sang “Go on and eat” in every chorus, the trio shouted, “Forbidden fruit.” At the end the roles were reversed. “Go ahead and taste it,” they shouted. “You don’t want to waste it,” she sang. Nina stretched boundaries in her interpretation of “Gin House Blues,” which Bessie Smith had recorded in a plaintive version copied by other singers. Nina turned the song into a finger-snapping gospel number, an unlikely combination of a tune that celebrated liquor and a musical treatment more at home in the church. Colpix released Forbidden Fruit in June, and though it didn’t do much commercially, Cash Box gave it a nice plug on June 17, 1961, as a “Jazz Pick of the Week” (p. 24).
Town Hill: unnamed newspaper clip, October 28, 1961. Before the Brooklyn date, Nina had also played a job in Boston, Boston Globe, October 9, 1961, p. 10; Chris White plane ticket to Boston and back.
$4,500: New York Amsterdam News, November 11, 1961, p. 19; Schiffman family Apollo Theater files, Smithsonian Museum of American History archives.
bumps in the road: I Put a Spell on You, pp. 76-78; Fader, May-June 2006; Patti Bown, Judy Gail Krasnow interviews.
Lagos: New York Times, December 14, 1961, p. 54; Chicago Defender, January 6, 1962, p. 10, national edition.
AMSAC: I Put a Spell on You, p. 80; Langston Hughes papers, personal correspondence, James Weldon Johnson Collection in the Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library.
Details for the AMSAC group’s arrival from AMSAC papers at the Moorland Spingarn Research Center, Howard University. These include documents detailing the arrangements for the Lagos event and a summary of the program afterward written for the AMSAC Supplements newsletter, No. 22; I Put a Spell on You, p. 80; Hughes papers; Stroud, Nina Simone: Black Is the Color, for description of Lagos beach photo.
Nina’s performance provoked additional commentary. Francesca Pereira wrote in the 1990 Daily Times that Nina “was right in being angry for she was determined to give the audience her best and it was necessary that she should have a calm audience and not one that had gone haywire.” The music critic for the Lagos Daily Express, identified only as “Back-drop,” also seemed to sympathize with Nina given his disdain for Hampton, whom he called “that great musical clown.” See Lagos Daily Times, December 30, 1961, p. 8, and Lagos Daily Express, December 20, 1962, p. 3. During Nina’s December 18 performance, Abdul Malik was on bass, Al Schackman played guitar, and Olatunji played drums. On the nineteenth, Clarence Stroman played the drums. See also Ebony, March 1962, pp. 87-94.
AMSAC itself ran into trouble in 1969 when information surfaced that the group had received money from foundations connected to the Central Intelligence Agency. The organization folded by 1970. Ebony, March 1962, pp. 87-94; AMSAC and the Central Intelligence Agency, New York Times, February 17, 1967, p. 1, February 20, 1967, p. 1; December 28, 1977, p. 1; Fierce, Milfred C., “Selected Black American Leaders and Organizations and South Africa,” Journal of Black Studies, Vol. 17, No. 3, p. 316; Washington, Mary Helen, “Desegregating the 1950s: The Case of Frank London Brown,” The Japanese Journal of American Studies, No. 10 (1999), pp. 28-30.
Mount Vernon: I Put a Spell on You, p. 81.
“You folks”: New York Daily News, June 9, 1961, p. 4.
“making any money”: Stu Phillips interview; Phillips, “Stu Who?,” pp. 102-6. A few months before working on Nina’s album, Malcolm Dodds and his singers had performed one of the proposed “official” state songs for the General Assembly, written by Manhattan Democrat Bessie Buchanan. Dodds would later write the arrangements for a Broadway show titled Sophisticated Ladies, based on Duke Ellington’s music. New York Times, February 7, 1961, p. 24.
Duke Ellington: Nina Simone Sings Ellington (CP 425, EMI 7243 4 73220 2 0); Cash Box, October 20, 1962, p. 24; Billboard, October 20, 1962, pp. 32, 136. Nina’s pregnancy, birth of Lisa, I Put a Spell on You, pp. 84-85; Stroud, Black Is the Color, p. 28; Art D’Lugoff interviews.
Montego Joe: Lisle Atkinson, Montego Joe, Warren Smith interviews.
honeymoon: I Put a Spell on You, p. 85. In Down Beat’s year-end poll for favorite female singer, Nina tied with Chris Connor for seventh place at 211 votes, well behind Ella Fitzgerald in first place, who had 2,720; December 20, 1962, p. 22.
thirtieth birthday: Chicago Defender, week of January 13-25, 1963, p. 14; week of February 2-8, 1963, p. 19; Chicago Tribune, February 17, 1963, p. F8; Down Beat, April 11, 1963, p. 34; Warren Smith, Onameega Doris Bluitt interviews; February 19, 1963, guest registry of Lake Meadows Art and Jazz society, courtesy of O. D. Bluitt; O. D. Bluitt; Langston Hughes papers.
See also Atlanta Daily Journal, February 8, 1963, p. 28, February 12, 1963, p. 12; Atlanta Daily World, January 27, 1963, p. 3 for Nina’s date just before Chicago that included Gloria Lynne. Nina was apparently in a feisty mood, at one point reminding the audience, “I sing what I please.”
Nina’s personal manager: I Put a Spell on You, p. 82; Stroud interview, Fader, May/June 2006.
a concert of her own: April 12, 1963, Carnegie Hall concert information from Carnegie Hall archive materials, including the program and Felix Gerstman correspondence; New York Times, April 13, 1963, p. 11; Nina Simone at Carnegie Hall (CP 455, EMI 7243 4 73221 2 9); New York Times, October 20, 1963, p. 15, review. Hoping to capitalize on Nina’s previous work, Colpix also released a nine-track LP, Nina’s Choice (Colpix 443). Writing in the June 20, 1963, Down Beat (p. 30), Pete Welding didn’t think much of the effort. Though several tracks were taken from live dates, he said they failed to capture “the excitement and spiraling intensity” that marked Nina’s performances.
Lorraine Hansberry: Notable Black American Women, pp. 452-57; Carter, Hansberry’s Drama: Commitment and Complexity; see Blakely, Earl B. Dickerson: A Voice for Freedom and Equality, Chapter 5 for a discussion of Hansberry v. Lee; Federal Bureau of Investigation file on Lorraine Hansberry, secured via Freedom of Information Act inquiry #373742; New York Times, January 13, 1965, p. 25; Cheney, Lorraine Hansberry generally. See also I Put a Spell on You, pp. 86-87; Stroud, Black Is the Color, p. 29. Lorraine was Lisa’s godmother and Max Cohen, Nina’s longtime lawyer, was her godfather.
“mammoth benefit”: New York Amsterdam News, May 25, 1963, p. 14; the NAACP expected a big crowd for the fund-raising event, renting the grand ballroom of the Manhattan Center at Thirty-fourth Street and Eighth Avenue, a block from Macy’s department store. I Put a Spell on You, pp. 88-89.
Harry Belafonte, Lena Home: Black entertainers donating funds, Jet, May 30, 1963, p. 64 (Eartha Kitt); Chicago Defender, May 27, 1963, p. 5 (Mahalia Jackson benefit with Dinah Washington, among others); week of June 8-14, p. 24 (Nat King Cole pledges $50,000); July 11, 1963, p. A24; week of July 20-26,1963, p. 11, (Johnny Mathis). See also Los Angeles Sentinel, June 11, 1963, p. B3. Los Angeles rally, California Eagle, May 30, 1963, p. 1; Detroit rally, Detroit Free Press, June 24, 1963, p. 1.
SNCC: The Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee papers, 1959-72, B-1-12, Reel 45, Library of Congress, Manuscript Reading Room.
Birmingham: Birmingham event, New York Times, July 11, 1963, p. 11, AGVA announcement; July 16, 1963, p. 25, Birmingham denies use of city auditorium; Chicago Defender (Daily), July 23, 1963, p. 17, AGVA vows to put on show; August 14, 1963, p. 20, show a hit; Show Business, August 10, 1963, Vol. XXIII, No. 32, article by Leo Shull, via hungry blues.net; New York Amsterdam News, August 3, 1963, p. 20, August 10, 1963, p. 1; Bobby Hamilton, Lisle Atkinson interviews and transcript from Atkinson-Chris White conversation on Chris’ Choice, his radio show from Bloomfield College.
August 28: Synopsis of the August 28, 1963, March on Washington taken primarily from Branch, Parting the Waters, Chapter 22; for a shorter well-crafted synopsis see Guralnick, Dream Boogie, pp. 509-12.
Youth Sunday: Sixteenth Street Baptist Church bombing, New York Times, September 16, 1963, p. 1; September 18, 1963, p. 1; for an extended discussion, see Branch, Parting the Waters, pp. 889-96; see also Bullard et al., from the Southern Poverty Law Center, Free At Last: A History of the Civil Rights Movement and Those Who Died in the Struggle.
“I sat struck dumb”: I Put a Spell on You, pp. 88-90.
“Very sulky”: Apollo, New York Amsterdam News, October 26, 1963, p. 17; Schiffman family documents, Smithsonian Museum of American History archives; Art D’Lugoff interviews.
“folk & jazz wing ding”: The Folk & Jazz Wing Ding, Carnegie Hall archives for programs; New York Times, November 2, 1963, p. 17.
the first college dates: Dartmouth University press release on CARavan, November 19, 1963; Bobby Hamilton interviews; Philadelphia Bulletin, November 24 and November 30, 1963; Philadelphia Inquirer, November 27, 1963, p. 14; Philadelphia Tribune, November 30, 1963, p. 11. Hootenanny information comes from the January-February 1964 The Alkalizer, published by Miles Laboratory, a sponsor of the event, courtesy of the Salem International University archives; The Salem Herald, December 19, 1963, p. 1; Sunday Gazette-Mail, Charleston, W.Va., January 12, 1964; Clarksburg Exponent, December 10, 1963, p. 1, December 11, 1963,… .p. 1.
