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Tremendous pleasure

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and honour to welcome the incredible,
unique and fantastic

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one and only Nina Simone!

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Hello.

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Hi. We're ready.

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One, two, three.

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I haven't seen you for
many years since 1968.

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I've decided that I will do
no more jazz festivals.

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That decision has not changed.

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I will sing for you,

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or we will do and share with you
a few moments,

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after which I shall graduate
to a higher class, I hope,

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and I hope you will come with me.

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We'll start from the beginning,

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which was about a little girl,

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and her name was Blue.

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What's "free" to you?

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- What's "free" to me?
- Yeah.

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Same thing it is to you. You tell me.

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No, you tell me.

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I don't know.

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It's just a feeling.

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It's just a feeling.

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It's like, "How do you tell somebody

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how it feels to be in love?"

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How are you going to tell
anybody who has not been in love

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how it feels to be in love?

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You cannot do it to save your life.

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You can describe things
but you can't tell them.

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But you know it when it happens.
That's what I mean by "free".

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I've had a couple of times on
stage when I really felt free!

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And that's something else.

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That's really something else!

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Like... I tell you
what freedom is to me: no fear!

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I mean really, no fear.

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If I could have that...

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Half of my life... No fear.

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My mother was one of
the greatest entertainers

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of all time, hands down.

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But she paid a huge price.

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People seem to think when she
went out on stage,

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that was when she became Nina Simone.

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My mother was Nina Simone 24/7

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and that's where it became a problem.

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When she was performing she was brilliant.

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She was loved.

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She was also a revolutionary.

48
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She found a purpose for the stage,

49
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a place from which she could use her voice

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to speak out for her people.

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But when the show ended,
everybody else went home.

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She was alone and she was still fighting.

53
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But she was fighting her own demons,

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full of anger and rage.

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She couldn't live with herself.

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And everything fell apart.

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Good evening. Our guest tonight
is Nina Simone.

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Probably the foremost blues
singer, jazz singer,

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singer of all songs in the
United States today.

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Nina, are you happy with the
kind of work you're doing?

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What makes me the happiest,

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is when I'm performing and
there are people out there

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who feel with me and
I know I touched them.

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But to be completely honest,

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the whole thing seems so much
like a dream.

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I never thought I was gonna
stay in show business.

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When I first got into show business

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I wasn't a blues singer and
I wasn't even a jazz singer.

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I was a classical pianist.

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I studied to become

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the first black classical
pianist in America.

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And that's all that was on my mind.

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That's what I was prepared to be.

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I was born Eunice Waymon,

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which is my real name, by the way,

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in a town called Tryon, North Carolina.

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I started to play the piano
when I was three or four.

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My mother was a preacher

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and she took me with her on her revivals

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and I started to play the piano in church.

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Revival meetings were

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some of the most exciting
times that I've ever had.

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The music was so intense you
sort of went out of yourself.

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I felt it tremendously.
And I was leading it.

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When I was seven, the choir of
our church gave a programme

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at the local theatre.

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And I was on that programme.

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And I played some song,
I don't remember what it was,

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and these two white women
in the audience heard me.

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One of them was the woman
that my mother worked for,

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and the other one was a music
teacher, Mrs Mazzanovich.

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And they decided right then and
there to give me lessons.

93
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And so, for five years after that,

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I studied classical piano
with this teacher.

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I crossed the railroad tracks
every weekend

96
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to get to Mrs Mazzanovich.

97
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And railroad tracks in the South

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were supposed to be dividing
the blacks from the whites.

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Well, it really did.

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I was so scared.

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Mrs Mazzanovich frightened me.

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It was her being white in the
sense that I had never seen.

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She was alien to me.

104
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Her white hair, the combs in it,
her pleasantness...

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I loved that.

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She started me on... Bach.

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And this Bach... I liked him.

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Mrs Mazzanovich had it in her
mind that I was going to be

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one of the world's greatest
concert pianists.

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So it was all very disciplined
classical music.

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Bach, Beethoven, Debussy,
Brahms, you name it.

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Then Mrs Mazzanovich got a fund together,

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"Eunice Waymon fund".

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And I gave lots of recitals.

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They would take up collection
to further my education

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after I'd have left her.

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Mommy took to all the
training like a fish to water,

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but it was a double-edged sword.

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She had a very lonely life

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because she was practising
seven, eight hours a day.

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When I first started to take lessons,

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I became terribly aware
of how isolated I was

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from the other children.

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And how isolated I was

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from the white community
and the negro community.

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I felt it, all the time, even
when the kids played with me.

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They always wanted me just
to play piano for them to dance

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I wasn't asked too much to do
anything else.

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That was very hard.

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Part of that isolation,
was the thing about colour.

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I was a black girl and I knew
about it, and I lived in it.

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I lived in the South for 17years.

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My mom rarely referred
to Jim Crow and segregation

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and a lot of the racial issues
that were going on

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at that stage in her life.

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She did tell me about times when
they told her nose was too big,

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her lips were too full
and her skin was too dark.

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And after she was told that,
they probably told her,

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"There's only certain things
you'll be good for in life."

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What I knew, I knew.

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We weren't allowed to mention
anything racial in our house.

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I wasn't consciously dealing with race.

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That wasn't consciously on my
mind at all. Until years later.

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After I graduated from high school,

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the money that had been saved
from the Eunice Waymon Fund

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sent me to New York, to
Juilliard for a year and a half.

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Then I applied for a scholarship

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to Curtis Institute of Music
in Philadelphia.

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I was playing Czerny and Liszt,
Rachmaninoff and Bach.

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I knew I was good enough but
they turned me down.

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It took me about six months

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to realise it was because I was black.

