You kiss me and with your kiss my life begins Daddy you're spring to me That's my music too Of course to me Now you know you're alive Like a leaf clings to a tree I don't know what life is supposed to be anymore You know your life itself When you don't have anybody at home, it doesn't mean much. You got your daughter. I don't see her often.
She's singing now. She's got a career. And I saw her yesterday. I have a grandchild. I've never seen it.
Seven years old. I sacrificed my whole life to do the songs for this race of mine. Well, that's what you wanted.
It isn't what I wanted. You were successful. Mrs. Mazinovich wanted it for me. She and Mama, they made up their minds what I was supposed to do.
You wanted me to stay here. Well, I didn't exactly want you to stay here. As I said yesterday, we just...
Things just stray apart, you know? But we're still alive! Yeah.
We're not dead! No. But... But we have different lives now.
I'd be a little freer! It's better I know See I know And I wouldn't I'd have new hands, I'd have new feet, I'd have new vision, my eyes would be open a little bit. Be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Be transformed by the renewing of your mind.
I refuse to call it jazz even though the whole world calls it jazz but it's a term that was invented by white people to identify black people. In 1863 President Lincoln frees the slaves. The southern states adopt this policy of segregation and by a subtle interpretation of the constitution the supreme court ratifies the doctrine separate but equal. Separation is strictly applied equality means injustice exploitation and insult.
Eunice Kathleen Wayman was born in the southern United States of America in the late 19th The state of North Carolina, February 21st, 1933. She was daddy's favorite. She was the apple of my daddy's eyes. We called him the Whistler, as a matter of fact.
And he had that rare ability to sing. to whistle on two levels at one time, the double whistle. He could do that. We could hear him as we used to tease ourselves a mile away. Many blocks away, we could hear Daddy whistling in the night.
He could also sing and dance. In fact, he and mother started out as a dance duo. The Waymans, a couple of Methodist ministers, raised their eight children on the Southern music, blues and gospel.
She was just a baby lying on the floor on this old quilt. And she'd come across one and some of them would advertise and have a little two or three notes, you know, on a staff. and when she'd see one of those it would strike There was music on the inside and it was striking. You see, and she said, See, I'm a preacher of the gospel, have been for fifty-some years.
And then on Sunday morning, she played for the morning service. And people would come just to hear her play. Because when she struck the piano, people said something went all over the church. He'll stand for you. And if you call him, and if you call him right, he'll stand for you.
stand with you. And he'll ask you, what do you want me to do for you? Tell him what you want. Tell him what you want.
Everything will be all in the Lord our Precious Lord, take my hand, lead me on. We stand I'm tired I am here I am home Ms. Mazenovich was named Muriel. M-U-R-I-E.
And she said, the lady I was staying with, taking care, she said, if you will teach Eunice, I'll pay for it. And, uh... So she said, send her down, Ms. Mazenovitz said, send her down and let me hear her. And when she went down, she'd come back and said, definitely, she's full of music.
She said she has a perfect pitch. The Eunice Wayman Fund, created by Mrs. Masinovich, unites the town of Tryon that bypasses the racial prejudice. This permits Eunice to prepare the entrance exams to the prestigious Curtis Institute.
Yet, she gets turned down. The reason she was not admitted was because she was black. And most of all, because she was a young black woman.
Oh no. Had nothing to do with her color or background. She just didn't, she wasn't accepted because there were others who were better.
And that's the whole posture of the Curtis Institute. That it was because I was black. And I certainly played the piano very well.
Oh, not genius, but she had talent. She had great talent. And I accepted her on the basis of her talent and with the understanding that I was...
prepare her for an audition at Curtis. It was during that early period that she demonstrated at one lesson her ability to play jazz. And I remember distinctly telling her, Why don't you pursue this as your profession?
And she said, oh no, my first love is classical music and I want to be a pianist. I've known her to have to practice seven hours. And trying to get her to listen to have 19 pages at one time to memorize. And I've seen her just cry. My experience was so first-hand and so deep.
It was so intense. The rejection was so unequivocally... wrong that I haven't got over it yet.