Congress of Racial Equality: New York Times, January 10, 1964, p. 28; Summit, N.J., Dispatch, January 16, 1964, p. 1; I Put a Spell on You, p. 94.
appealing headshot: Variety, January 8, 1964, p. 228.
“Big Willy”: I Put a Spell on You, p. 106; Willem Langenberg information courtesy of Philips, via Andre Manning, Philips USA; Cash Box, February 22, 1964, p. 38.
Phil Orlando: Lisle Atkinson, Bobby Hamilton, Rudy Stevenson interviews.
Nina had plenty of time: New York Times, February 7, 1964, p. 38, Village Gate; Illinois Institute of Technology Tech News, February 28 and March 6, 1964; Lisle Atkinson interviews and Chris White radio show transcript.
“See-Line Woman”: Although earlier versions of a song similar to “SeeLine Woman” existed, George Bass claimed the copyright on the tune, registered February 24, 1964, EU812489; Bobby Hamilton, Rudy Stevenson interviews; Langston Hughes papers; Bernard Gotfryd interview, including discussion of his photographs of the Carnegie event.
“Oh, Lord”: Horace Ott interview.
Julia Prettyman: Student Non- Violent Coordinating Committee papers, Library of Congress Special Collections, B1-12, Reel 45, Library of Congress Manuscript Reading Room.
a “new” Nina: New York Amsterdam News, June 27, 1964, p. 16; Washington Post, May 22, 1964, p. C10; Bernard Gotfryd interview.
Cape Cod: Cape Cod photos, Stroud, Black Is the Color; Langston Hughes papers; New York Amsterdam News, June 27, 1964, p. 16, August 8, 1964, p. 46.
In mid-July: nina simone in concert (Philips PHS 600-135); Cash Box reviewJuly4,1964,p.24; Folksy Nina, (SCP 465); Variety review, July 8, 1964,… .p. 44. Nina’s seven albums for Philips were later compiled into a four-CD package, Four Women, released by Verve Records (440 065 0212).
Allen had reconfigured: Discussion of September 3 and September 10, 1964, Steve Allen performances from video, courtesy of Meadowlane Enterprises and Research Video. Nina had made another visit to a television variety show in the spring, appearing May 13 on The Tonight Show in New York. According to the NBC Masterbook, Box MT 1361, she performed an “African Rhythm,” perhaps “Zungo,” and “Porgy.”
On September 20, Nina appeared at Carnegie Hall, opening for Harry James and his band. John Wilson wrote in the New York Times (September 21, 1964, p. 36) that she “sang, danced and played the piano with her trio with her customarily skillful sense of showmanship.”
a CORE benefit: New York Amsterdam News, September 5, 1963, p. 26.
Nina’s second album: Broadway Blues and Ballads (PHS 600-14B); Bur-don, Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood, pp. 287-89; Variety, November 11, 1964, p. 56.
“in poor taste”: Chicago Defender, October 17, 1964, p. 10.
booklet of photographs: Booklet from Schomburg Center, Nina Simone files; November 6, 1964, letter from Andy Stroud to Langston Hughes, Hughes papers.
Premier Records: Nina Simone v. Philip Landwehr, Lewis Harris, et al., Case #18830/64, New York Supreme Court archives.
Los Angeles fiasco: Los Angeles Times, December 27, 1964, p. F1.
an engaged performer: Horace Ott, Lisle Atkinson interviews; Stroud, Black Is the Color, p. 49; I Put a Spell on You (PHS 600-172).
another solo concert: Nina entering Carnegie Hall and backstage, from Stroud, Black Is the Color; Dorothea Towles information, New York Amsterdam News, June 13, 1964, p. 23, June 27, 1964, p. 22; New York Times, July 30, 2006, p. 29, obituary; New York Times, January 16, 1965, p. 15, Wilson review; Langston Hughes papers; I Put a Spell on You, p. 103.
“not quite as urgent”: New York Times, January 16, 1965, p. 15. Though federal indictments in the murders of the three civil rights workers were handed down in January 1965, no one was tried until 1967, when eighteen men were charged with conspiracy. Seven of the defendants were convicted, eight were acquitted, and a mistrial was declared for the remaining three. No one was tried on state charges for more than forty years. In 2005, one man was convicted of manslaughter for his part in the murders. New York Times, October 25, 1967, p. 1, June 22, 2005, p. 1.
Lorraine had died: Lorraine Hansberry’s death, New York Times, January 16, 1965, p. 25, January 17, 1965, p. X3; New York Amsterdam News, January 16, 1965, p. 1, January 23, 1965, p. 6; I Put a Spell on You, pp. 87-88; Cheney, Lorraine Hansberry, pp. 33-34.
On January 22, 1965, the FBI, noting Lorraine’s death, circulated a memorandum with copies of her obituary. “Subject is included on the Security Index of the NYO [New York Office] and because of her death on 1/12/65, the SI cards concerning her are being canceled … Subject’s case file will be placed in a closed status.”
“Music chose me”: Nashville Tennessean, February 14, 1965, Sunday Showcase.
settled the suit: Nina Simone v. Philip Landwehr, Lewis Harris, et al., settlement confirmation; New York Amsterdam News, February 20, 1965, p. 13.
Jesse H. Walker: New York Amsterdam News, January 23, 1965, p. 9; February 13, 1965, p. 14; May 22, 1965, p. 23.
Selma: See Lawson, Black Ballots: Voting Rights in the South, 19441969; Congressional Quarterly’s Congress and the Nation, Vol. I, p. 357; New York Times, March 5-25, 1965, for coverage of events in and around the Selma protest. Art D’Lugoff interviews; I Put a Spell onYou, pp. 101-3. There is no independent confirmation in any contemporaneous reporting of the Montgomery event that the city airport was blockaded as Nina recounted in her memoir. Art D’Lugoff remembered that the private plane they took for the last leg of the trip left from Atlanta.
“fierce integrity”: Billboard, May 29,1965, p. 10;NewYorkTimes, April 16, 1965, p. 32; Cash Box briefly noted I Put a Spell on You in its April 3 issue.
Malcolm X: New York Amsterdam News, April 17, 1965, p. 49; New York Times, March 24, 1965, p. 4X; Bobby Hamilton interviews; I Put a Spell on You, pp. 99, 194. Nina joined a benefit April 23, 1965, to raise money for Malcolm’s family, a midnight event at the Apollo Theater. She had also joined another benefit April 11, 1965, at Philharmonic Hall for the Wiltwych School for disadvantaged children in the New York area; New York Times, April 12, 1965, p. 28.
Annie’s Room: Annie Ross interview; Pittsburgh Courier, January 28, 1961, p. A22, Nina with Lambert Hendriks and Ross; Melody Maker, July 3, 1965, p. 12; Hampton, Nina Simone: Break Down & Let It All Out, pp. 24-25.
“jolly good”: Portion of July 15, 1965, letter from Nina to Sam Waymon, made available via www.ninasimone.bizffree-letter.html; Evening Star and News, July 9, 1965.
“I read chapters”: July 1965 letter from Nina Simone to Langston Hughes, Hughes papers.
Antibes Juan-les-Pins: Jazz, September 1965, pp. 47-48; Jazz Hot, September 1965, p. 7; translation courtesy of David Kaufman; Bobby Hamilton interviews; Pastel Blues (PHS 600- 187).
Andy sent regrets: CORE papers, Atlanta collection, Reel 21, Section 62, Library of Congress Manuscript Reading Room.
“the rudder”: Alfred Wertheimer interview.
Ralph J. Gleason: San Francisco Chronicle, November 5, 1965, p. 51. 184 “the whole family”: Stroud, Black Is the Color, p. 33.
Haverford College: Haverford News, February 25, 1966, p. 3; Images (PHS 600- 202).
at the East End: Philadelphia Tribune, February 26, 1966, p. 18; March 8, 1966, p. 17. Writing about Let It All Out (PHS 600-202), the Saturday Review’s Martin Williams said he was at a loss to place Nina musically: “I confess I have no idea what Miss Simone’s appeal is.” He nonetheless admired “the variety of tempo and attitude on this LP.”
The album felt as conventional as several of the meat-and-potatoes dates that filled up Nina’s schedule right after the CORE concerts: that evening at Haverford College outside Philadelphia, four weeks at a new venue for Nina in New York City, Square East in the Village, and another evening concert at Hunter College. See Saturday Review, March 12, 1966, p. 130; Haverford date, Philadelphia Bulletin, February 7, 1966; Square East, Anne Fulchino press release; Hunter College, New York Times, April 15, 1966, p. 38.
“Ohrbach’s”: Washington Post, March 19, 1966, p. E3; New York Amsterdam News, April 2, 1966, p. 14; Philadelphia Tribune, July 19, 1966, second section front, for “freedom cap” reference.
The new arrangements: Nina Simone with Strings (CP 496), Record Aid, May 1966 for release date; June 24, 1965, recording date information courtesy of AFM Local 47 archives, Los Angeles, Calif.
something special: Atlanta Journal, May 27, 1966, p. 14 for the date before Newport; July 4, 1963, Newport Jazz Festival, Library of Congress, Recorded Sound Reference Room. In Down Beat, August 15, 1963 (p. 13), reviewer Ira Gitler, departing from audience reaction, was highly critical of her “overlong set in which her affected singing and out-of-the-academy piano playing succeeded in driving many to drink.” “Porgy/Malindy” can be heard on To Be Free: The Nina Simone Story (RCA Legacy 88697 11009 2); Goldblatt, Newport Jazz Festival, pp. 132-33. For the 1966 festival, see New York Times, July 3, 1966, p. 11; Down Beat, August 11, 1966, p. 14; July 2, 1966, Newport Jazz Festival, Library of Congress, Recorded Sound Reference Room.
