Steve Holsey, Michigan Chronicle, Ethnic News Watch, 28 May 1996 

Nina Simone is one of those artists (and we use the term artist in the truest sense of the word) who stands absolutely alone in the world of show business. There has never been anyone like her before and there never will again. It's the voice, the eclectic song selection, the independence, the spirit, the look, even the temperament. 

And oh how that temperament is inclined to flare up if someone or something has riled the lady who became known as the High Priestess of Soul during the turbulent '60s when Simone was, among other things, a voice of the Black revolution. 

She would even give an audience a piece of her mind. 

One particular audience was rather dry and unresponsive. So Nina stopped singing, turned around on the piano stool so that she would be facing the audience and said, "You aren't giving one thing tonight. What bag are you in?" 

The audience, for the most part, was not offended. Just a little embarrassed. And what she said probably made them realize that they were, indeed, "not giving one thing." 

But lackluster audiences were a rarity. 

Simone, who was born Eunice Waymon in Tyron, North Carolina, actually never planned on becoming a singer. She wanted to be a pianist. As a child she received a scholarship to New York's famed Juilliard School of Music. Later on, the Waymon family moved to Philadelphia and around that time Nina began playing East Coast clubs. 

AT ONE POINT Simone heard about an engagement in New Jersey. Trouble is, the club owner wanted a singer. He put it to the nervous young lady straight: "Can you sing, Nina? If you can't, then I can't book you." Realizing she had nothing to lost and plenty to gain, Nina began singing "I Loves You Porgy." The club owner was impressed with Simone's odd voice and delivery. She got the job. 

That engagement led to a recording contract with Bethlehem Records. Not surprisingly, she recorded "I Loves You Porgy" and it was a major hit, climbing all the way to No. 2 on the national R&B charts in 1959. "I Loves You Porgy" became Simone's signature song and she has admitted, on occasion, to being tired of singing it. 

Simone's second most successful single was the powerful "To Be Young, Gifted and Black. She also charted with "I Put a Spell on You," "Trouble in Mind," "Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out," "Do What You Gotta Do" and "Revolution." 

Among the other songs closely associated with Nina Simone are "My Baby Just Cares For Me" (which became popular again in the '80s when a perfume company used it in their commercials), "Four Women," "Mississippi G-Damn," a tribute to Martin Luther Kind Jr., written immediately after the civil rights leader was assassinated. It is featured on one of Simon's finest albums, a live recording entitled" Nuff Said." 

Although she was classically trained and gravitated to jazz upon becoming a professional, in the '60s a new Nina Simone emerged. She began singing songs that were very political. She became a powerful voice for the expression of Black rage and openly attacked racism, never biting her tongue while doing it. Even so, many Whites attended her concerts, particularly those of college age who saw a connection between what they were feeling about "the system" and what Nina was singing. 

SIMONE COUNTED among her friends and supporters such '60s civil rights icons as Stokely Carmichael, James Baldwin and Langston Hughes. 

However, Simone has always been flexible when it comes to music appreciation. She would not hesitate to sing songs written and first recorded by the Beatles, Bob Dylan or anyone else whose music touched her heart and soul. Indeed, her renditions of Dylan's "The Times They Are a changein'" and George Harrison of the Beatles' "My Sweet Lord" rank among her best work. 

Simone actually hated all forms of injustice. At one of her last Detroit concerts, she sang a song entitled :Woman is the Niger of the World," and at its conclusion bellowed to the audience, "And I'm gonna scream about it until you men do something about it!" 

She does not record as often today as she used to, but each time Simone makes an album, her hardcore fans are ready to purchase a copy ("Baltimore" and the more recent "A single Women" are favorites.) She has often complained about not being paid properly for her recordings, which are sometimes reissued without her consent and without her receiving royalty payments. Her rage is understandable. 

Simone has been called everything from "an enigma" and "mysterious" to "unpredictable" and even "crazy." But one thing is certain: She is one of the most unique artists the world has ever known.