A pianist denied a classical career who became a singer by chance

Eunice Kathleen Waymon began playing piano at three or four, in a small clapboard house in Tryon, North Carolina. The sixth of eight children, she played in church, and her mother was a Methodist preacher. At twelve she gave her first classical recital. She later said that her parents, sitting in the front row, were moved to the back to make room for white people, and that she refused to play until they were returned. She tied that incident to her later civil rights involvement.

A fund set up in her hometown paid for her education at Allen High School for Girls in Asheville, where she graduated as valedictorian. In summer 1950 she studied at Juilliard, preparing to audition for the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. Her application was denied, though only three of seventy-two applicants were accepted that year. She blamed racism.

To earn a living she played piano in an Atlantic City nightclub. She took the name Nina Simone so her family would not know she was playing what they considered the devil's music, and when the club told her she would have to sing as she played, her career as a vocalist began. Her debut, Little Girl Blue, arrived in 1958, and “I Loves You, Porgy” gave her a top-20 hit in the United States in 1959.

Her music crossed classical, folk, gospel, blues, jazz, R&B and pop, with a piano style shaped by Bach and a contralto voice. Songs such as “I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel To Be Free” and her take on “Here Comes The Sun” show the range. She became known for her civil rights work and, after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968, left the United States for France.

She lived and performed across Europe, Africa and the Caribbean, published the autobiography I Put a Spell on You in 1991 and kept performing until her death in 2003. The Curtis Institute awarded her an honorary degree two days before she died.