Boston Globe’s music critic: Boston Globe, November 24, 1966, p. 86. Music critic William Buchanan said Nina had been “one of the top two or three performers” at the July Newport festival; Boston Herald, November 20, 1966, p. 14 of the Show Guide.
another album: Wild Is the Wind (PHM-200-207/PHS-600-207); the June 26, 1966, Cash Box (p. 44) gave it the magazine’s usual positive spin: “Interpreting either blues or ballads with depth and clarity, Nina has proven once again that she has her own special niche in the pop-blues-jazz field.” Though the blurb cited a few tracks, it made no mention of “Four Women.”
Dolly Banks: Philadelphia Tribune, October 8, 1966, second section front, October 15, 1966; Pittsburgh Courier, November 5, 1966, p. 5B; Chicago Defender, October 26, 1966, p. 16; I Put a Spell on You, p. 117.
“Some people”: Chicago Defender, September 19, 1966, p. 10, September 29, 1966, p. 21; New York Post, September 2, 1966, p. 10; Sepia, March 1967, pp. 60-64; New York Amsterdam News, June 11, 1966, p. 20, anti-apartheid; September 17, 1966, p. 20, NAACP fashion benefit; Philadelphia Tribune, July 19, 1966, p.1; Philadelphia Bulletin, July 18, 1966; Philadelphia Inquirer, July 18, 1966; Stokely Carmichael comments from footage courtesy of Getty Images.
almost midnight: Philadelphia Tribune, November 15, 1966, p. 1, November 19, 1966, p. 4; Philadelphia Bulletin, November 14, 1966.
Philharmonic Hall: Ron Delsener, Bobby Hamilton, Lisle Atkinson interviews; Chicago Defender, May 21, 1966, p. 14, June 4, 1966, p. 14.
“Backlash Blues”: Langston Hughes papers, concert program; New York Amsterdam News, December 3, 1966, p. 20; New York Times, November 23, 1966, p. 28, October 1, 1966, for “Khadejha.”
mainstream appeal: The Calling Card, December 14, 1966 (Brooklyn College); Alan M. Nadel interview; New York Amsterdam News, December 3, 1966, p. 7. An honor Nina received at the end of the year seemed fitting given all the attention to her appearance in the previous months. Her friend Dorothea Towles had opened a charm school and was graduating her first professional models. At the mid-December ceremony the inaugural award for “excellence in dress” went to Nina.
RCA: Move to RCA, Cash Box, December 31, 1966, p. 36B. Nina’s champion at Philips, Willem “Big Willy” Langenberg, had resigned in April to accept an executive position with a Dutch ship-building consortium, so even if he had wanted the label to keep her, he no longer had any influence on such decisions. Cash Box, April 23, 1966, p. 45. Andy’s management, New York Amsterdam News, January 7, 1967, p. 18, January 14, 1967, p. 16.
Bill Cosby: Cash Box, November 26, 1966, p. 25; St. Louis Post Dispatch, February 9, 1967, p. 8F; St. Louis Globe Democrat, February 11-12, 1967, p. 7F; Baltimore Afro-American, February 25, 1967, p. 20; The Hilltop, Howard University newspaper, February 22, 1967, p. 1; New York Times, February 20, 1967, p. 43. At least to John S. Wilson, Nina’s offstage problems didn’t hamper her performance. He found her “all fire and ice, playing and singing with a feline sense of power.” I Put a Spell on You, pp. 110-11; Rudy Stevenson interviews.
a cartoonlike drawing: The High Priestess of Soul (PHM 200-219/PHS 600-219, Verve B0006004-02); New York Amsterdam News, December 3, 1966,.p. 20; Los Angeles Times, January 20, 1967, p. C8. See Cash Box, January 28, 1967, p. 38 for a mini-review as “Pop Best Bets;” also Los Angeles Times, February 12, 1967, p. Q45.
Nina Simone Sings the Blues: (RCA Victor LPM/LSP 3789, RCA Legacy 82876 73334 2); Bernard Purdie interview, Danny Davis comments from the original liner notes. See Cash Box, April 24, 1967, p. 34 for a mini-review in “Jazz Picks;” also Los Angeles Times, May 14, 1967, p. C22, May 25, 1967, p. E10; Down Beat, October 5, 1967, p. 34.
“Day and Night,” one of Rudy’s compositions that RCA released as a single, found a home in Harlem. According to the New York Amsterdam News weekly charts in April, “Day and Night” made it into the paper’s “Top Ten Records” for the month; New York Amsterdam News, April 18, 1967,… .p. 18, April 15,1967, p. 19; Washington Post, May 14,1967, p. L6; Billboard, August 5,1967, p. 14; Cash Box, January 28,1967, p. 38, April 24, 1967, p. 34, September 16, 1967, p. 48.
singer-comedian: Nina, Flip Wilson, and Miriam Makeba, New York Amsterdam News, February 24, 1967, p. 18; Village Voice, March 16, 1967,… .p. 18.
Brixton: Hampton, Nina Simone: Break Down, pp. 28-35; Melody Maker, April 22, 1967, p. 6; Stroud inteview, Fader, May/June 2006; Dick Gregory interview.
“more out of myself”: Washington Post, May 14, 1967, p. L6.
a tribute: Langston Hughes’s death, New York Times, May 23, 1967, p. 1; New York Amsterdam News, May 27, 1967, pp. 1, 29, June 3, 1967, p. 1; Nina Simone’s July 1, 1967 Newport performance, Library of Congress Recorded Sound Reference Room.
“entirely too apathetic”: Sepia, March 1967; Down Beat, January 11, 1968,… .p. 16, referring to October 1967 interview; Billboard, August 5, 1967, p. 14.
Detroit: New York Times, July 24, 1967, July 25, 1967, p. 1, riot coverage; Chicago Defender, August 5, 1967, p. 13; Detroit Free Press, August 15, 1967, p. 3B; Detroit News, August 14, 1967, p. 5C; New York Amsterdam News, July 29, 1967, p. 42, “Roundup of the ‘Hot Summer’” Bill Smith interview.
express the blues: Silk & Soul (RCA LPM/LSP 3837, RCA Legacy 82876733352). The album is notable for Nina’s graceful, understated performances. One featured her alone at the piano on “Love O Love,” which Andy had written. Its improvisations—a little Bach, a little blues, a little gospel—evoked what Nina must have sounded like alone at the piano in 1954 at the Midtown in Atlantic City. Her quiet and contemplative reading of the Burt Bacharach-Hal David “Look of Love” gave the song a kind of charm missing from more sparkly renditions. Similarly, an elegant version of “Cherish,” a hit for the Association, took the song from teenage crush to adult affection. Silk & Soul went on the Billboard Top 200 chart November 25, 1967, and stayed on the charts four weeks, though it rose only to number 158. Washington Post, May 14, 1967, p. L6; New York Times, December 31, 1967, p. D11, November 8, 2007, p. D11; see also www.corita.org.
Las Vegas: Rudy Stevenson, Sam Waymon interviews; Las Vegas Sun, October 1, 1967, p. 40.
UCLA: Los Angeles Times, November 14, 1967; listing for Pat Boone in Hollywood, Washington Post, November 30, 1967, p. D23.
“You’re not giving”: New York Times, December 31, 1967, p. D11.
coronation: Carnegie Hall concert, New York Times, January 8, 1968, p. 31; Variety, January 10, 1968, p. 51; Billboard, January 20, 1968, p. 16; New York Amsterdam News, January 6, 1968, p. 16, January 13, 1968, p. 17; New York Post, February 27, 1968, p. 29.
Vancouver: Henry Young interviews.
“The great thing”: Variety, March 20, 1968, p. 66; Rudy Stevenson, Henry Young interviews.
On April 4: Newsday, April 4, 1968, p. 48; Henry Young interviews; I Put a Spell on You, pp. 113-14. RCA archives; Urban League of New York, New York Amsterdam News, May 11, 1968, p. 1; Nuff Said (RCA LSP 4065, BMG RCA 82876596212); extended introduction and tribute to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. from Nina Simone: Saga of the Good Life and Hard Times (RCA 07863-66997-2).
“Breathe with me”: Nina talking to Buck Clarke, from Nina, a Peter Rodis documentary filmed in 1968-69 and eventually airing August 1972 on WOR in New York. This documentary is part of the 2008 CD/DVD package To Be Free: The Nina Simone Story (RCA Legacy 88697 11009 2). Lester Hyman, Henry Young, Fred Taylor interviews.
In Amsterdam: Rotterdam Daily News article, “NINA SIMONE, uit-zonderlijk door feilloze ‘timing’“—“NINA SIMONE, Exceptional through faultless timing;” Amsterdam Daily News, NINA SIMONE: INGETOGENHEID”—“NINA SIMONE: Modesty;” translations courtesy of Leonie van Raadshoove of the Embassy of the Netherlands, Washington, D.C., original articles courtesy of Henry Young.
“Sigmund Freud, 24/7”: Sam Waymon, Henry Young interviews; postcard from Nina to Henry Young, courtesy of Henry Young.
“by sheer artistry”: High Fidelity, September 1968, p. 104; Melody Maker, December 7, 1968, p. 7; Montreux materials, including a recording of the concert, courtesy of Henry Young. Years later Andy Stroud had apparently put out an album from the concert, Nina Simone in Europe (Trip Records, a Product of Springboard International Records, TLP-8020 2 SLX-00243).