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I never really got over that
jolt of racism at the time.

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Then the money ran out

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and the reality hit me
that I had to go to work.

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My parents had moved the family
to Philadelphia to be near me.

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And my family is very poor,
so I had to work.

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What else was there for me to do?

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I got myself a job in
Atlantic City for a summer.

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It was a very crummy bar.

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I used to go in evening gowns.
I didn't know any better.

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I played everything that I could think of.

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Pop songs, classical,
spirituals, all kinds of things.

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It was very strange.

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And I had never sung before.

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The owner came in the second
night and told me

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if I wanted to keep the job,
I had to sing.

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$90 was more money than
I had ever heard of in my life.

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So I said: "Well, I'll sing."
Ever since I've been singing.

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Eunice Waymon was playing
in bars to support her family

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and to have money to continue
her classical piano training.

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Since she didn't want her mother to know

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that she was playing the
"devil's music" in bars,

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she changed her name.

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Eunice Waymon became Nina Simone.

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She named herself "Niña",
meaning "little one".

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She had a boyfriend who called her "Niña",

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and "Simone" came from the
French actress Simone Signoret.

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I didn't want my mother to find out.

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I knew she would hate it.

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I kept it from her for a long, long time.

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Was it lonely
for a young girl entertaining

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in these strange bars?

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Extremely. Extremely lonely.

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Working peculiar hours, I imagine.

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12:00 midnight till 7:00 in the morning.

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- It ruined your social life.
- Never had much of one.

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- Why did you keep on with it?
- I couldn't help it.

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I have to play and I needed money.

190
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It was always a matter of necessity

191
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from day to day what I am going to do...

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I didn't even know I was going
to stay in show business.

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I never thought about a choice.

194
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From the beginning,

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I felt there was something eating at her.

196
00:16:06,091 --> 00:16:08,471
You know, "What's eating at you, Nina?"

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Gradually that got stronger.

198
00:16:32,575 --> 00:16:34,655
The first time I played with Nina,

199
00:16:34,828 --> 00:16:37,408
it was the summer of 1957

200
00:16:37,580 --> 00:16:40,250
at a restaurant in New Hope, Pennsylvania.

201
00:16:40,750 --> 00:16:41,920
She didn't look at me,

202
00:16:42,293 --> 00:16:45,383
said nothing as if I wasn't even there,

203
00:16:45,547 --> 00:16:48,507
and started in on a song.

204
00:16:49,050 --> 00:16:50,744
She never told me what key
she was going to be in.

205
00:16:50,844 --> 00:16:54,850
She started playing and I knew exactly
where I was going to go with it.

206
00:16:55,223 --> 00:16:58,603
It was like we had
a telepathic relationship.

207
00:16:58,768 --> 00:17:01,228
Before you knew it,
we were just weaving in and out

208
00:17:01,479 --> 00:17:02,769
And then she looked up.

209
00:17:13,616 --> 00:17:17,446
Al Schackman is a terribly
sensitive, creative man.

210
00:17:17,620 --> 00:17:18,830
He has perfect pitch,

211
00:17:18,997 --> 00:17:21,327
which means that
no matter what key I'm in,

212
00:17:21,499 --> 00:17:23,879
he's able to adapt himself immediately.

213
00:17:24,210 --> 00:17:25,403
'Cause I do that all the time.

214
00:17:25,503 --> 00:17:27,513
I change the key in the middle of a tune.

215
00:17:30,842 --> 00:17:35,682
Nina had a wonderful way of
taking a piece of music and...

216
00:17:36,222 --> 00:17:40,942
not interpreting it
but metamorphosising it.

217
00:17:41,311 --> 00:17:46,021
You know, morphing it into her experience.

218
00:17:54,574 --> 00:17:56,744
What I was interested in was conveying

219
00:17:56,993 --> 00:17:58,623
an emotional message,

220
00:17:58,787 --> 00:18:01,367
which means using everything
you've got inside you

221
00:18:01,539 --> 00:18:04,329
sometimes to barely make a note

222
00:18:04,501 --> 00:18:06,591
or if you have to strain
to sing, you sing.

223
00:18:06,795 --> 00:18:08,875
Sometimes I sound like gravel

224
00:18:09,047 --> 00:18:11,797
and sometimes I sound like
coffee and cream.

225
00:18:33,363 --> 00:18:38,793
When I first saw Nina at my
club in 1959, I was impressed.

226
00:18:38,952 --> 00:18:40,292
She was different.

227
00:18:40,620 --> 00:18:43,040
She mixed in folk music with jazz.

228
00:18:43,373 --> 00:18:45,463
She played very fine piano.

229
00:18:45,625 --> 00:18:48,625
Her voice was totally different
from anybody else.

230
00:18:49,170 --> 00:18:53,130
It was a woman's voice but
it had the depth of a baritone.

231
00:18:54,092 --> 00:18:57,552
That depth and that darkness
carried the insight

232
00:18:57,720 --> 00:18:59,970
of what was in Nina's soul.

233
00:19:01,224 --> 00:19:03,104
And it reached you very quickly.

234
00:19:24,914 --> 00:19:28,084
She was an artist.
She was an original artist.

235
00:19:28,668 --> 00:19:31,298
So we paid attention and in 1960,

236
00:19:31,462 --> 00:19:33,382
I put her on the Newport Jazz Festival.

237
00:19:33,673 --> 00:19:35,763
And she was a hit there.

238
00:20:02,994 --> 00:20:04,664
Her sound is so original

239
00:20:05,079 --> 00:20:06,329
When she first appeared,

240
00:20:06,664 --> 00:20:08,294
she was one of those musicians...

241
00:20:09,459 --> 00:20:11,629
Once... you don't have to hear them much.

