I FINALLY GET TO MEET NINA SIMONE

Last week, I visited Tryon for a production of "The Raindrop Waltz," my autobiographical play. I knew, of course, that Nina Simone was born in Tryon and the town has belatedly honored her with this remarkable statue. I talked my friends into driving over to "Nina Simone Plaza" and taking my picture with my favorite singer/musician. Nina's life was filled with tragedy. (See my review of her biography o this blog, Princess Noire.) However, the fact that she was born in Tryon proved to be a considerable advantage. Recognized as something of a child prodigy, Nina was playing the piano at six and was eventually given "classical training" by a retired professional musician. Residents of Tryon paid for the lessons. However, in later years, when Nina suffered several mental breakdowns, she often made statements about "racism in her childhood" that had no basis in fact. Nina was extremely active during the desegregation era and often walked with Martin Luther King. Her explosive temperament in conjunction with her problems with the IRS finally forced her to move to Europe. Despite the fact that her stage performances were often marred by her rants to the audience and her late arrivals, she continued to get standing ovations....even from angry audiences. If you don't know this woman and her music, go treat yourself to something like "Black Is the Color of My True Love's Hair," or "I'm Gonna Put a Spell on You." White you are at it, listen to "Long Black Freighter" and "Little Girl Blue."

PRINCESS NOIRE by Nadine Cohodas -Reviewed by Gary Carden

Princess Noire:The Tumultuous Reign of Nina Simone by Nadine Cohodas
New York: Pantheon Books - 2010
$30.00 - 449 pages

“I am not of this planet. I do not come from you, and I am not like you.”
Nina Simone at the Royal Albert Hall, London, 1978

The first time I ever heard Nina Simone sing, I was in one of those pretentious “high fi” stores in Atlanta back in the early ’60’s where all of the clerks wore lab coats which suggested that they were trained specialists who had access to highly arcane knowledge. They used terms like “woofers” and “tweeters” and were constantly adjusting the “decibel levels” on a row of gigantic speakers. In order to demonstrate the merits of the speakers, one of the “specialists” picked up a Nina Simone record and dropped it on the turntable, saying, “Listen to this.”

The recording was “Black is the Color of My True Love’s Hair,” and it is still one of my favorites. Suddenly, the speakers vibrated, and Nina Simone’s deep, dark contralto literally made the hair stand up on my neck. I had never heard a voice like that before, and I was fairly certain that all of the high tech equipment wasn’t responsible for the the aching, near-painful beauty of this woman’s voice. I became an instant fan, and in the years following, I built an impressive collection. I still think those 45’s and LP albums include the greatest songs ever recorded: Screamin’ Jay Hawkins’ “I Put a Spell on You,” Kurt Weill’s “Pirate Jenny,” Jacques Brel’s “Ne Me Quitte Pas” and a remarkable rendition of “Little Girl Blue” that combines Bach and the Christmas ballad, “Good King Wenceslas.” (I hope you are curious enough to go find it!)

In all of the years that I listened to Nina Simone sing (1960-2000), I knew very little about her personal life except what I gleaned from liner notes and album covers. I knew that she had been born in Tryon, North Carolina and had been proclaimed a “musical prodigy” by the time she was nine. I saw references to Carnegie Hall concerts and I knew that she had marched with Martin Luther King. I knew that she had become a kind of deified goddess in Europe as she blazed a trail that was both inspiring and troubling due to her bizarre and unpredictable behavior on stage. There were magazine articles about her confrontations with her fans and promoters in the concert halls of London, Paris and Nassau where she frequently refused to perform because of imagined slights and repeatedly walked out of performances. Finally, I remember her last years during which she lived a kind of “self-exile” from the United States because of “unresolved issues” with the IRS.

I received something of a shock when I read her autobiography several years ago (I Put a Spell on You) for it revealed the troubled life of a woman who readily acknowledged her mental instability, but seemed incapable of accepting the blame for conduct that wrecked her marriages and alienated her friends, family and fans. However, Nadine Cohodas has now published a painfully detailed biography that finally reveals all of the bitterness, vanity, fears and guilt that haunted this gifted and tragic woman.

Nina Simone was born Eunice Waymon on February 21, 1933 in Tryon, North Carolina. Eunice’s mother was a minister and musician, and although the family was poor, J. D. Waymon, provided for his family by operating both a barbershop and laundry. Although most of the region remained segregated for another twenty-five years, Tryon’s artistic and cultural community proved to be exceptionally tolerant. In fact, when Eunice’s musical talents became common knowledge, (she was playing hymns at the age of three!) some of the town’s prominent residents established the “Eunice Waymon Fund” to pay for her music lessons. In addition, a noted musician, Muriel Mazzanovich who had retired to Tryon, taught the budding prodigy, training her to be a classical concert pianist.