In I Put a Spell on You Nina wrote that she had learned about Kennedy’s assassination just as she arrived for her foreign dates and that by the time she got to Montreux, she was emotionally spent. She recounted in the memoir that she was so distraught that when she sat down to play the first number she started to sob, and Andy had to help her offstage. There is no mention of such an occurrence in the contemporaneous accounts of the concert or in the record of the live performance.
“It’s so wonderful”: New York Amsterdam News, August 3, 1968, p. 16; Christian Science Monitor, July 13, 1968, p. 4; Philadelphia Bulletin, July 6, 1968, p. 4, New York Times, July 8, 1968, p. 45; New York Daily News, July 5, 1968, p. 38.
Sound of Soul: Nina’s comments are from an interview that was packaged as part of the Sound of Soul, courtesy of WNET in New York.
a new bass player: Gene Perla interviews. Perla’s personal calendar showed a busy schedule once he joined Nina the third week in October: October 26, Lake Forest, Ill., at the college; October 27, Detroit, Ford Auditorium; November 8, New York state, unknown venue; November 9, Toledo, unknown venue; November 22, Pennsylvania, unknown venue; November 29, Miami, Dade County arena; November 30, Atlanta, unknown venue; December 1, Philadelphia, Spectrum “World Series of Jazz;” December 13, Long Island, unknown venue; December 27, Pittsburgh, Hilton Hotel, jazz workshop; December 28, Carnegie Hall in New York City. See also Chicago Daily Defender, October 24, 1968, p. 16; The Stentor, October 25, 1968, p. 1, student newspaper at Lake Forest College; Hampton, Nina Simone: Break Down, pp. 48-50; Cash Box, December 14, 1968, p. 62.
“They seem to know”: Melody Maker, December 7, 1968, p. 7, December 21, 1968, p.13.
Nina’s latest album: Nina Simone and Piano! (RCA LSP-410, RCA 07863 68100 2); RCA archives for sessions September 16, 1968, October 1, 1968. Ralph J. Gleason was one of the few music writers who paid attention to it, noting with praise Nina’s development as a pianist. In earlier years, he wrote, she “had a tendency to break loose and dominate a performance. Now, however, her playing is economical and exquisitely tasteful. Just right, in other words to frame what she is singing.” New York Post, April 22, 1969; Baltimore Afro-American, January 11,1969, p. 10.
“We are the ones”: Time, February 21, 1969, p. 63; New York Times, February 5, 1969, p. 37; Village Voice, February 13, 1969, p. 35. Along with a month of weekends at the Village Gate, Nina had also performed two well-received concerts with similar programs. The first was in New York at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which used the event to kick off a new jazz series. No doubt by design, the museum was also featuring an exhibition called “Harlem on My Mind.” The second was the Philadelphia Academy of Music.
Nina and Andy arguing: Gene Perla, Sam Waymon interviews.
“nineteen people”: New York Post, March 15, 1969, p. 29; “nineteen people,” from footage probably shot late in 1968 for the Peter Rodis documentary; Andy Stroud interview, Fader, May/June 2006.
ambitious three-week trip: Cash Box, March 1, 1969, p. 6; New York Amsterdam News, February 8, 1969, p. 21. The packed UK-European schedule, courtesy of Gene Perla, was Dublin, March 12; Belfast, March 13; Amsterdam, March 14; Rotterdam, March 15; the Hague, March 16; Hillversum, March 18; Edinburgh, March 19; Cardiff, March 21; London, March 22; Manchester, March 23; Paris, March 25 with a television show on March 26; Geneva, March 31; Lucerne, April 1; Munich, April 2-3, including a live taping; and London, April 4.
Hampton, Nina Simone: Break Down, pp. 51-61; London Sunday Times, March 30, 1969; Melody Maker, March 29, 1969, p. 6; Figaro, March 27, 1969, p. 30; Jazz Hot, May 1969, p. 7, translation courtesy of David Kaufman; Gene Perla interviews; Taylor, Notes and Tones, p. 152.
“a very rare evening”: Gene Perla interviews; the Munich show was later released as a CD, A Very Rare Evening (Mambo Records, 804065144); Hampton, Nina Simone: Break Down, pp. 56-58.
“Ten years ago”: Baltimore Afro-American, January 11, 1969, p. 19; Melody Maker, April 19, 1969, p. 5.
Berkeley: By most accounts Nina was well received at the University of California-Berkeley jazz festival. See The Daily Californian, April 11, 1969; New York Times, May 11, 1969, p. D30; Down Beat, July 24, 1969, p. 28, which was a middling review; New York Post, June 20, 1969, p. 48, Ralph J. Gleason column; UCLA date, Leonard Feather review in the Los Angeles Times, May 1, 1969, p. 23. He had turned into a fan, calling Nina “a creature of our times. Her extraordinary faculty for communicating with an audience is based in part on the urgent topicality of her songs, and in equal measure on the power, sometimes tantamount to fury, with which she drives home her point.” See also Boston Herald Traveler, April 20, 1969, Show Guide, p. 19; Boston Globe, May 2, 1969, p. 23.
“Get her together”: New York Amsterdam News, May 24, 1969, p. 22. In June RCA released To Love Somebody (RCA LSP-4152, RCA 28765 9632) from those sessions earlier in the year. Beyond the title track there were three Bob Dylan tunes, Leonard Cohen’s “Suzanne,” and the two-part “Revolution.” In its largely positive review, Metronome, the music trade, quipped that “the tigress learns to purr.” “Revolution” notwithstanding, whatever hopes the label had for this album were overshadowed by a new Philips record, The Best of Nina Simone, which was released almost at the same time and spent a few weeks near the bottom of the Billboard Top 200 (at number 187). The new RCA album didn’t register at all. However, “Revolution Part I,” the single, did spend two weeks in April on the Billboard R&B chart. Chart information comes from Whitburn’s collection of Billboard Top R&B and pop singles charts and the Top 200 album charts. The single “Ain’t Got No Life,” which had been so popular in England, had spent a month on the top pop chart in January but rose only to number ninety-four. Ralph J. Gleason gave To Love Somebody a glowing review in one of his columns, New York Post, June 20, 1969, p. 48; Stereo Review, September 1969, p. 94.
“To be young”: Melody Maker, December 21, 1968, p. 13; Hansberry information, New York Amsterdam News, January 18, 1969, p. 22, January 25, 1969, p. 21; New York Times, March 3, 1969, p. 18; Baltimore Afro-American, July 12,1969, p. 5.
Morehouse College: Black Journal, aired October 1969, courtesy of WNET; Baltimore Afro-American, June 28, 1969, p. 10; Baltimore Sun, June 24, 1969, p. B6.
David Frost: July 15,1969, David Frost Show, courtesy of Kingworld/CBS.
Dallas: Henry Young interviews, Dallas Times Herald, July 19, 1969, p. 4A; Dallas Morning News, July 18, 1969, p. C6; Down Beat, January 23, 1969, p. 34, for Nina’s comments on white singers/blacks’ music during a performance in Detroit; Ebony, August 1969, p. 159.
blazing set: Jazz Hot, September 1969, p. 23, translation courtesy of David Kaufman; footage via YouTube, though this post carries the incorrect date. The group of musicians Nina introduces did not begin to play with her until 1969. Beyond Antibes, Nina continued with regular festival work, performing August 15 in Philadelphia at the Spectrum, Bulletin, August 16, 1969, and then August 18 as part of the Schaeffer Music Festival in Central Park, New York Amsterdam News, August 16, 1969, p. 17.
“how we feel as a race”: Ebony, August 1969, pp. 156-59; Taylor, Notes and Tones, pp. 150-51; Hampton festival, Washington Post, June 30, 1969, p. B8.
“more and more every day”: Nina’s remarks on “To Be Young, Gifted and Black” taken from a live performance on Black Gold (RCA LSP-4248, BVCJ-37373 82876-60800-2); footage of an August 17, 1969, performance is available on The Soul of Nina Simone (RCA- Legacy, 82876 7193 2); New York Amsterdam News, August 23, 1969, p. 18; Philharmonic Hall concert, New York Times, October 27, 1969, p. 51; Variety, October 29, 1969, p. 60; Billboard, November 8, 1969, p. 22.
“a work horse”: Hampton, Nina Simone: Break Down, pp. 67-68; Melody Maker, November 22, 1969, p. 6. In a sign of its continuing interest in Nina, RCA took out an ad in Melody Maker November 15 (p. 11) promoting the single of “To Be Young, Gifted and Black” “on her return to Britain.”
Additional Stroud comments from Nina, the Peter Rodis documentary filmed in 1968-69. Prior to the Palladium concert, Nina had done two shows in Rotterdam, one in Amsterdam, and another in Stockholm, schedule courtesy of Gerrit DeBruin.
number eight: “To Be Young, Gifted and Black” (RCA0269). The record also scored on the Billboard pop chart, though it peaked only at number seventy-six.
split up: In I Put a Spell on You, Nina writes that she left Andy right after she played the Newport Jazz Festival on July 11 (pp. 118-19). But this appears to be in error, given stories in the black press in February about their separation. In addition, the May 14 Jet refers to Andy as Nina’s “estranged husband.” In the May/June 2006 Fader interview, Andy said that they separated from January 31, 1969, until 1970, when they returned from the European tour. But contemporaneous accounts refer to them together in 1969. He remembered that “she ran off the plane and I didn’t see her for days or hear from her” (pp. 100-101).