She changed her name. She became Nina Simone because she didn't want her mom to know that she was playing and singing what my mother then called devil's music. In admiration of the French actress, Nina calls herself by the first name of Simone Sinore and plays the devil's music in cabarets around New York, Philadelphia and Atlantic City.
When I was in my prime I flourished like a vine There came along a false young man And stole away my vine And I made a record called I Love You Porgy in New York City and it became an instant hit all over the eastern seaboard and all over the United States and eventually the world. And that made me into an instant celebrity. After that, it was just clear sailing.
Setting the rhythm for her completely personal singing style is a newcomer to the jazz scene. Miss Nina Simone sings Little Liza James. I got a boy, you ain't got none, Eliza Jane I got a boy, you ain't got none, Eliza Jane I got a boy, you ain't got none, Eliza Jane I got a boy, you ain't got none, Eliza Jane Oh, Eliza, Eliza Jane Oh, Eliza, Eliza Jane Village Gate, Arlen Apollo Village Vanguard Nina Alone on stage breaks into the New York scene with a new sound, knowing nothing about the business.
My baby just cares for me. I love you, poor game, are amongst the 14 songs on her first record that she sells the rights to for $3,000. She loses over a million dollars, and she's only 24. If your mind lies in the devil's workshop, and evil doings you thrill, and trouble and mischief is all you live for, you know damn well that you'll go to hell now you'll go to hell now you're living high and mighty rich off the bat of this land Just don't dispose of your natural soul love, cause if you do, you know damn well, that you'll go to hell, yes you will, you'll go to hell.
Help! Why your natural soul burns. Help! Why you pay for your sins. Help!
Keep your children from doing wrong if you can, because you know damn well. to hell hell go to hell hell man and woman were recreated hell to live for eternity hell but an apple they ate from the tree of hate so you know damn well they went to hell yesterday they went to hell Some say that hell is below us, but I say it's right by my side. Cause I see evil in the morning, evil in the evening all the time. You know damn well I must be in hell.
Yeah! Mass hypnosis is certainly a thing that's really alive and it can sway thousands of people at one time. I use it all the time.
It was almost always electric. Exciting, you never knew what she would do. She would start playing a Bach riff.
She had the most unusual vocal arrangements, musical arrangements. That's what I call it, black classical music. It's an infusion of pop, gospel, classical, jazz, folk, and ballads.
And they haven't been able to call it a day. it anything but jazz and like I said I call it black classical music I don't think anyone in the world could get people as excited as she did and for me that's the greatness was what kept me going with her because she was a very difficult person as you all know. wasn't an easy person.
She came in late enough every night to start the first show, time for the second show. And one night we figured out why there were body guards. A woman got close enough and asked for an autograph.
She signed it, she handed it to me. to the woman the woman said thank you very much miss simone she went that's all you got to say and the woman's face dropped and said well what else do you expect me to say if that's how you feel about here take it back and nina was picking up a bottle and going after the woman we said that's what the bodyguards afford to protect the public from her not to protect her from the public while grabbing fries from his plate she meets a new york police detective andrew strode They marry and he cleans up her business act. He was a great manager. He wasn't such a good husband. husband there was never any passion between us and I never enjoyed him in bed he told me he told people that I was his sleeping pill and he was a son of a bitch I think he he realized he probably had a good thing I think he realized he may have had a workhorse I think he realized that she was not as knowledgeable about contracts, about the business end of the music industry.
50 albums, 500 songs, most of them created under Andrew Strode's never-ending pressure. When the show actually starts, but when we're up here, you keep your eyes on me. right on me whatever happens just keep your eyes on me and don't worry about nothing keep yourself calm the birth of lisa doesn't bring the couple any closer he didn't understand He did not understand the complexity and the madness of being an artist. The confusion, the joy, the happiness.
How one day you love what you do, and the next day you may hate the very same thing that you loved the day before. Lord, have mercy on this land of mine. We all gonna get it in due time. I don't belong here, I don't belong there. I've even stopped believing in prayer.