242
00:20:11,794 --> 00:20:14,714
If you hear them once, the next
time you hear them you say:

243
00:20:14,881 --> 00:20:17,131
"Oh, that's that same one
I heard last week.

244
00:20:17,550 --> 00:20:19,590
Nobody sounds like that except her."

245
00:20:27,268 --> 00:20:29,558
At Newport, she was sitting
on a high stool

246
00:20:29,729 --> 00:20:31,019
with a tambourine.

247
00:20:31,189 --> 00:20:32,359
I was in the back.

248
00:20:32,607 --> 00:20:35,187
She wasn't sure she wanted
to go through with it.

249
00:20:35,610 --> 00:20:38,030
If I remember right,
she was a little, you know...

250
00:20:38,196 --> 00:20:39,696
"What am I doing here?"

251
00:20:39,864 --> 00:20:42,454
I said: "You're here
because you belong here."

252
00:20:50,583 --> 00:20:53,003
She said: "OK, Al, but you'd better play."

253
00:20:54,003 --> 00:20:55,713
I said: "Don't worry, I'll play."

254
00:21:03,346 --> 00:21:06,846
Then, if you watch during her
performance of "Little Liza",

255
00:21:07,016 --> 00:21:09,136
she has that little smile
from time to time.

256
00:21:10,728 --> 00:21:12,308
She let go and it was really cute.

257
00:21:22,031 --> 00:21:24,371
Then I recorded seven or eight tunes

258
00:21:24,534 --> 00:21:26,244
I had been doing all those years

259
00:21:26,703 --> 00:21:29,713
and of course the public
picked out "I Loves You Porgy".

260
00:21:29,872 --> 00:21:32,962
It was not pushed or promoted
to be a hit at all.

261
00:21:42,885 --> 00:21:45,505
- Girls! Don! Hi.
- Hi, Hugh, nice to see you.

262
00:21:45,680 --> 00:21:46,510
Real great.

263
00:21:46,681 --> 00:21:49,311
Eleanor, you wanna take Don's coat here?

264
00:21:49,475 --> 00:21:51,845
Maybe you can show the girls
where the powder room is,

265
00:21:52,020 --> 00:21:53,004
the bedroom.

266
00:21:53,104 --> 00:21:54,104
Hello there.

267
00:21:54,522 --> 00:21:56,174
Very nice to have you with us
this evening.

268
00:21:56,274 --> 00:21:57,444
This is Playboy's Penthouse,

269
00:21:57,608 --> 00:22:00,358
and I'm Hugh Hefner, editor
publisher of Playboy Magazine.

270
00:22:02,405 --> 00:22:06,025
I'd like you to meet someone
most of you know, Nina Simone.

271
00:22:06,534 --> 00:22:10,714
She came out of nowhere in the
last year as a recording star.

272
00:22:11,122 --> 00:22:13,622
She has a very big record, "Porgy"

273
00:22:13,791 --> 00:22:15,511
that is breaking all kinds of
sales records.

274
00:22:16,002 --> 00:22:17,382
We're very happy she could join us

275
00:22:17,545 --> 00:22:19,072
- tonight on Playboy's Penthouse
- Thanks.

276
00:22:19,172 --> 00:22:21,922
She's gonna play and sing
a little bit now with her group.

277
00:22:26,929 --> 00:22:28,179
You want to hear "Porgy"?

278
00:22:28,473 --> 00:22:29,723
- Very much.
- Right.

279
00:22:29,891 --> 00:22:31,521
Good. That's what we'll do.

280
00:23:46,300 --> 00:23:48,890
Nina, there's a man named Andy Stroud.

281
00:23:49,053 --> 00:23:52,063
He walked into your life and
he became a permanent part.

282
00:23:52,265 --> 00:23:53,595
How did you meet your husband?

283
00:23:53,808 --> 00:23:56,018
He came to see me at a nightclub

284
00:23:56,185 --> 00:23:59,435
and a mutual friend introduced us.

285
00:24:00,022 --> 00:24:04,442
Nina came to the table and sat.
I was eating a Hamburger plate

286
00:24:04,610 --> 00:24:07,490
and there were fries and
she dipped into them.

287
00:24:07,697 --> 00:24:09,987
She wanted to know if it was OK.
I said: "All right."

288
00:24:10,783 --> 00:24:15,123
We got cute and then she gave me
that card with a note on it.

289
00:24:15,413 --> 00:24:19,833
Then I went to see her, at her
place in the next day or two.

290
00:24:39,353 --> 00:24:42,523
How did you know Andy Stroud
was to be your husband

291
00:24:42,690 --> 00:24:45,650
and not just another guy out
for a date or something else?

292
00:24:46,777 --> 00:24:48,397
That's a hard question.

293
00:24:48,696 --> 00:24:51,986
He told me that he'd wanted
to meet me for a long time.

294
00:24:52,408 --> 00:24:54,948
And he had come for me.
I fell in love with him.

295
00:24:55,286 --> 00:24:57,956
Then later, he scared me
to death, he was so...

296
00:24:58,164 --> 00:25:03,884
You know, he knew what
he wanted and he just took over

297
00:25:06,589 --> 00:25:08,219
He abandoned his own career

298
00:25:08,382 --> 00:25:11,262
as a sergeant of the police
department to manage me.

299
00:25:11,469 --> 00:25:13,469
For the first time, I knew what it was

300
00:25:13,638 --> 00:25:15,718
not to be just floundering out there.

301
00:25:34,367 --> 00:25:36,407
I just remember meeting Andy.

302
00:25:36,744 --> 00:25:41,834
He was a tough New York vice squad cop.