See also I Put a Spell on You, pp. 119-20; Fader, May/June 2006, p. 98. Though Nina writes in her memoir that she left Mount Vernon immediately after leaving Andy, a profile in the November 1970 Redbook by poet Maya Angelou refers to Nina living with Lisa in suburban Westchester County in a “comfortable rambling house,” which is an accurate description of the house on Nuber, and a 1971 interview in the Philadelphia Inquirer also refers to Nina living at the Mount Vernon house (March 28, 1971).
Lisa “Simone” Kelly myspace.com post, March 26, 2009, reflecting on living in North Carolina after her parents separated.
a weekend performance: Village Gate, New York Amsterdam News, Jan- uary 17, 1970, p. 18, January 24, 1970, p. 18, January 17, 1970, p. 18, photo; see Linda Yablonsky essay on Nina at the Gate, winter 1970, pp. 59-68, in Manning, ed., Shows I’ll Never Forget: 50 Writers Relive Their Most Memorable Concertgoing Experience. On February 8 Nina performed at a benefit for the Union United Methodist Church in Brooklyn to raise money for a free breakfast program, New York Amsterdam News, January 31,
“I’m very proud”: Philadelphia Bulletin, March 29, 1970; Washington Post, March 22, 1970, p. K8.
In I Put a Spell on You, Nina writes that her first job after splitting up with Andy was in San Francisco, but that does not appear to be correct. They were separated by the end of January, and Nina performed at the Village Gate at the end of the month. It is possible she had a San Francisco job sometime in early March and made the date while she was visiting her brother Carrol in San Diego.
Flip Wilson: Stroud interview, Fader, May/June 2006, p. 101; Jet, May 14, 1970, pp. 60-61.
Nina’s modest schedule: Chicago Defender, May 18, 1970, p. 10; Variety, June 6, 1970, p. 46; New York Amsterdam News, January 31, 1970, p. 24, February 7, 1970, p. 28; I Put a Spell on You, p. 118.
Nassau: Nassau Tribune coverage, June 30, 1970, p. 1, July 1, 1970, p. 1, July 2-3, 1970, p. 3; Nassau Guardian, July 2, 1970, p. 1, July 2-3, 1970, p. 2; Life, October 2, 1970, p. 11.
In I Put a Spell on You Nina talks about a March 1970 concert she played in Newark, New Jersey: “In front of a segregated audience—entirely black—and I was full of hate, tearing spitefully into political leaders of all races. Backstage after the show people said I was an inspiration to continue the struggle, but that was the end of it all for me—the beginning of my withdrawal from political performance.” Nina probably remembered the venue incorrectly, and the outburst she spoke of was likely the Nassau event. Contemporaneous accounts show that Nina was in California for most of March until she returned for the Philadelphia concert on the twenty-ninth.
News of the fiasco in Nassau seems not to have traveled back to the United States. The Chicago Defender (July 9, 1970, p. 5) and the New York Amsterdam News (July 11, 1970, p. 20) each ran dispatches about the trip that spoke of red carpet treatment and a party on a fancy houseboat.
“I have become more militant”: Taylor, Notes and Tones, pp. 150-56.
Barbados: I Put a Spell on You, p. 121.
traced black music: & Beautiful II, FBB 3198, Library of Congress collections, Motion Picture and Television reading room; New York Amsterdam News, September 12, 1970, p. 21, November 28, 1970, p. 29.
Essencer: December 1970, pp. 28-33; Taylor, Notes and Tones, pp. 157-58.
Gerrit DeBruin: Gerrit DeBruin, interviews, e-mail correspondence; I Put a Spell on You, p. 122; Hampton, Nina Simone: Break Down, pp. 74-76; Blues & Soul, January 1971, “Nina Simone—Superstar for 1971;” Sam Waymon interviews; Nina Simone, April 9, 1970, letter to Gerrit DeBruin, courtesy of Gerrit DeBruin.
gentle scenes: From Great American Dream Machine; New York Times, January 6, 1975, p. 75; Los Angeles Times, January 8, 1971, p. 21; Peter Rodis interview.
back in the studio: Here Comes the Sun (RCA LSP 4536, RCA BMG 82876 696252); Leopoldo Fleming, Nadi Qamar interviews.
one of the AME churches: Tad Hershorn interview, Dallas event; Chicago Defender, March 10, 1971, p. 4; Chicago Tribune, March 8, 1971, p. B16, for the Chicago performance.
“susceptible to hurt”: Philadelphia Inquirer, March 28, 1971; April 5, 1971; schedule information courtesy Gene Perla.
Nina was in a better mood April 23 when she performed in Los Angeles with Miles Davis at what was billed as “Jazz ä la Soul.” Even a faulty sound system that made her ask “Can you hear me better now” and the fact that the seven-thousand-seat Shrine Auditorium was only two-thirds full didn’t dampen her spirits. During her encore, “To Be Young, Gifted and Black,” Los Angeles Times critic Leonard Feather said she virtually played the audience as if it were an instrument “hammered by her great, proud tones.” Los Angeles Times, April 26, 1971, p. D18; Melody Maker, May 8, 1971, p. 32.
Prior to the Los Angeles date, Nina was the headliner April 4 for a Baltimore tribute to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. held at the Lyric Theater, Baltimore Sun, April 4, 1971, Section D, p. 10.
Mother’s Day concert: By several accounts, the Carnegie Hall show was unusual. The first part was padded with novelties rarely if ever seen in her previous performances. Lisa was brought out to dance, then a man came onstage, introduced by Nina as her swami, and he watched her dance. Nina even left a couple of times. Then she unveiled a plumped-up version of “Mr. Bojangles” that featured Sam doing a soft-shoe in tails, a top hat, and white gloves. The New York Times’s Mike Jahn derided the event as a “shoddy uneven performance given to cliches of almost vaude-ville proportions,” New York Times, May 11, 1971, p. 46. Also Billboard, May 22, 1971, p. 22; Sam Waymon, Leopoldo Fleming interviews.
Cairo, Illinois: Chicago Defender, May 1, 1971, p. 2, June 22, 1971, p. 5, June 24, 1971, p. 15; Ewing and Roddy, Let My People Go: Cairo, Illinois, 1967-1973, p. 65; East St. Louis Monitor, June 17, 1971, June 24, 1971, July 1, 1971, starting on p. 6 of each issue, “Cairo news.” Daily Vidette, Illinois State University newspaper, May 21, 1971; Sam Waymon interviews; correspondence with Charles Koen; Columbus Dispatch, May 29, 1971, for Columbus, Ohio, performance.
“She opened the door”: Warren Benbow, Nadi Qamar interviews; New York Times, October 12, 1971, p. 49; Variety, October 20, 1971, p. 50; Billboard, October 23, 1971, p. 14.
Warren had hardly settled into the band when Nina and the group were flown to Paris for one performance. Leopoldo remembered it as a big gala for the International Red Cross. The venue was the ALCAZAR music hall, a competitor to the famed Folies Bergère. Nina and the band also did a television show, but only after Leopoldo insisted they be paid and Nina backed him. Warren Benbow, Leopoldo Fleming, Sam Way-mon interviews; ALCAZAR, Figaro, September 30, 1971, p. 20. This date was sometime between September 19, 1971, when Nina performed at the Quaker City Jazz Festival in Philadelphia (Philadelphia Bulletin, September 20, 1971) and October 10, 1971, when she performed at Philharmonic Hall.
“Operation Get Down”: Pamphlet courtesy of Sam Waymon; Nina’s July 25, 1971, letter to Gerrit DeBruin from Jamaica, courtesy of Gerrit DeBruin. Nina also was scheduled to play a jazz festival in Cleveland October 16 on a bill with Herbie Mann, Ramsey Lewis, and Eddie Harris, Cleveland Call and Post, October 16, 1971, p. 12A.
Fort Dix: Free the Army, New York Times, March 21, 1971, p. D1; November 23, 1971, p. 55; RCA archives, including the Donald Sutherland napkin note; “My Sweet Lord” from Emergency Ward (RCA LSP 4757, RCA/BMG 82876 596262 9); I Put a Spell on You, p. 125; Trenton Times, November 19, 1971, p. 3. See Rolling Stone, November 9, 1972, p. 64, and Washington Post, October 28, 1972, p. C1, for commentary.
Constitution Hall: Washington Star, February 14, 1972, Section D, back page; Washington Post, February 14, 1972, p. B10; Peter Rodis documentary.
Rainbow Sign: San Francisco Examiner, April 3, 1972, p. 29; San Francisco Chronicle, April 3, 1972, p. 44; Peter Rodis documentary.
“prancing and shaking”: Down Beat, July 20, 1972, p. 50; Chicago Tribune, May 7, 1972, p. Q5; Times-Picayune, April 30, 1972, p. 39; Leopoldo Fleming, Ron Levy interviews.
In her write-up the Chicago Tribune’s Harriet Choice noted that Nina had dedicated “God Bless America” to another act on the bill, the Giants of Jazz, who included Dizzy Gillespie, Sonny Stitt, and Thelonious Monk. “These artists have played with mixed groups. Their choice of musicians is not a question of race. He’s either a good musician or a bad one. I suspect they would have considered her behavior embarrassing.”
At a Boston date two weeks before the New Orleans festival, Nina had exhibited more patience than usual when the sound system proved faulty and the auditorium was only half-full; Christian Science Monitor, March 23, 1972, p. 10.
an homage to Nina: Aretha Franklin, Young, Gifted and Black (Atlantic SD 7213), Whitburn, Top Pop Albums, p. 264; Hoffmann and Albert, Cash Box Album Charts, 1955-1974, p. 133.
