Nina Simone

Looking for Nina Simone chords? You came to the right place! Born Eunice Kathleen Waymon in Tyron, North Carolina in 1933, Nina Simone was one of the most talented singers to perform during the latter half of the 20th century. Her work spanned across multiple genres, including jazz, blues, soul, classical, pop and gospel. Known for her consistent, sincere, emotionally powerful and somewhat trembling voice, she earned herself the title “High Priestess of Soul”. Initially, young Eunice aspired to a career as a classical pianist. Having started to play the piano aged three, she immediately demonstrated to be extraordinarily gifted. After spending her youth playing the piano at her mother’s Sunday church services, she received a grant to study at the Juilliard School of Music in New York City, before applying at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. Despite her huge talent and a sumptuous performance at her audition, she was denied by the institution, which Simone always insisted to have been on racist grounds.

First releases

In spite of the setback, Simone continued to aspire to a music career and took a job playing piano in a bar in Atlantic City, New Jersey in 1954. It was here she first started singing, as the owner of the bar insisted her to do so, and adopted the stage name Nina Simone. Performing a mixture of jazz, blues and classics, she soon garnered a following and after a few years of playing nightclubs she was signed by the jazz label Bethlehem Records in 1957. A year later she released a rework of “I Love You Porgy” from the 1935 opera “Porgy and Bess'' and it became her first and only major hit in the US, reaching the top 20 of the pop charts. Simone left Bethlehem and signed with Colpix records in 1959, which in the ensuing years released several of her albums and singles. Although not a major hit at the time, 1959 also saw the release of the single “My Baby Just Cares For Me”, which would almost 30 years later storm the charts in the UK after being used in a British television commercial. Interested to learn which chords Nina Simone used in this famous track? You will find them below!

Civil Rights era

In 1964, Nina Simone left Colpix and found a new home with Dutch label Philips Records. It was the days of the civil rights movement and although Simone initially avoided using political turmoil as inspiration for her lyrics, she now proved unable to keep her frustration from entering her musical work. Simone would for the first time address the issue of racial inequality in her powerful 1964 song “Mississippi Goddam”, giving her an outlet for the fury and determination she felt over the social injustices experienced by black people in the US. Other songs touching on the subject followed, including “Four Women” and “Young, Gifted and Black”.

Later life

Feeling her controversial songs had led the music industry to boycott her work, as well as being disillusioned by American politics, Nina Simone left the US in 1970. She stayed in Barbados for a while, after which she relocated to Liberia, being persuaded to do so by her friend and fellow singer Miriam Makeba. Although she continued to release new albums until 1993, when she released her final album A Single Woman, the latter half of her life also saw a lot of turmoil. Being diagnosed with bipolar disorder, she went through several episodes of erratic behavior and at one time even shot a gun at a neighbor during an argument. Nevertheless, Simone was to keep performing live in Europe and the US until 2002, when she was diagnosed with breast cancer. She would die a year later in France, where she lived during her final years. Fortunately for those wanting to practice her piano chords, Nina Simone left behind a massive discography to explore.