303
00:25:43,793 --> 00:25:47,173
When he stepped out of his car
uptown, people ran.

304
00:25:48,548 --> 00:25:53,138
He had a way of just saying one word.

305
00:25:53,469 --> 00:25:54,469
"Hey."

306
00:25:55,221 --> 00:25:58,431
And that could put a lot of fear
in people.

307
00:25:58,766 --> 00:26:02,516
But Andy and Nina married in 1961.

308
00:26:02,853 --> 00:26:06,233
He retired from the police force
and became her manager.

309
00:26:06,399 --> 00:26:07,569
And he did well for her.

310
00:26:07,858 --> 00:26:11,028
They bought a beautiful house
in Mount Vernon, New York.

311
00:26:11,195 --> 00:26:15,945
We had a 13-room house, four
acres of land, a lot of trees.

312
00:26:48,774 --> 00:26:51,404
Lisa was born nine months later.

313
00:26:51,569 --> 00:26:55,109
The first three hours after Lisa was born

314
00:26:55,281 --> 00:26:57,121
were the most peaceful in my life.

315
00:26:57,408 --> 00:26:59,828
And I was in love with the world.

316
00:27:00,286 --> 00:27:01,326
Andrew was there.

317
00:27:01,495 --> 00:27:03,285
He was sitting right there and he said:

318
00:27:03,497 --> 00:27:05,747
I said, "How is the baby?"
He says: "How is the mother?"

319
00:27:05,916 --> 00:27:07,246
I loved him for that.

320
00:27:07,918 --> 00:27:10,958
I loved being a mother.
I was a good mother.

321
00:27:11,672 --> 00:27:13,422
I was a goddamn good mother.

322
00:27:15,217 --> 00:27:17,177
I remember our house in Mount Vernon

323
00:27:17,345 --> 00:27:18,635
like the back of my hand.

324
00:27:18,804 --> 00:27:20,104
It was like a fairy tale.

325
00:27:20,306 --> 00:27:22,806
I remember seeing the paisley
on the walls.

326
00:27:22,975 --> 00:27:24,385
The walls were kind of like a..

327
00:27:25,978 --> 00:27:28,188
They were hued in gold
but it really wasn't gold.

328
00:27:28,356 --> 00:27:30,066
It was more like a muted gold

329
00:27:30,274 --> 00:27:31,784
But it felt like it was velvet.

330
00:27:31,942 --> 00:27:36,362
I'd always run my hands over the
walls because it was textured.

331
00:27:36,947 --> 00:27:39,117
And my mom had a cold storage

332
00:27:39,283 --> 00:27:43,623
where she kept her fur coats
and her costumes.

333
00:27:43,788 --> 00:27:45,078
So I was always in there.

334
00:27:45,706 --> 00:27:47,496
These were the good, sweet days.

335
00:27:47,667 --> 00:27:49,457
We were building and growing together.

336
00:27:58,969 --> 00:28:03,929
I had an overall plan to develop
and create her as an artist.

337
00:28:04,100 --> 00:28:07,850
I had set up an office at 5th
Avenue and 42nd Street.

338
00:28:08,062 --> 00:28:09,942
I had a publicist.

339
00:28:10,106 --> 00:28:12,816
I had a guy who was a record promotion man

340
00:28:12,983 --> 00:28:14,443
from Atlantic Records.

341
00:28:14,944 --> 00:28:19,324
I had another fellow who did the
college radio station promotion

342
00:28:19,615 --> 00:28:21,525
and a photographer.

343
00:28:22,201 --> 00:28:23,951
Dad was the original Puff Daddy.

344
00:28:24,161 --> 00:28:28,171
He really had a vision and he
was a very astute businessman.

345
00:28:28,833 --> 00:28:31,673
And of course, she was burning
to get on to the Carnegie Hall.

346
00:28:31,877 --> 00:28:34,257
She had trained as a classical pianist

347
00:28:34,422 --> 00:28:38,932
with the one thought in mind
of being the first black female

348
00:28:39,176 --> 00:28:41,926
classical pianist to appear
at Carnegie Hall.

349
00:28:42,346 --> 00:28:44,266
That was her prime objective.

350
00:28:46,517 --> 00:28:49,557
However, none of
the New York city promoters

351
00:28:49,729 --> 00:28:51,899
would undertake this project.

352
00:28:52,231 --> 00:28:56,071
So, I took my own money
to promote the appearance.

353
00:28:57,820 --> 00:29:01,990
She was ecstatic. I mean, she
was out of her mind with joy.

354
00:29:04,618 --> 00:29:06,604
You apparently wrote a letter
to your parents saying:

355
00:29:06,704 --> 00:29:08,964
"This is where you wanted me to play

356
00:29:09,165 --> 00:29:11,325
but I should have been playing Bach."

357
00:29:11,500 --> 00:29:14,750
This was your glory occasion
but you were still disappointed?

358
00:29:14,920 --> 00:29:17,130
Well, I loved the audience,

359
00:29:17,298 --> 00:29:21,008
but I wasn't playing classical
music and I wanted to be.

360
00:29:21,177 --> 00:29:24,347
So I wrote: "Yes, I'm in
Carnegie Hall, finally,

361
00:29:24,513 --> 00:29:26,853
but I'm not playing Bach."

362
00:30:23,906 --> 00:30:25,366
After Carnegie Hall,

363
00:30:25,533 --> 00:30:28,333
she was getting airplay
all over the country,

364
00:30:28,494 --> 00:30:31,124
magazine, pictures and stories.

365
00:30:39,088 --> 00:30:42,678
She became highly successful
and recognised.

366
00:30:45,469 --> 00:30:47,849
- Oh! Thank you very much!
- Meeting in Japan.