Malcolm X College: Chicago Defender, June 7, 1972, p. 2, June 12, 1972, p. 16.
a negative review: San Francisco Chronicle, April 3, 1972, p. 44, June 12, 1972, p. 42; Oakland Tribune, June 12, 1972, p. 34. The San Francisco Examiner’s Phillip Elwood liked the Rainbow Sign show much better than Hunt. Calling her performance “magnificently theatrical,” he said, “Miss Simone is a whole human being—singing, dancing, proclaiming her rage at the mistreatment of the black community.” San Francisco Examiner, April 3, 1972, p. 29.
a similarly receptive audience: Hampton festival, Virginian Pilot, June 26, 1972, p. B3. The review, by Rick Patterson, said Nina’s performance of “To Be Young, Gifted and Black” was the emotional high point of the evening: “Almost the entire audience stood to sing with her in an over-whelming tribute to black unity.” In Variety, July 5, 1972, p. 44, the reviewer said, “It seems redundant to proselytize before crowds long since committed to her own ideals, but Miss Simone continues to do so and her performance suffers.” See also Cincinnati Enquirer, July 24, 1972, p. 8; Cincinnati Post and Times Star, July 24, 1972, p. 22. Post reviewer John Eliot said that Nina “shouted rather than sang ‘To Be Young, Gifted and Black’ and other quasi-political songs at the crowd. Black pride is important, but can it not be communicated musically instead of by Nina’s sledgehammer approach?”
Nina had been scheduled to perform July 7 at the Newport Jazz Festival, now moved to New York City, but she canceled because oflaryngitis.
Nina was still angry: New York Times, July 27, 1972, p. 19, August 3, 1972, p. 25; Variety, July 26, 1972, p. 1.
J.D. died: I Put a Spell on You, pp. 122-28. Nina writes vividly about the break with her father, his death, and Lucille’s, though some passages are at odds with verifiable facts—Lucille couldn’t have told her that her father had passed away because she preceded him in death by two weeks. The Washington Post, October 28, 1972, p. C1, offers a long interview with Nina published the day of the Kennedy Center concert, in which she talks about having spent the previous week in North Carolina, October 30, 1972, p. B2. Concert review, Washington Star and News, October 30, 1972,… .p. B4; Tryon Daily Bulletin, October 10, 1972, Waddell obituary; October 25, 1972, John D. Waymon obituary.
Geraldine: Chicago Tribune, December 19, 1972, p. B3; Eugene Harvey hiring referred to in a May 12, 1973, profile in Melody Maker, p. 24.
expressed her gratitude: Nina Simone Sings Billie Holiday—Lady Sings the Blues (SLP 1005, Stroud Records); Cash Box, December 30, 1972, p. 30; New York Amsterdam News, December 30, 1972, p. D3; Brecht pro-gram, New York Times, January 15, 1973, p. 23; Opera News, March 3, 1973,… .p. 25.
performance at Lincoln Center: Variety, August 8, 1973, p. 34. Using songs from this concert RCA created It Is Finished (RCA-APL 10241, RCA 82876 596272), along with three tracks from 1971 recording sessions, “The Pusher,” “Funkier Than a Mosquito’s Tweeter,” and “Let It Be Me.” It was released in the middle of 1974. See Crawdaddy, December 1974,… .pp. 80-81; Stereo Review, December 1974, p. 98; Pittsburgh Courier, September 28, 1974, p. 18.
Nina had done an earlier concert in Los Angeles April 11 at the Shrine auditorium on a bill with Miles Davis among others; Los Angeles Times, April 11, 1973, p. H17.
Black Expo: Prior to the Black Expo ‘73 in Philadelphia, Nina played a well-received concert at the Kennedy Center in Washington, Washing-ton Post, August 6, 1973, p. B1. The Black Expo ‘73 had a number of prob-lems, according to press accounts, and a week after the event, the main promoter was arrested on fraud charges. Philadelphia Bulletin, August 21, 1973, August 24, 1973; Philadelphia Inquirer, August 12, 1973, p. 7G, August 24, 1973, p. 2C; Philadelphia Tribune, August 18, 1973, p. 1, August 25, 1973, p. 1.
Troubadour: Los Angeles Times, October 6, 1973, p. A5.
her Japanese fans: Japan Times, October 28, 1973, p. 5; The Age (Melbourne, Australia), November 7, 1973, p. 22; The Australian (Canberra), November 27, 1973, p. 22, for a review of the November 25 Sydney concert; Nadi Qamar interview.
“Empty afternoons”: The account of Nina’s affair with Errol Barrow is taken from I Put a Spell on You, pp. 131-34. I could find no contemporaneous accounts to confirm what Nina described; however, in various interviews as an adult, Lisa talked about living in Barbados, and some interviews with Nina during this period talk about her living in Barbados. One long piece in the May 12, 1973, Melody Maker, p. 24, took place in Nina’s Manhattan apartment but refers to her having a tall man from Barbados with her, probably Paul. Nina also referred to her affair with Barrow, according to Sylvia Hampton in Nina Simone: Break Down, p. 80.
“Human Kindness Day”: Roscoe Dellums interview; poster courtesy of Roscoe Dellums, poem excerpt used by permission; I Put a Spell on You, pp. 136-37; Washington Star, May 12, 1974, pp. 1, B1, discusses in detail the vandalism that occurred on the National Mall as the day was ending; Washington Post, May 12, 1974, p. A10, May 13, 1974, p. C1; Blues & Soul, June 4-17, 1974, p. 136.
unpaid taxes: Mount Vernon house information, Westchester County tax assessor.
Liberia: I Put a Spell on You, pp. 138-50, for the time leading up to Liberia and her experiences there. Nina’s account in her book is hard to verify. She says they arrived September 12, 1974, Lisa’s twelfth birthday. News accounts in the Liberian Age note that President Tolbert was out of the country. Miriam Makeba had returned to Africa for the Zaire music festival September 21-24; New York Amsterdam News, September 19, 1974, p. 11, October 26, 1974, p. A1; New York Times, September 20, 1974, p. 27. Zaire was renamed Congo in May 1997 when a new government took over after forcing the previous leader from power.
“I was twelve”: Telegraph Magazine, October 2003, interview with Lisa “Simone” Kelly.
Montreux Jazz Festival: Nina Simone Live at Montreux 1976 (Eagle Rock Entertainment DVD EE 39106-9). Shortly after the Montreux festival, a British company put out a compilation of Nina’s RCA recordings, Songs of the Poets, featuring songs by George Harrison, Bob Dylan, Langston Hughes, and Nina and Weldon Irvine’s “To Be Young, Gifted and Black.” New York Times, August 20, 1976, p. 62.
“I wasn’t feeling that”: Lisa “Simone” Kelly interview, Fader, May/June 2006, p. 96.
“Everything was fine”: Lisa “Simone” Kelly interview, Fader, May/June 2006, p. 96; Hampton, Nina Simone: Break Down, p. 166.
MIDEM: Melody Maker, February 8, 1977, p. 24; Variety, January 26, 1977, p. 2; Roland Grivelle interviews.
Amherst College: Interviews with Patricia Allen and Diane Piermattei at Amherst College; reference to Nina’s degree, New York Times, June 28, 1977, p. 21.
“She just freaked”: New York Times, June 28, 1977, p. 21; Jet, July 14, 1977, p. 52; Darlene Chan and Gino Francesconi interviews; amount of George Wein’s potential claim against Nina from Appendix A, “Other Potential Liabilities,” United States of America v. Nina Simone, 78CR770.
“more mannered”: Jazz Journal International, November 1977, pp. 49-51.
Drury Lane: London Sunday Times, December 11, 1977. According to Gerrit DeBruin, Nina also performed at the North Sea Jazz Festival at the Hague.
Christmas in Israel: New York Post, January 3, 1978, p. 2; Jerusalem Post, January 4, 1978, p. 5.
Creed Taylor: Baltimore (CTI 7084, Sony 5127912); Creed Taylor com-ments from album jacket; Nina comments, Blues and Soul, August 1978; Melody Maker, September 29, 1979, p. 26; Dave Matthews, Jimmy Madi-son, John Beal, Chuck Israels interviews.
he beat Nina: I Put a Spell on You, pp. 156-58; Stroud interview, Fader, May/June 2006; news clips, March 31, 1978, April 1, 1978, London dateline, noting that Nina had collapsed and had been taken to a local hospital. Documents in United States v. Simone for Nina’s May/June stay in London.
a solo concert: Melody Maker, July 29, 1978, p. 14; Evening Telegraph (London), July 14, 1978, p. 33; Nina’s reconstruction of much of 1978 in I Put a Spell on You is unreliable. Contemporaneous documents put her trip to Israel in late December 1977, before the assault that took place in London. Similarly, documents filed in the criminal tax case against her show where she was staying in London and then in Switzerland during the summer and fall of 1978. The filings in the tax case show that Nina performed only twice in 1978, once at London’s Festival Hall ($2,000) and at Avery Fisher Hall in New York ($10,000). She was supposed to have appeared on Swiss television but had to cancel because she lost her voice, forfeiting the $877 advance. Likewise, there is no contemporaneous account to confirm Nina’s recollection (pp. 163-64) that the mayor of Tel Aviv met her at the airport along with a big crowd.
financial problems: United States v. Simone, 78CR770, United States District Court, Southern District of New York; Alan R. Naftalis, Elliot Sagor interviews. According to the IRS, Nina’s income in 1971-73 dollars respectively was $35,288, $75,960, and $91,612.
By the time Nina pleaded guilty to failing to file her 1971 income taxes, her total liabilities as of December 1978, including those to the federal government, were estimated to be $87,500, or $293,125 in 2009 dollars. Her $10,602 in assets were roughly $35,517 in 2009 dollars.
