My original plan was to be the first black concert pianist - not a singer - and it never occurred to me that I'd be playing to audiences that were talking and drinking and carrying on when I played the piano. So I felt that if they didn't want to listen, they could go the hell home." – NINA SIMONE Famed pianist Nina Simone was a tough-talking, complex and often misunderstood singer, composer and storyteller who used an eclectic blend of music to speak out about racism and social justice during the nation's most tumultuous era. Simone left the United States in the late 1960s, saying she was disgusted with racism toward black folks. She called desegregation in America a joke and acquired a preference for the cosmopolitan environment of France, the sea spray of Barbados and the dirt roads of Africa.

"I left because I didn't feel that black people were going to get their due," Simone once told a writer. and I still don't," Simone once told a writer. Of living in Liberia, West Africa, she said, "I was at home. I took off my shoes and walked in the dirt streets, smelled all the smells ... They didn't even want me to sing over there, they just wanted me to have a good time! I felt thoroughly at home there."

Born Eunice Kathleen Waymon in Tryon, North Carolina on Feb. 21, 1933, Simone recorded her first album, "Little Girl Blue" (which was also known as "Jazz as Played in an Exclusive Side Street Club") in the late 1950's. After the success of her rendition of the George Gershwin classic, "I Loves You Porgy," which became a national rhythm & blues hit in the summer of 1959 - selling over one million copies - Simone became a star, performing at Town Hall, Carnegie Hall and at jazz festivals, with a repertoire ranging from gospel music to African music, from blues to Duke Ellington songs, from classical music to folk songs of diverse origin.

Yanick Rice Lamb, editorial director of Heart & Soul magazine and a journalism professor at Howard University, said Simone’s influence on music is far-reaching years after her death. "The title of one of Nina Simone's albums sums up her talent vocally and on piano perfectly: 'Forever Young, Gifted and Black.' What a voice!," Lamb told BlackAmericaWeb.com.

"She was truly beyond category and blended many genres into a rich stew, whether in French or English," Lamb said. "Her timeless music is infused with passion on topics ranging from relationships to - most significantly - injustice, which caused her recordings to be banned in some states during the civil rights movement."

"I doubt that we'll ever hear another voice like Simone's. It's interesting that her work has been sampled by artists like Kanye West, Mary J Blige and Talib Kweli." she added. "Still, I wonder if younger generations know much about her, which is too bad. Like Mos Def said on 'Rock N Roll' from his 'Black on Both Sides' CD, 'You may dig on the Rolling Stones, but they could never ever rock like Nina Simone.'"

Simone’s website says although Simone was called the "High Priestess of Soul" by her fans and was regarded by them as an almost religious figure, she was often misunderstood. A gifted pianist, protest singer, jazz vocalist, arranger and composer, Simone was an artist whose art was difficult to define - a unique mix of jazz, pop and classical.

"Jazz is a white term to define black people," Simone once said. "My music is black classical music." "Nina Simone could sing with a voice that knew pain so intimately, it hurt to hear her sometimes. In a voice as raspy and ancient as the generations of whom she sang, her repertoire ranged from 18-century slave songs to 1970s folk," Janus Adams wrote in a 2004 story published by Black Issues Book Review. "Offstage, Nina was not a comfortable person; she was unsettled and unsettling. A girl chided for her looks, the demons haunting all blacks in those days of arrogant, narcissistic, easy racism haunted Nina still. As a woman, with style and a certain air, she chiseled an extraordinary look and outlook for herself."

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