367
00:30:48,222 --> 00:30:50,682
A young woman who's made a very
emphatic name for herself...

368
00:30:50,850 --> 00:30:52,770
An accomplished pianist and distinctive...

369
00:30:52,935 --> 00:30:54,655
who's now become a rather famous artist.

370
00:30:54,812 --> 00:30:57,062
...a remarkable blues-soul sound.

371
00:30:57,273 --> 00:30:59,073
For the first time on British television,

372
00:30:59,233 --> 00:31:00,783
the High Priestess of soul.

373
00:31:00,943 --> 00:31:02,033
An exceptional singer.

374
00:31:02,194 --> 00:31:04,074
- Nina Simone.
- Nina Simone.

375
00:31:04,238 --> 00:31:05,238
Nina Simone.

376
00:31:09,285 --> 00:31:10,785
Miss Simone brings to her music

377
00:31:10,953 --> 00:31:13,333
a kind of technique and discipline

378
00:31:13,497 --> 00:31:15,537
we generally associate
with classical music.

379
00:31:15,708 --> 00:31:17,958
She's introduced fugue and counterpoint

380
00:31:18,127 --> 00:31:21,047
into the freewheeling
spontaneity of the jazz world.

381
00:31:25,759 --> 00:31:28,429
Nina, do you think
that now that you are successful

382
00:31:28,596 --> 00:31:31,306
as a popular artist that
you'd like to do any classical?

383
00:31:31,557 --> 00:31:34,767
Yes, but I don't have
time to think about it too much.

384
00:31:35,144 --> 00:31:36,774
But you have to realise

385
00:31:36,937 --> 00:31:39,517
that when I'm most satisfied
with my music,

386
00:31:39,690 --> 00:31:43,320
I call upon all the things that
I've learned in classical music.

387
00:31:48,574 --> 00:31:51,704
She wanted everything
money and success could buy.

388
00:31:51,869 --> 00:31:55,709
So I promised her that she was
going to be a rich black bitch.

389
00:31:56,582 --> 00:31:58,632
We had a blackboard and
he used to put on there

390
00:31:58,792 --> 00:32:01,382
"I'll be a rich black bitch"by
this such and such date."

391
00:32:01,545 --> 00:32:03,665
He said, "Then you could quit."
I always believed him.

392
00:32:04,506 --> 00:32:07,086
But I never could quit because
he worked me too hard.

393
00:32:47,883 --> 00:32:50,303
Andy said: "Nina, it's hard work.

394
00:32:51,220 --> 00:32:53,260
"You want to make the money?
You have to work."

395
00:32:53,555 --> 00:32:54,965
And she resented that.

396
00:32:55,599 --> 00:32:59,229
Then, Lisa was born and
she resented being torn away,

397
00:32:59,561 --> 00:33:00,851
having to go on the road.

398
00:33:05,693 --> 00:33:08,113
I didn't realise what
my mom did for a living.

399
00:33:08,654 --> 00:33:10,914
I just know that Mom
was always travelling.

400
00:33:11,448 --> 00:33:14,198
My mother often told me that
I had 13 nannies in seven years.

401
00:33:14,910 --> 00:33:19,330
While she was trying to maintain
some sense of schedule for me

402
00:33:19,498 --> 00:33:22,538
and normalcy for me, she was out
there doing what she was doing.

403
00:33:23,002 --> 00:33:25,070
Can I have five more minutes?
It's very frustrating...

404
00:33:25,170 --> 00:33:26,340
When we were on the road,

405
00:33:26,505 --> 00:33:28,415
there were times we had to be careful.

406
00:33:28,674 --> 00:33:31,344
She could get angry and start
arguments with people.

407
00:33:31,510 --> 00:33:32,930
You're all pushing, You're pushing.

408
00:33:33,137 --> 00:33:35,097
Don't put nothin' in it.
Let's do it again.

409
00:33:35,264 --> 00:33:38,354
If anyone were talking in the
audience, she would just sit.

410
00:33:38,809 --> 00:33:40,979
First she would say: "Please..."

411
00:33:42,229 --> 00:33:44,939
She said: "I'm not continuing."

412
00:33:45,149 --> 00:33:47,279
She'd get up, walk out
and the gig was over.

413
00:33:48,152 --> 00:33:49,782
I just want them to listen to the music

414
00:33:49,945 --> 00:33:51,735
like they did in the classical world.

415
00:33:51,905 --> 00:33:53,405
I thought they needed teaching.

416
00:33:53,741 --> 00:33:55,451
If they couldn't listen, fuck it!

417
00:33:57,578 --> 00:33:59,198
She got into Carnegie Hall,

418
00:33:59,371 --> 00:34:02,211
and she got the big house in the country,

419
00:34:02,541 --> 00:34:05,421
but she began questioning herself.

420
00:34:05,836 --> 00:34:07,586
She'd get into moods of depression

421
00:34:07,755 --> 00:34:10,835
about the whole business,
the personal relationship,

422
00:34:11,008 --> 00:34:16,348
cursing, smashing things, and
it worsened as the time went by.

423
00:34:29,109 --> 00:34:33,609
All I did was work, work, work.

424
00:34:34,364 --> 00:34:35,784
I was always tired.

425
00:34:35,949 --> 00:34:37,829
I was always tired.

426
00:34:38,702 --> 00:34:40,082
I could never sleep.

427
00:34:40,412 --> 00:34:42,922
You see, music always goes
through my head,

428
00:34:43,082 --> 00:34:46,422
which means the more I played
the less I could relax.

429
00:34:46,919 --> 00:34:48,919
I kept thinking Andy should let me rest.

430
00:34:49,213 --> 00:34:50,513
He never did.