Nina’s dramatic account of her “booking” on pages 161-62 in I Put a Spell on You is at odds with what happened, according to Naftalis. Among the several things in error is the statement that Andy was involved on Nina’s behalf. He was not present for any meeting or proceeding, Naftalis said. See also New York Times, November 10, 1978, p. C29; Jet, November 30, 1978, p. 57, January 18, 1978, p. 62; Washington Post, December 16, 1978, p. B3, December 23, 1978, p. B2.
Avery Fisher Hall: New York Times, December 12, 1978, p. C8; New York Amsterdam News, December 23, 1978, p. D12.
“I must get my money”: New York Times, February 24, 1979, p. 19; Village Voice, March 12, 1979, pp. 63-64; Art D’Lugoff interviews.
all her royalties: A sample royalty statement from Nina’s Philips recordings for 1982-83, courtesy of Sam Waymon.
“Y’all are fickled”: Globe-Democrat-Knight News Service, August 4, 1979, from the St. Louis Globe Democrat, “Nina Simone is back with new form of performing,” by Mary Martin Niepold; Stroud interview Fader, May/June 2006, p. 101; Shubert Theatre, Philadelphia Tribune, June 8, 1979, p. 8;
antique necklace: Philadelphia Bulletin, July 9, 1979, July 12, 1979.
“When you fall”: Melody Maker, September 29, 1979, p. 26.
Oakland Coliseum: Oakland Tribune, December 17, 1979, p. C1; San Francisco Examiner, December 15, 1979, p. 8; San Franciscio Chronicle, December 17, 1979, p. 45; Hannibal Means interviews, e-mail correspondence.
Locust Theater: Philadelphia Inquirer, May 11, 1980, p. 10H; Philadelphia Tribune, May 9, 1980, p. 6.
“I love Khomeini:” Washington Post, June 7, 1980, p. B1, June 9, 1980, p. B11; Hollie I. West, Don Wilby, Wade Henderson interviews; Lisa “Simone” Kelly interview in Hampton, Nina Simone: Break Down, p. 167.
“I’m a slave”: Lester Hyman interview; Bubbling Brown Sugar, Washington Post, July 3, 1980, p. C3.
Montreal: Nina Simone: The Rising Sun Collection (Just a Memory Records, RSCD 0004); Hannibal Means interviews, e-mail correspondence; The Gazette (Montreal), July 16, 1980, p. 80, ad for the jazz/blues festival.
Grande Finale: Hampton, Nina Simone: Break Down, p. 99; Blues and Soul, November 4-17, 1980, p. 33; New York Times, September 28, 1980, p. D43.
Jacques Brel: I Put a Spell on You, p. 165; Jazz Magazine, September 1981, p. 10, translation courtesy of David Kaufman.
Carrere label: Fodder on My Wings, licensed to Sunnyside Communications, Inc. (SSC 114); Rocky Mountain News, December 2, 1983, p. 35W, discussion of “Fodder on My Wings.”
Barbican Hall: London Times, May 10, 1982, p. 7.
Pamplona: La Vanguardia, Barcelona, July 25, 1982, “Nina Simone provoca un escándalo en Pamplona;” www.noticiasdenavarra.com, translations courtesy of Iliana Aguilar; Raymond Gonzales comments, International Herald Tribune, April 30, 2003, p. 18; Raymond Gonzales interviews.
“I never got a dime”: Nina’s meeting with the London lawyer courtesy of Hannibal Means.
spiraled into such turmoil: Los Angeles Times, October 29, 1982, p. J2; Atlanta Daily World, February 6, 1983, p. 6; Warren Benbow, Sam Way-mon interviews.
Swing Plaza: New York Times, June 3, 1983, p. C4, June 6, 1983, p. 13; Village Voice, June 21, 1983, p. 69; Hannibal Means interviews, e-mail correspondence.
European festival swing: Performance contracts, courtesy of Sam Waymon; The Hague, Haagsche Courant, translation courtesy of Benno Groeneveld; Nice Matin, July 20, 1983, translation courtesy of David Kaufman.
Pompeii: Sam Waymon, Maria Carneglia, Roland Grivelle interviews; receipt from Maria Carneglia, wire to Hotel Intercontinental courtesy of Sam Waymon. In Pompeii, Nina was accompanied by bassist Sante de Briano.
AREC: Nina’s agreement with Artists Rights Enforcement Corporation, signed September 15, 1983, from documents in the Estate of Nina Simone, Los Angeles County Superior Court, BP 079 597.
Vancouver: The Sun, November 26, 1983, p. D14; The Province, November 27, 1983, p. 64; Rocky Mountain News, December 2, 1983, p. 35W; Denver Post, December 6, 1983, p. 3B; Henry Young, Sam Waymon, Roland Grivelle interviews.
Ronnie Scott’s: Nina’s return to London was well covered with write-ups in several publications: The Observer, January 14, 1984, p. 40; The Standard, January 12, 1984; Sunday Times, January 15, 1984; The Sun, January 13, 1984, p. 14; Jazz Journal International, February 1984, p. 24; Paul Robinson interview, e-mail correspondence.
Nina wanted Leopoldo Fleming to join her, so he flew to London. But when he arrived, he learned that neither she nor the club management had arranged for a work permit, and he had to fly home the next day. Pete King told Leo that Nina had given the club so many potential sidemen that “they didn’t know which one was real so they just canceled on everybody;” Leopoldo Fleming interviews.
most of the year: Though Nina stayed in London most of the summer, she made a quick trip to New York to perform at the Blue Note. Live at Ronnie Scott’s, DVD distributed by MVD Music Video. The date of the performance on the DVD appears to be incorrect. It was November 17, 1984, not 1985, which was confirmed by Paul Robinson, who was the drummer on the date. It was the last date of an engagement that had started on November 12, 1984.
Anthony Sanucci: I Put a Spell on You, pp. 169-70; Jazz Times, January 1985, p. 16.
Beverly Theatre: Los Angeles Times, January 27, 1985, p. N58, February 25, 1985, p. G4. The reviewer noted that Nina was “in uncharacteristically good humor.” Variety, March 6, 1985, p. 370.
all glitter: New York Times, March 11, 1985, p. C17; Washington Post, March 12, 1985, p. C9; Jet, April 22, 1985, p. 54-55; Nina’s Back (VPI 8453, also SNAP 040).
How productive Nina could be when she was happy was evident in the spring and summer schedule Anthony Sanucci had put together. It started with a month at Ronnie Scott’s that ran from mid-April into May, which allowed Nina to stay in one place and do a nont axing set each night for very good money. Then came a busy return to the United States: Avery Fisher Hall in New York as part of the Kool Jazz Festival, on to Hampton, Virginia, for the annual festival there, and to Chicago before coming back to New York for two concerts.
Despite the occasional hard stare and haughty pose, Nina was hardly sullen. Leaning close in to the microphone in Chicago, she encouraged her fans. “Please,” she instructed, “I need that applause.” Paul Robinson interview, e-mail correspondence, which detailed Nina’s schedule: Ronnie Scott’s from mid-April through May 11 (London Times, May 6, 1985, p. 7); New Morning in Paris, probably May 16-17; Savoy Theater in London, May 19; Avery Fisher Hall, New York, June 26 (Variety, July 3, 1985, p. 62). This concert had been billed as “Welcome back, Nina.” Hampton, Va., festival, June 28, 1985 (Virginian Pilot, June 30, 1985, p. B4); Chicago’s South Shore Country Club (Chicago Sun Times, July 1, 1985); Hunter College benefit, July 6, 1985 (New York Amsterdam News, July 6, 1985, pp. 27, 33).
purchased a condominium: Los Angeles Times, July 30, 1985, p. E1; Sam Waymon interviews; Nina’s condominium was at 7250 Franklin Avenue, Los Angeles, 90046.
Nina was well received during her week at Vine Street. “Her pose of bitterness, which alienated her from supper clubs and white audiences in the late 60s and 70s, has changed to one of regal loneliness,” Variety wrote (August 7, 1985, p. 77). A year later an album from live performances around this time was released, Live & Kickin (VPCD 10012).
“I found my roots”: Chicago Tribune, November 10, 1985, p. K29, December 5, 1985, p. 4D. Nina’s performance was November 14, 1985, at Park West. She was back for a week at Vine Street in Los Angeles on December 3, Los Angeles Times, November 29, 1985, p. G16.
a terrible fight: I Put a Spell on You, pp. 172-73; Virginian Pilot, June 30, 1985, p. B4, for kind words about Sanucci and Singleton; London Standard, February 6, 1985, p. 21; Billboard, February 22, 1986, p. 63; see also Jazz, January/February 1986, p. 10; Sam Waymon interviews.
half-dressed: Sam Waymon interviews; Hannibal Means interviews and e- mail correspondence; Boston Globe, March 17, 1986, p. 25 for March 16 performance at Symphony Hall.
Playboy Jazz Festival: Los Angeles Times, June 17, 1986, p. H8; Darlene Chan interviews. Nina was booked to play the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival in the spring, but she did not make the booking, according to coverage of the festival in the New Orleans Times Picayune.
“Is there any money in this?”: San Francisco Chronicle, July 21, 1986, p. 54.