Almost, but not quite Her music was just more than powerful And it was more than music It was a philosophy and a belief That despite all of these problems We will get through this And not only will we get through it But we will survive and triumph in this Well, not just the trouble Do so Desegregation Do so That's what you should be doing. Unification, too slow. Unification, too slow. You think gradually, too slow, we'll bring more tragedy, too slow. Why don't you see it?
Why don't you feel me? I don't know. You don't have to live next to me, love. Just give me my equality, love. Everybody knows about Mississippi.
Everybody knows about Alabama. Everybody knows about Mississippi. All day!
It was dangerous, yes. We encountered many people who were after our hides at different times. And I was excited by it though because I felt more alive then than I feel now. I was needed and I could sing something to help my people and that became the mainstay of my life. That became most important to me.
Not classical piano, not classical music. not even popular music, but civil rights movement music. Langston Hughes, the Harlem's poet, Lorraine Hansberry, the first successful black playwriter on Broadway, awakened Nina to the reality of segregation.
When Miss Hansberry dies, Nina picks her unfinished title piece and casts it into a song, to be young, gifted, and black. A song dedicated to those who fight for their rights. anthem of black America, Nina becomes the protest singer of all civil rights movements.
What it's like to be a slave Slave to your mind Slave to your race You want to go to heaven The only kind of revolution that's non-violent is the Negro Revolution. The only revolution based on loving your enemy. The real problem with violence is that we have never been violent.
We have been too non-violent. If I had my way, I'd have been a killer. Okay?
That's true. I would have had guns and I would have gone to the south and gave them violence for violence, shotgun for shotgun, if I had my way. But my husband told me I didn't know anything about guns and he refused to teach me.
And the only thing I had was music, so I obeyed him. But if I had my way, I wouldn't be sitting here today. I'd be probably dead somewhere because I would have used guns during those years. I was never a nonviolent person.
The burning of our churches will not deter us. The bombing of our homes will not dissuade us. The beating and killing of our clergymen and young people will not divert us. The wet and release of their known murderers will not discourage us.
We're on the move now. Like an idea whose time has come. Yes, sir.
Not even the marching of mighty armies can halt us. Yes, sir. We are moving to the land of freedom. Yes, sir.
As July 2nd, 1964, Lyndon Johnson signs a civil rights bill causing an uproar from the Ku Klux Klan. If you educate a dog, you've got an educated dog. That's all. You don't change a nigger's nature, his characteristics, because you educate him.
You've got an educated nigger, that's all. And remember, the niggers that are giving you all the trouble, white folk, are the educated niggers. March 25, 1965. The Selma Montgomery March comes to an end. The Governor Wallace deploys the army and the police. The airport is shut.
Sammy Davis Jr., Leonard Bernstein, James Baldwin, Harry Balafonte, Anthony Perkins, Annie Nassimovic cross the barriers and give a show. in front of 40,000 people. This is something goddamn nice. Can't you see it? Can't you feel it?
All in the air. I can't spend the rest of my life. Somebody stay away I'm a bad boy, stop me, stop me Tell the lady, look at my lips I'm a bad boy, stop me, stop me We had a number of stars came down and performed, but I think Nina Simone stole the show. And again, it was because her music so reflected the soul and the feeling of the people there. Fourth of April, 1968. He was dreaming of the day He should come on and stay And he spread the message All across the land Turn the other cheek, he'd plead.
Love thy neighbor was his creed. Pain, humiliation, and death he did not dread. I don't blame the white people for what they did. They were... slave drivers, and that's what they were, and they drove the slaves.
And I think that if blacks had had the opportunity to have slaves, they would have had whites as slaves. Yes. There was just not a place where any of us could offer much refuge to anybody else.
And I can understand that feeling, because at points I have, too, felt particularly angry and particularly betrayed that we are willing to send settle now for so little when we ask so much and deserve so much more. Damn right. Damn right it would have. We wouldn't be fighting like we're fighting now. We wouldn't just have five black mayors.
We would have half of the United States that we own and we'd have a separate state by now. Which of course I'm for because America is full of prejudice and discrimination and the black people are never going to get their rights unless they have their own separate states. And if we'd had an armed revolution, there'd have been a lot of blood, but we'd have our, I think we'd have that separate state by now.