431
00:35:15,989 --> 00:35:18,779
Got my liver

432
00:35:21,120 --> 00:35:23,410
She felt she was handled like a racehorse

433
00:35:24,039 --> 00:35:27,379
and she was always fighting...
fighting, fighting it.

434
00:35:28,085 --> 00:35:30,875
Andy would say:
"Nina, we've got a career here.

435
00:35:31,171 --> 00:35:34,011
That's not gonna continue
if you don't nurture it.

436
00:35:34,675 --> 00:35:37,255
So, she came to resent Andy.

437
00:35:37,553 --> 00:35:39,303
But she was afraid of Andy.

438
00:35:40,973 --> 00:35:43,983
Andrew protected me
against everybody but himself.

439
00:35:44,935 --> 00:35:47,225
He wrapped himself around me like a snake.

440
00:35:47,938 --> 00:35:50,358
I worked like a dog
and I was scared of him.

441
00:35:51,400 --> 00:35:52,990
And Andrew beat me up...

442
00:35:53,527 --> 00:35:55,487
I've never talked to you about this,

443
00:35:55,863 --> 00:35:58,283
but he beat me up.
I was deathly scared of Andrew.

444
00:36:13,422 --> 00:36:17,052
One time, early in the morning,
like 4:00 or 5:00 o'clock,

445
00:36:19,261 --> 00:36:23,891
the phone rings, it's Nina,
and she needed to hide out.

446
00:36:26,977 --> 00:36:30,057
I had gone to a discotheque with Andrew.

447
00:36:31,064 --> 00:36:33,534
A fan came up to me and gave me a note.

448
00:36:33,692 --> 00:36:37,322
Andy saw me take this note
and put it in my pocket.

449
00:36:41,241 --> 00:36:43,991
She thought nothing of it.
She related this to me.

450
00:36:44,161 --> 00:36:46,711
Andy came back and grabbed her arm

451
00:36:46,872 --> 00:36:50,002
and took her out from
the place and beat her up.

452
00:36:50,876 --> 00:36:52,536
When I got out on the street,

453
00:36:52,711 --> 00:36:56,011
he started raining blows on me,
bloody blows.

454
00:36:56,173 --> 00:36:58,473
He'd beat me all the way home,

455
00:36:58,842 --> 00:37:01,432
up the stairs, in the elevator,

456
00:37:01,887 --> 00:37:03,887
in my room, put a gun to my head.

457
00:37:04,473 --> 00:37:06,483
Then he tied me up and raped me.

458
00:37:11,021 --> 00:37:14,941
She came to my place and she was beat up.

459
00:37:15,651 --> 00:37:17,901
And I put her to bed

460
00:37:18,654 --> 00:37:22,824
and she rested for a couple of days.

461
00:37:23,283 --> 00:37:25,163
He didn't find me for two weeks

462
00:37:25,327 --> 00:37:26,997
My eyes... I couldn't see.

463
00:37:27,496 --> 00:37:29,746
He said: "Who beat you up like that?"

464
00:37:30,165 --> 00:37:31,955
I said: "You did." He said: "No, I didn't.

465
00:37:32,125 --> 00:37:33,765
"I've been looking for you for two weeks."

466
00:37:33,919 --> 00:37:35,339
I said: "You're insane."

467
00:37:36,421 --> 00:37:39,591
He was brutal. But I loved him.

468
00:37:40,008 --> 00:37:42,928
I guess, I just believed
he wouldn't do it any more.

469
00:37:54,481 --> 00:37:57,151
My mother always said
till the day she died,

470
00:37:57,734 --> 00:38:00,034
Dad was the best manager that
she ever had.

471
00:38:00,821 --> 00:38:03,911
But on top of being charismatic
he could be a bully,

472
00:38:04,408 --> 00:38:06,328
and he could be very mean.

473
00:38:07,327 --> 00:38:09,827
And she was on the receiving end of that,

474
00:38:11,665 --> 00:38:13,535
more times than you know...

475
00:38:14,626 --> 00:38:16,626
she should have been,
which should have been never.

476
00:38:18,255 --> 00:38:20,335
Mom would allude to:

477
00:38:20,507 --> 00:38:23,637
"He's rammed my head
into a concrete wall."

478
00:38:24,219 --> 00:38:26,049
She said that he punched her
in the stomach

479
00:38:26,221 --> 00:38:27,931
when she was pregnant with me.

480
00:38:44,114 --> 00:38:47,334
As a child I remember sitting in
the car between them.

481
00:38:47,534 --> 00:38:49,624
They were arguing about something

482
00:38:49,786 --> 00:38:52,826
and I remember my
father reaching across me...

483
00:38:53,415 --> 00:38:54,415
So I was like this...

484
00:38:54,583 --> 00:38:55,833
and backhanding her.

485
00:38:57,085 --> 00:39:01,465
We're going home in the car,
I'm driving and I slapped her.

486
00:39:01,631 --> 00:39:05,761
Blood spurted right over this eyebrow.

487
00:39:06,345 --> 00:39:10,385
She had, like, a one-inch cut
from my ring.

488
00:39:11,266 --> 00:39:16,146
We got her home and I clipped
the skin together and taped it.

489
00:39:17,314 --> 00:39:20,194
And a week later,
there wasn't even a scar.

490
00:39:23,278 --> 00:39:24,698
I think they were both nuts.

491
00:39:25,113 --> 00:39:28,913
She stayed with him, she
had this love affair with fire.

492
00:39:32,037 --> 00:39:34,917
That's like inviting the bull
with the red cape,

493
00:39:35,082 --> 00:39:37,582
"Just come on into my kitchen
and let's see what we can do."

494
00:39:37,751 --> 00:39:39,341
That's what she did.