Nina Simone’s biographer, Nadine Cohodas, provides significance evidence that this obsession - to be a black classical pianist - was the seed of discontent that would provide the basis for Nina’s mental illness. Subjecting herself to rigorous training, Eunice attended the Allen School of Music in Asheville (1949) and was given a scholarship to the Juilliard School of Music in New York with the goal of being eventually accepted at the prestigious Curtis Institute in Philadelphia. Throughout these years of training, Eunice Waymon developed a reputation as a solitary young woman who denied herself any distraction. (no boy friends, no parties, etc.) Indeed, many felt that her determination and fervor were detrimental to her character.

When the Curtis Institute rejected Eunice’s application, the blow was devastating. (In later years, Nina often noted that the Institute's rejection was motivated by racism.) The broken-hearted girl vowed to apply again, but in the meanwhile, she needed to make a living. Then, one of her friends recommended that she apply for a position in one of the numerous bars or nightclubs in Atlantic City where many young musicians found summer work. It was at this point that Nina Simone was born. When the owner of the Midtown Bar asked her for her “stage name,” Eunice told him to call her Nina Simone. “I always liked the name Nina, and I saw the name Simone on a movie poster” (probably the French actress Simone Signoret).

For many years, Nina told her friends that her work as a jazz and blues pianist was temporary. However, within a few months, she had developed an ardent following. Her audiences were fascinated by the unusual blend of classics like Bach and contemporary jazz. At first, Nina resisted singing, but when the club owners insisted, she began to sing in the dark, dramatic contralto that would make her famous. When she became a sensation in New York, she finally stopped her strenuous training sessions and gave up her dream of being admitted to the Curtis. However, her nightclub performances were the beginning of Nina’s conflict with her audiences. She refused to sing if there disturbances (laughter and talking) in the club, and would often stand staring resentfully at the crowd until she had total silence. “I expect and deserve respect,” she often told them. Other times she was more direct. “Shut up!” she would say, pointing at the offending party.

When fame came to Nina Simone, it was both disconcerting and exhilarating. An early bad marriage left her embittered. In addition, a series of relationships with unethical recording companies which had issued many of her records illegally, had cheated her out of millions of dollars. Her subsequent financial probllems produced a growing sense of paranoia and the feeling that she was being victimized by everyone. Although her career flourished during the next forty years, Nina’s mental illness grew steadily worse. She was finally diagnosed as schizophrenic but due to her mounting debts and lavish lifestyle, she continued to perform in folk festivals, Carnegie Hall concerts and the lavish performance centers of Europe and Africa. Even when she began arriving late for concerts and initiating shouting matches with irate audiences, her performance would frequently turn the tide and the same audiences that booed her tardiness and provocative speeches would end up give her standing ovations.

During the civil rights movement, Nina marched with Martin Luther King, writing and singing hundreds of protest songs. Among her best friends who rallied to her side during her tumultuous final years were the writer James Baldwin, Lorraine Hansbury, the playwright who wrote “Raisin in the Sun” and the poet, Langston Hughes. When she died on April 20, 2003, she was living in a small seaside village in France where a group of devoted friends tended to her every need. Ironically, barely a month later, the Curtis Institute posthumously awarded her an honorary diploma for her “contributions to music.”

In the numerous videos that show up in places like YouTube, many were made during Nina's periods of mental instability. It is disturbing to witness this gifted musician disintegrating before your eyes - delivering cryptic monologues between beautiful musical interludes. Yet many critics abandoned her during her civil rights period when she frequently delivered blistering rants against the white “establishment.” One critic noted “The music is beautiful, but there is a lot of hate in it.” One of her most famous tirades concluded with her admonishing the audience, “Now, shut up and be still. This ain’t no Geraldine up here.” (a reference to Flip Wilson’s “campy” comedy routine.) They did, and then gave her a standing ovation.

REVIEW OF TIM GAUTREAUX NOVEL, THE MISSING

Several weeks ago, I went blog surfing and ended up on a marvelous site called "Dew on the Kudzu" where the blogmaster was celebrating the discovery of a wonderful novel entitled "The Missing" by Tim Gautreaux. I read one paragraph of the review and knew I wanted to read this novel and immediately ordered it for my Kindle. Well, kind hearts, you must read this book! I not only read it....I reread it! Please read it and come back to this blog and talk about it!

THE MISSING by Tim Gautreaux
New York: Knopf Double Publishing Group
$25.95 – 384 pages – 2009

“The finest American novel in a long, long time.”