That excitedly. She was really out there alone. So she carried a much, she carried the burden by herself, and we had each other to help.
But even amongst us here, many of us got tired. Many of us you know were emotionally broken down martin luther king gave his life others will go and die for a country in which they have no rights the vietnam war diverts the public's attention marking an end to the civil rights movement nina is bitter mr backlash mr backlash who do you think I am. They raise my taxes, freeze my wages, send my only son to Vietnam.
They give me second class houses and second class schools. Do they think that all colored people are just second class fools? They give me second class houses.
Second class schools I know you think all colored people Are just second class fools Mr. Backlash I'm gonna leave you with the blues Yes I am I tell you when Langston Hughes When he died He told me many times before He said said, Nina, keep on working till they open up the door now. When you finally made it and the doors will open wide, make sure you tell them exactly where it's at so they'll have no other place to hide. So I'm telling you, warning you, telling you, yeah, my heart. She was very pro-black and...
And she came embittered by what was going on in this country. It came out in her performance when she started to turn off the white audiences who were now afraid to go to a show. Afraid of getting beat up or mugged or afraid to hear some message they were sick and tired of hearing. Many of my, all my friends that either left the movement or were exiled or were killed.
And so I was lost and I was bitter. Very bitter. And what's that other word you used? Paranoid.
I imagine that somebody was out to get me and out to kill me every minute of my life. Indeed, the FBI did have a paper. paper on me. I remember that two men from the CIA came to Curtis to interview me and to ask me if there was any evidence when she was a student that she was mixed up in this rebellious uprising. And there was never, never any.
Well, when the Civil Rights Movement Bye. There was no reason to stay and the racial prejudice was so much I couldn't bear it and I had to get out of there. I couldn't I didn't think it was my home anymore. In short, sexism was still very much prevalent in everything. and racism was rampant and still present.
It is today. She looked at herself, therefore, I suppose, through the eyes of a woman at her age and said, she doesn't want it, no time for it, and to hell with it. She dropped out literally. My skin is tan, tan.
My hair's alright, it's fine. My hips invite you down in. And my mouth is like wine Whose little girl am I? We're yours If you've got some money to buy What do they call me? My name is Sweet Faye I don't like to think about it though I try to push it back because she seemed to become a workhorse.
Disrespected. used as well as abused. Yes.
My skin is brown And my manner is tough I'll kill the first mother I see My life has been run I'm awfully bitter these days Because my parents were slaves What do they say? What do they call me? What do they call my name?
Beecher! I thought that I should be the same color all over so I put makeup in my my hair brown makeup in my hair to make it the same color I was and I thought that I was getting ready to go on the laser beam with my husband Andy I thought I could see through his skin and I thought that he was my nephew Instead of my husband, and I told him that we had to get out of Baltimore. Tomorrow very fast and go on the laser beam. I was having hallucinations.
I was too tired to know what I was doing. I called my mom. I called my mother and I told her what was happening.
I said, Mom, she said, well, son, if you believe in that, if you really believe that. You can be of some good and some help to her because she needs help. She's going through a lot right now. I said, Mom, she's my blood. She's my blood.
And nobody is going to hurt her as long as I'm around. If I can be of some good to her, if I can keep those bastards away from her, if I can show her that things are not like she's been used to. If I can show her that if you keep hanging in there, sis, day after day, you'll see some improvement.
Things will get better. The paranoia, the birds and the voices that she hears. How sad, yeah. And then this lady is taken out of her cage, put on stage, do her trick, give the emotions to the audience, taken off stage, get a bunch of flowers, back into the cage. It's horrible.
It's horrible. And that's the reason that he's gone and left you black and blue Hey lordy mama Tell me baby what you gonna do They say he's left you all alone To weather this old storm And he's got another woman now Hanging on his arm That fool's telling everybody He's sick and tired of you Hey, Lordy, Lordy, my What you gonna do up now? Can't help but leave my mind Tell me what you gonna do now What you gonna do?