495
00:39:39,836 --> 00:39:41,836
- What I want for her?
- Yes.

496
00:39:42,214 --> 00:39:46,594
- Myself, what else?
- I mean career-wise.

497
00:39:48,095 --> 00:39:50,845
My father had a strategic plan

498
00:39:51,014 --> 00:39:53,774
in terms of how Mom's career was gonna go.

499
00:39:54,226 --> 00:39:56,976
He wanted her to be able to win
all the awards

500
00:39:57,396 --> 00:40:00,726
and to become the huge star
he knew that she could be.

501
00:40:02,275 --> 00:40:05,065
But she wanted something more.

502
00:40:05,237 --> 00:40:07,567
There was something missing, in her...

503
00:40:07,739 --> 00:40:08,779
Some meaning.

504
00:40:14,496 --> 00:40:15,996
They died in Birmingham,

505
00:40:16,164 --> 00:40:18,084
the nation's most segregated city.

506
00:40:18,583 --> 00:40:20,343
Dynamite exploded on Sunday morning.

507
00:40:20,502 --> 00:40:23,212
Killed four little girls,
injured 20 other Negroes.

508
00:40:23,380 --> 00:40:25,010
It was one of more than 40 bombings

509
00:40:25,173 --> 00:40:26,593
in that Birmingham area.

510
00:40:28,051 --> 00:40:32,641
Kids were murdered in Birmingham!

511
00:40:33,098 --> 00:40:36,848
On a Sunday and in Sunday
schools, in a Christian nation!

512
00:40:37,018 --> 00:40:38,398
And nobody cares!

513
00:40:39,855 --> 00:40:42,935
When the kids got killed in that church...

514
00:40:43,442 --> 00:40:44,442
That did it.

515
00:40:44,776 --> 00:40:47,026
First you get depressed
and after that, you get mad.

516
00:40:48,238 --> 00:40:49,868
When these kids got bombed,

517
00:40:50,031 --> 00:40:51,701
I just sat down and wrote this song.

518
00:40:52,534 --> 00:40:56,084
And it's a very moving, violent song.

519
00:40:56,246 --> 00:40:58,246
'Cause that's how I feel
about the whole thing.

520
00:41:33,825 --> 00:41:35,285
"Mississippi Goddam."

521
00:41:35,494 --> 00:41:38,164
Phew! Hmm? Got my attention.

522
00:41:38,788 --> 00:41:41,208
What she was doing was different.

523
00:41:41,625 --> 00:41:44,665
There's something about a woman...

524
00:41:45,670 --> 00:41:48,800
If you look at all the suffering
that black folks went through...

525
00:41:49,716 --> 00:41:54,676
Not one black man would dare
say "Mississippi Goddam."

526
00:41:55,388 --> 00:42:01,018
To have someone with her stature
talking about your problem...

527
00:42:01,186 --> 00:42:02,646
You know how happy they had to be?

528
00:42:03,230 --> 00:42:04,480
We all wanted to say it.

529
00:42:05,065 --> 00:42:06,185
She said it.

530
00:42:07,359 --> 00:42:09,149
"Mississippi Goddam!"

531
00:42:34,344 --> 00:42:36,474
For Mommy to write a song
called "Mississippi Goddam"

532
00:42:36,638 --> 00:42:37,758
was revolutionary.

533
00:42:37,931 --> 00:42:40,931
They didn't have cursing on
the radio or on television.

534
00:42:41,101 --> 00:42:45,061
DJs refused to play it
and boxes of the 45s

535
00:42:45,230 --> 00:42:48,230
used to be sent back from the
radio stations cracked in two.

536
00:43:12,048 --> 00:43:14,718
As the civil rights movement
really swung into high gear,

537
00:43:15,343 --> 00:43:17,183
she swung into high gear with it.

538
00:43:17,596 --> 00:43:22,476
In '65, we played at the Selma
March in Montgomery, Alabama.

539
00:43:22,726 --> 00:43:26,436
We have a legal and constitutional right

540
00:43:26,605 --> 00:43:29,435
to march from Selma to Montgomery.

541
00:43:30,483 --> 00:43:32,613
It was extremely dangerous.

542
00:43:32,777 --> 00:43:34,817
The federal Marshals were called in.

543
00:43:35,113 --> 00:43:38,743
They were standing on the top
of all the buildings downtown,

544
00:43:39,242 --> 00:43:40,372
with guns.

545
00:43:41,411 --> 00:43:44,751
Seated in front of
the stage facing the audience

546
00:43:44,914 --> 00:43:47,964
was Martin Luther King,
Ralph Bunche from the UN

547
00:43:48,168 --> 00:43:50,798
and a lot of other worldwide dignitaries.

548
00:43:51,254 --> 00:43:54,804
You had Langston Hughes,
James Baldwin, Sidney Poitier,

549
00:43:55,133 --> 00:43:58,303
Bill Cosby, Leonard Bernstein,
Harry Belafonte.

550
00:43:58,470 --> 00:44:00,600
And we did "Mississippi Goddam".

551
00:44:31,252 --> 00:44:33,382
My mother said that after
she sang that song

552
00:44:33,546 --> 00:44:36,626
she got so angry that her voice broke.

553
00:44:37,676 --> 00:44:39,426
And from "Mississippi Goddam" on,

554
00:44:39,636 --> 00:44:43,886
it never, ever returned
to its former octave.

555
00:44:46,309 --> 00:44:50,439
But I think that Mom's anger is
what sustained her.

556
00:44:51,690 --> 00:44:56,530
The energy, the creativity
and the passion of those days

557
00:44:56,778 --> 00:44:58,488
is really what kept her going.

