REVIEWS

Once a week there will be a review take over: Throwback Thursdays, an album of the week with Dean Brown. This is a column that is partly run by y'all, too! If you have a recommendation for an album that you think could be good here, email me at dean.brown30@paceacademy.org .

On February 21, 1933, Eunice Kathleen Waymon was born, the child of Mary Kate and John Divine Waymon. By the time she was three, she was proficient in piano, being able to play by ear. In Tryon, North Carolina, her hometown, she played piano in her mother’s church, the Methodist Church of Tryon, and soon became the official pianist by age five. When she and her sisters started the Waymon Sisters group, she was introduced Ms. Muriel Mazzanovich, her soon-to-be music teacher who taught her many classical artists. Later in her schooling, she studied at Julliard before being rejected by The Curtis Institute of Music due to racism and sexism.

In 1954, Eunice had fallen in love with jazz and early soul music, and started singing and playing at bars to support herself, which her parents would not approve of. She then started to use the name Nina Simone, after a nickname of hers, and the french actress, Simone Signoret. Nina most famously protested with the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s, releasing songs like Four Women, portraying popular stereotypes of Black women, Mississippi Goddam, written about the 16th St. Baptist Church bombing, and I Wish I Knew How it Would be Free, which became a civil rights anthem.

This specific 1965 album titled I Put a Spell on You is quite popular today. The song, originally written by Screamin’ Jay Hawkins in 1956, was redone by Nina, who created a mix of classical, jazz and blues that breathed magic into the music. Another notable piece from the album is Feelin’ Good. Feelin’ Good was originally written for the 1964 musical The Roar of the Greasepaint - The Smell of the Crowd, though Nina’s version had an extra sort of poise about it – a certain power to it.

Click (here) to listen to Nina Simone's recording 

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