UNC Press - Princess Noire

464 pp., 6.125 x 9.25, 37 illus., notes, bibl., index

Not for Sale in British Commonwealth except Canada

Paper

ISBN 978-0-8078-7243-7

Published: February 2012

Princess Noire

The Tumultuous Reign of Nina Simone

By Nadine Cohodas

Born Eunice Waymon in Tryon, North Carolina, Nina Simone (1933-2003) began her musical life playing classical piano. A child prodigy, she wanted a career on the concert stage, but when the Curtis Institute of Music rejected her, the devastating disappointment compelled her to change direction. She turned to popular music and jazz but never abandoned her classical roots or her intense ambition. By the age of twenty six, Simone had sung at New York City's venerable Town Hall and was on her way. Tapping into newly unearthed material on Simone's family and career, Nadine Cohodas paints a luminous portrait of the singer, highlighting her tumultuous life, her innovative compositions, and the prodigious talent that matched her ambition.

With precision and empathy, Cohodas weaves the story of Simone's contentious relationship with audiences and critics, her outspoken support for civil rights, her two marriages and her daughter, and, later, the sense of alienation that drove her to live abroad from 1993 until her death. Alongside these threads runs a more troubling one: Simone's increasing outbursts of rage and pain that signaled mental illness and a lifelong struggle to overcome a deep sense of personal injustice.

About the Author

Nadine Cohodas is the author of, among other books, Queen: The Life and Music of Dinah Washington.

Reviews

"A detailed and meticulously researched account. . . . Neither partisan nor judgmental, the author commendably preserves a detached yet sympathetic tone throughout."
--Times Literary Supplement

"The most comprehensive and thoughtfully researched biography on Simone to date."
--Women's Review of Books

"Simone's complex personality--arrogance and brilliance in equal measure--receives a long-overdue elaboration."
--Publishers Weekly

"Offers many rich insights into [Simone's] conflicted emotional world."—Choice

"If you believe a singer's job is to sound pretty, you will have no use for Nina Simone. . . . And, as this even-handed biography makes clear, she certainly would have had no use for you."
--Washington Post Book World

"Simone's life story is peculiar, beautiful, sometimes off-key and off-color but deeply, disturbingly dramatic. . . . Nadine Cohodas reinscribes into the historical record the musical contributions of a woman with prodigious gifts and sometimes unusual taste."
--Los Angeles Times