Chanel No. 5: Nina Simone Live at Montreux DVD; Hannibal Means interviews and e-mail correspondence. Nina apparently stayed in Los Angeles for a time after the dismal Playboy festival appearance. On January 29, 1987, she appeared at the Hollywood club Nucleus Nuance, and according to Leonard Feather was in a jovial mood. “Thank you for coming, you sweet things,” she said. Los Angeles Times, January 31, 1987, p. 4. In mid-April she returned to the Vine Street Bar & Grill in part to unveil her part of the “Live at Vine Street” series, Let It Be Me (Verve 831-431-1). Variety, April 15, 1987, p. 210; Jazz Journal International, July 1988, p. 35, for an album review.
early in 1988: Sam Waymon, Gerrit DeBruin, Raymond Gonzalez, Roland Grivelle interviews; Nina in Barcelona, youtube.com clips; Nina in Hamburg, June 5, 1988, high-priestess.com; Jazz Podium, July 1988, p. 28, translation courtesy of James Huckenpahler; London, Melody Maker, June 11, 1988, p. 20, July 9, 1988, p. 27.
She was unkempt: Chris White, Darryl and Douglas Jeffries interviews.
Nijmegen: Gerrit DeBruin interviews, e-mail correspondence; his interview in Hampton, Nina Simone: Break Down, pp. 170-72; Leopoldo Fleming interviews.
Lycabettus Theater: Variety, July 18, 1989, p. 93. A performance in Stuttgart later in 1989 was less charitably received than the show in Greece. A reviewer for Jazz Podium (September 1989, p. 29) said Nina sang off-key and sounded brittle while the trio provided only weak accompaniment. “If only the benefit had been as immense as the honorarium.” Translation courtesy of James Huckenpahler.
still mad at Raymond: Gerrit DeBruin, Chris White, Leopoldo Fleming, Paul Robinson, Raymond Gonzalez interviews; Hampton, Nina Simone: Break Down, pp. 142, 170-72.
Steven Ames Brown: Billboard, October 28, 1989, p. 105, December 19, 1990, p. 83. For details of the Bethlehem-Charly suit, see Bethlehem Music Company, Inc., Nina Simone et al. v. Jean Lu Young et al., case CA001200, Los Angeles County Superior Court. For the Vine Street case see Nina Simone v. Ron Berenstein et al., C755463, Los Angeles County Superior Court. Steven Ames Brown interview.
1990 festival: Nina Simone Live at Montreux DVD. Before Montreux, Nina was in Atlanta February 14, 1990, to be honored at the APEX Museum, Atlanta Daily World, February 22, 1990, p. 1.
swing through Italy: Roberto Meglioli, Odetta interviews. These were the concert dates: September 4, 1990, Rocca Normanna-Paterno, inside a stone castle near Catania, Sicily; September 6, 1990, Stadium Vestuti, Salerno; September 8, 1990, Exhibition Center, Calgiari, Sardinia; September 10, 1990, Arena Parco Nord Bologna. Corriere Della Sera, September 6, 1990, p. 27, translation courtesy of Catherine Re. Nina also performed at the One World Music Festival in Cologne in the fall of 1990, Musica, November-December 1990, pp. 386-87.
less than stellar performances: Jazz, December 1991, p. 9, reviewing a performance at the Olympia in Paris and noting that Nina seemed tired and almost robotlike, translation courtesy of David Kaufman. She had performed earlier in the year in London to a much more favorable notice, Melody Maker, January 24, 1991, p. 18.
George Washington University: Lester Hyman, George Wein interviews; Washington Post, June 23, 1992, p. C5; New York Post, June 27, p. 19; Carnegie Hall program, Carnegie Hall archives.
back to Tryon: La Légende, the 1992 French-made documentary. San Francisco Chronicle, July 21, 1986, p. 54, for Nina’s comment about Lisa.
She started to laugh: Michael Alago interview.
A Single Woman:(Elektra, D-135417); Pulse, November 1993, pp. 53-54; Philadelphia Tribune, December 31, 1993, p. 7E.
concerts in the Midwest: Nina’s spring concerts, St. Paul Pioneer Press, April 13, 1993, p. 8B; Philadelphia Inquirer, April 21, 1993, p. E1; New York Newsday, May 14, 1993, p. 59; New York Amsterdam News, May 8, 1993, p. 30; Billboard, June 5, 1993, p. 24.
The precise moment Nina left the United States is not clear, but by June 28 she was in France. An item appeared in the Newark Star Ledger on June 28 that she had suffered cuts from broken glass as she ran from a fire at her home “north of Marseille” that the paper said was apparently caused by an overheated fax machine.
her testy responses: New York Times, August 8, 1993, p. H24; Michael Alago interview.
Jay Leno: Michael Alago interview. The November 17, 1993, date was confirmed by NBC.
40 percent: Nina Simone v. San Juan Music Group et al., 94-CV-01288-TEH, U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California (San Francisco); Nina Simone v. Marshall Sehorn et al., 95-CV-03590-CAL, U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California (San Francisco).
Brown’s arrangement with Nina is spelled out in a 2008 complaint against Andy Stroud over who has the rights to some of Nina’s music, Steven Ames Brown v. Andrew B. Stroud, 08-CV-02348-VRW United States District Court for the Northern District of California. Point 4 in Brown’s complaint states: “By virtue of a written contract made on or about July 30, 1990, between Dr. Simone and Plaintiff, plaintiff obtained a 40 percent ownership interest in all the Master Recordings that were the subject of Prior Actions.” The prior actions refer to litigation cited above. See also Billboard, March 18, 1995, p. 90.
“Quit it!”: Nina recounted the shooting encounter for a long profile in the London Times magazine June 26, 1999, p. 22; Newark Star Ledger, August 25, 1995; Chicago Tribune, August 25, 1995, p. 2; Atlanta Daily World, October 10, 1995, p. 4; Gerrit DeBruin, John and Carolle Way-mon, Carrol Waymon interviews.
hospitalized: Clifton Henderson noted when he began to work for Nina, Estate of Nina Simone, BP 079 597, Los Angeles County Superior Court. Clifton comments on working for Nina from 2000 DirecTV program posted on www.nina-simone.com; Al Schackman interview, Fader, May/June 2006; Nina’s November 20, 1996, letter to Gerrit DeBruin, courtesy of Gerrit DeBruin. Steven Ames Brown, Frances Fox, Carrol Waymon, Carolle Waymon interviews.
returned to performing: Independent, December 12, 1997, p. 6; The Observer Review, December 12, 1997, p. 14; The Guardian Weekend, December 6, 1997, pp. 28-32; 1997 schedule, ninasimone.com; Paul Robinson, Gerrit DeBruin interviews; Nina Simone letters to Gerrit DeBruin, January 10, 1996, November 20, 1996, courtesy of Gerrit DeBruin.
“Desegregation is a joke”: Interview, January 1997, p. 79; Details, January 1997; New York Times, September 1, 1998, p. E1; Newark Star Ledger, September 1, 1998, p. 41; Eric Hanson interview.
“you damned fool”: The National Post of Canada—Weekend, May 15, 1999, p. 2, a reprint of an article that had run several months earlier in London’s The Big Issue. Precious Williams, Javier Collados, Graham Ward interviews, e-mail correspondence; London Times magazine, June 26, 1999, p. 18; Hard Talk, March 1999, complete copy of the interview courtesy of the BBC.
“I continue to believe”: Courtesy of Gerrit DeBruin.
improved financial situation: Income documents in the Estate of Nina Simone, Los Angeles County Superior Court BP 079 597.
fired Raymond Gonzalez: Al Schackman interview, Fader, May/June 2006; Juan Yriart, Javier Collados, Juanita Bougere, Hannibal Means, Gerrit DeBruin interviews, e-mail correspondence.
put together a tour: Juan Yriart interview, e-mail correspondence; interview in Brazil, from DirecTV program, nina-simone.com; Details, January 1997, interview with Brantly Bardin; 1999 BBC Hard Talk.
A Nina Simone evening: A complete list of Nina’s 2000-2002 concert dates is found at ninasimone.com. For reviews see Washington Post, June 1, 2000, p. C5; Boston Globe, June 8, 2000, p. 3; Chicago Tribune, June 20, 2000, p. 2; Los Angeles Times, June 24, 2000, p. 2; Miami Herald, November 11, 2000, p. 3E; Miami Times, November 11, 2000, which is a very harsh review; San Francisco Chronicle, November 15, 2000, p. E1; Profile/interview, Philadelphia Inquirer, June 8, 2000, p. D1; Eric Hanson confirmed that these concerts were very lucrative. For example, Nina was paid $100,000 for the San Francisco date November 13, 2000, though not all of that was clear profit. She had to pay her musicians from that amount as well as some incidental expenses.
Kate Waymon died: Javier Collados, Juanita Bougere, Juan Yriart, Frances Fox interviews, which also cover Nina’s bout with breast cancer.
$85,000: George Wein, Juan Yriart, Javier Collados interviews. See New York Times, July 8, 2001, p. E5, for Carnegie Hall performance, and June 24, 2001, p. 25, for commentary on Nina; New York Daily News, July 2, 2001, p. 34; Chicago Tribune, July 21, 2001, p. 31; Seattle Post Intelligencer, July 25, 2001, p. E4; Seattle Times, July 25, 2001, p. E8; Chris White interviews for Ashford & Simpson party.
glory of Rome: La Republicca, May 8, 2002, p. 43, a critical article whose tone is apparent from the headline: “The Myth of Nina Simone Only Shines in Our Memories; Live She Is the Shadow of Herself.” Il Mes-sagero, May 6, 2002, p. 18, was a more complimentary article: “Blues and Black, the colors of a unique singer.” Translations courtesy of Luca Favaro. Also Dziennik Baltycki, July 1, 2002, translation courtesy of Regina Frackowiak.
She slipped away: Juanita Bougere, Javier Collados, Juan Yriart, Carolle Waymon, Carrol Waymon, Sam Waymon interviews; funeral, Atlanta Daily World, May 1, 2003, p. 1; Curtis Institute, courtesy of Jennifer Rycerz, Curtis public relations manager.