-Annie Proulx

This is a novel that seems to vibrate in your hands. It is filled with sounds, smells and the bittersweet beauty of a vanquished time - the Mississippi on a moonlit night as the Ambassador, an aging four-decker steamboat, churns slowly downstream occasionally shattering the night with its strident whistle.The heart of the ship contains a vast Texas dance floor where over one thousand dancers can alternately sway and swing to blues and jazz. It is the golden age of riverboats (circa 1920’s), a time when crowds stood expectantly on the docks of a hundred towns along the Mississippi, waiting for a grand old steamer that would sweep them from their dull lives into a night filled with music and laughter. But, I’m getting ahead of the story. First, we must bring our hero home from the threats of a deserted (but heavily mined) battlefield in France and a fateful meeting with a frightened child whose face haunts his dreams.

Gautreaux's protagonist, "Lucky" Sam Simonaux, returned from WWI to his wife and his personal dream job - the floorwalker in Krines, a gigantic New Orleans department store; a place where he has learned to moves with grace and efficiency through each of the four floors, watching for shoplifters, drunks and trouble. He does his job well; life is good and the future is bright until… the day a three-year-old child, Lily Weller, is kidnapped from Krines. Despite the fact that Sam is injured in his attempt to stop the kidnappers, he is held responsible by his employer and is fired. In truth, Sam
broods about his failure to save Lily, and decides to launch his own search – a decision that leads him to leave his wife in New Orleans and seek employment on the Ambassador where the child’s parents, Ted and Elsie Weller, are employed as musicians. Sam’s logic is that Lily was stolen by someone who saw her performing with her parents (the three-year-old has been taught to dance and sing) on the old steamboat at one of the river towns. That turns out to be a vast area that runs from Louisiana to Ohio.

For almost six months, Sam fails to find a trace of Lily; however, in the meantime, he becomes an accomplished pianist and learns to love the Ambassador’s special blend of funky jazz and blues. Then, abruptly, a series of random events (including an observant ticket clerk) leads Sam to Lily’s abductors – a wealthy, childless couple, Willa and Acy White who had employed a degenerate family of outlaws, the Skadlocks, to steal Lily. In the months following the kidnapping, the Whites have attempted to create another identity for the child.They shower Lily with presents, rename her “Madeline” and strive to convince her that her parents are dead. As the months pass, Lily’s memory of her parents begins to fade, and she begins to change, acquiring the opinions and prejudices of her “new parents.”

Eventually, Sam Simonaux finds himself forced to make a decision that has tragic results.Ted, Lily’s father becomes impatient with Sam’s cautious investigation of the Skadlocks and ventures into the wilderness where the outlaws live. It is a trip that costs him his life. Eventually, Sam finds his way to the home of Lily’s abductors. However, upon secretly witnessing their wealth, he begins to feel that Lily has advantages and a future that her natural parents could never provide. Instead of confronting her abductors and reclaiming the child, Sam decides to returns to the Ambassador and tells the grieving mother that his lead to Lily had turned out to be a wild goose chase. It is only after Sam’s return to New Orleans that he confesses the truth to his wife; she forces him to tell Lily’s mother the truth. Both Elsie and her son, August, are outraged and demand that Sam help them get Lily back.

Finally, Sam, now repentant of his mistake, takes Lily’s brother, August, and makes a desperate journey to confront the Whites. Ironically, in the meanwhile, the Skadlocks have stolen Lily again, confident that the Whites cannot report the second kidnapping without revealing their part in the initial abduction. Their intention is to sell Lily to the Whites again! In the ensuing events, Sam finally rescues Lily and returns her to her mother, but it is a belated reunion. Within a few months, Elsie Weller will die in an influenza epidemic. It also becomes evident that the lapse of time (almost a year) has done Lily considerable harm.

At this point, The Missing undergoes an astonishing change. Tim Gautreaux does not bring his novel to a conclusion, but adds a second plot that expands and enriches the original. Throughout the search for Lily Weller, Sam Simonaux has frequently behaved in a perplexing manner. His ambiguous attitude toward parent/child relationships acquires significance when Sam reveals a secret and undertakes yet another journey.

When Sam Simonaux was six months old, his entire family was murdered by a savage band of outlaws. Sam escaped only because his father threw him into an old stove just before a virtual hurricane of bullets destroyed the house and killed his parents and his brothers and sister. His Uncle Claude found Sam in the stove the following day and raised him. For all of his life, “Lucky Sam” had felt a strange detachment about his family’s fate. However, with the death of Lily’s parents, he feels an impulse to confront his own tragedy. Now, he returns to talk to his Uncle Claude and learn the truth about his family’s massacre; he will then go to confront the murderers, the Cloats: a family so bestial, their crimes are legendary.

Although the journey to reclaim Lily, (who has much in common with the face that has always haunted Lucky Sam’s dreams), is tense and suspenseful, Sam’s final journey is riveting. It is not only a journey for justice – it is also an odyssey of self-discovery. When this last confrontation is over, Sam will return to claim the only object his father left him – a violin. He will also claim his adopted daughter, Lily, and he will devote the rest of his life striving to restore the gift of music that he knows is within her.