What you gonna do They say you love to fuss and fight And bring a good man down And don't know how to treat him When he takes you on the town They say you ain't behind it And just don't understand And think that you're a woman But you're acting like a man Hey, Lordy Mama Hey, baby Tell me what you gonna do Get your nerves together, baby And set the record straight Let the whole round world know it wasn't you That causes a bit of fate All these years you lived in a city Okay, that's okay. Like it is. No, no. It's good things if you feel willing to do it.
You're repeating yourself now, okay? Oh, yes, I guess I am a little capricious. Listen, Stuart, this is Nina Simone.
You better... Listen, Stuart, this is Nina Simone. You better bring all those contracts to the Bingham Hotel this afternoon, or I ain't gonna do your fucking concerts, because I know you're rich, son of a bitch!
I am rich. I'm not easily aroused. No, that's not true.
I am. I'm very emotional. I'm very disciplined. But I'm very emotional.
And when I don't like something, I say it immediately. Immediately when I don't like it. You know, so I think people would say I've got a hot temper. I think so. A bird fell to earth, reincarnated from her birth.
She had father in her ways. She had dust inside her brain. She flitted here and there. United States, Switzerland, England, everywhere.
With powder in her wings And dust inside her brain Come, say please Come, say please Come, say please It was my father that had the sense of being a man. of humor. It was my father whom I could lean on all the time. And one day he was telling my brother that he was the head of the family and how he made The money to take care of the family.
And I knew it was a lie. And he had never lied. And I heard him telling my brother Sam that.
And it was the first time I ever heard him lie. And I said, you are a liar. You don't take care of this family. And from now on, you are not my father.
And he died. And he died. I didn't even go to the funeral.
I went and gave a concert at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. And my father was buried that night. And I never got over that. I'm still not over that. Every time he's mentioned, I want him again.
He influenced me more than any man in the world. My father always promised me. I wish he was here now. We would live in France. With the boating on the Seine.
I would run to death. My son. My dad. The last rose of summer.
That's how I was born in. Goodness gracious. Good to see you.
Oh, Freddo! You look so good. Thank you.
Have you? No. How are you? How you doing? Nice to see you.
Nice to see you too. That's right. That's right.
Lily Bear! Oh, it is beautiful. Oh, it is.
It is so It's been 20 years. It brings back so many memories. I don't know how I'm gonna stand it.
I just feel like killing myself. I've lost a woman. Who is this? This is your other daughter. This is your other daughter.
This is your mother. I know. It is raining in the metro. The dillers are tossing high. The sky is all shattered with blackness.
I'm sorry. Yes, it's so cool. That's good, huh?
Good, how's it going? Good, people are sweet. People can't be the same.
Hold on. I wasn't able to raise Lisa very well. I'm sure that we'll make it up as months go by.
We'll make up for what we didn't share during those years. She seems to think we can and I think we can. If she wasn't with me or around, she was always with me musically.
So I want to... I want to sing her songs, and I would love to be able to do that and have her in the wings or in the audience or on the stage, knowing that she's appreciated, knowing that she's loved, and knowing that it all happens. Very little, uh, very little time for, uh... Easy to do For just a single woman Sometimes at night The walls talk back to me, they seem to say, wasn't yesterday a better day? Always alone.
At home or in a crowd, a single woman out on a private cloud, caught in a world few people understand, I am. Only one single. I sang this song in Africa, in Liberia, when I was there for three years. I sang it. It was the only song that they asked me to sing.
During the entire time I was there, I didn't have to sing. I didn't have to work. I didn't have to do anything except enjoy myself. There was a time...
I can't remember when the house was full of love, but then again... It might have been imagination's plan Just to help along One single word They were fixing the seats so that people could watch their fingers. Nina's mother was a black lady and that meant I would have to sit over there and not watch my daughter's hands.
And when she went over there and saw it, she came back and said, I will not be playing. My mother is a black woman. And if she can't sit where she can watch my hands, then I won't be playing. She said, Daddy, you can hit me, you can beat me, you can kick me, you can do anything you want to do me.
I will not. Music It haunts me, especially when I'm alone at night. I still wish I had been a classical pianist, but I don't look back. I am what I am now. Who am I?