558
00:45:13,920 --> 00:45:15,710
When she wrote "Mississippi Goddam",

559
00:45:15,922 --> 00:45:18,432
I thought it was something else.
You know, I liked it.

560
00:45:18,842 --> 00:45:22,222
They put a 45 out on it.
I knew it had a lot of impact.

561
00:45:23,179 --> 00:45:27,099
But my complaint was that,
while I was always pushing for

562
00:45:27,267 --> 00:45:29,727
the commercial side of the picture,

563
00:45:30,019 --> 00:45:33,769
she got sidetracked with all of
these civil rights activities

564
00:45:35,358 --> 00:45:37,898
When the civil rights
thing came, all of a sudden,

565
00:45:38,486 --> 00:45:41,566
I could let myself be heard

566
00:45:41,990 --> 00:45:43,590
about what I'd been feeling all the time.

567
00:45:44,492 --> 00:45:47,122
When I was young, I knew to stay alive.

568
00:45:47,412 --> 00:45:50,462
As a black family, we had to work at it.

569
00:45:50,790 --> 00:45:52,330
We had to keep secrets.

570
00:45:52,917 --> 00:45:55,837
We never complained about being poor,

571
00:45:56,004 --> 00:45:59,474
or being taken advantage of
or not getting our share.

572
00:45:59,674 --> 00:46:01,554
We had to keep our mouths shut.

573
00:46:01,801 --> 00:46:04,851
As I walked across that
railroad track every Saturday,

574
00:46:05,180 --> 00:46:09,430
I knew to break the silence
meant a confrontation

575
00:46:09,601 --> 00:46:11,311
with the white people of that town.

576
00:46:15,607 --> 00:46:17,067
Although I didn't know I knew it,

577
00:46:17,233 --> 00:46:18,863
if the black man rises up and says:

578
00:46:19,027 --> 00:46:20,697
"I am not gonna do that any more..."

579
00:46:24,741 --> 00:46:26,661
he stands to get murdered.

580
00:46:31,164 --> 00:46:34,504
But no one mentioned that,
which is indeed quite strange.

581
00:46:53,144 --> 00:46:54,354
It touched me the first time,

582
00:46:54,521 --> 00:46:56,481
when I gave the recital at this library.

583
00:46:57,398 --> 00:46:58,728
Everybody was seated

584
00:46:59,484 --> 00:47:02,114
and they told me my parents
had to sit in the back.

585
00:47:02,529 --> 00:47:04,989
I said: "If they have to sit
in the back, I won't perform."

586
00:47:05,990 --> 00:47:07,030
They fixed it that time.

587
00:47:07,200 --> 00:47:09,700
They brought them to the front
and they let them sit down.

588
00:47:09,869 --> 00:47:13,459
It was my first feeling of being
discriminated against.

589
00:47:14,457 --> 00:47:17,667
I recoil in horror at such a thing.

590
00:48:28,197 --> 00:48:31,697
I choose to reflect the times
and the situations

591
00:48:31,868 --> 00:48:33,238
in which I find myself.

592
00:48:33,411 --> 00:48:34,751
That, to me, is my duty...

593
00:48:36,080 --> 00:48:38,460
And at this crucial time in our lives,

594
00:48:38,625 --> 00:48:40,495
when everything is so desperate,

595
00:48:40,668 --> 00:48:43,298
when every day is a matter of survival,

596
00:48:43,463 --> 00:48:45,593
I don't think you can help
but be involved.

597
00:48:45,757 --> 00:48:47,467
Young people, black and white know this.

598
00:48:47,634 --> 00:48:49,684
That's why they are
so involved in politics.

599
00:48:50,303 --> 00:48:52,223
We will shape and mould this country,

600
00:48:52,388 --> 00:48:54,808
or it will not be moulded
and shaped at all any more.

601
00:48:55,475 --> 00:48:56,805
I don't think you have a choice...

602
00:48:56,976 --> 00:48:59,846
How can you be an artist
and not reflect the times?

603
00:49:37,475 --> 00:49:38,475
Yeah!

604
00:49:43,022 --> 00:49:44,942
I've always thought that
I was shaking people up,

605
00:49:45,066 --> 00:49:47,146
but now I want to go at it more,

606
00:49:47,318 --> 00:49:49,278
I want to go at it more deliberately.

607
00:49:49,487 --> 00:49:51,197
And I want to go at it coldly.

608
00:49:51,364 --> 00:49:55,334
I want to shake people up
so bad that when they leave

609
00:49:55,493 --> 00:49:58,413
a nightclub where I've performed...

610
00:49:58,579 --> 00:50:00,709
I just want them to be to pieces.

611
00:50:01,040 --> 00:50:02,170
All right!

612
00:51:06,272 --> 00:51:10,152
I wanna go in that den
of those elegant people

613
00:51:10,359 --> 00:51:15,359
with their old ideas, smugness
and just drive them insane.

614
00:51:15,531 --> 00:51:16,571
Rise up!

615
00:51:35,259 --> 00:51:37,469
It's all right if you dance slow!

616
00:51:45,103 --> 00:51:46,693
It was exhilarating

617
00:51:46,854 --> 00:51:48,484
to be part of that movement at the time,

618
00:51:48,648 --> 00:51:52,568
because I was needed.
I could sing to help my people.

619
00:51:52,735 --> 00:51:56,065
And that became the mainstay of my life.

620
00:51:56,239 --> 00:51:59,489
Not classical piano, not classical music,

621
00:51:59,659 --> 00:52:02,909
not even popular music,
but civil rights music.

622
00:52:03,996 --> 00:52:07,326
I got to know
Martin Luther King, Malcom X,

623
00:52:07,500 --> 00:52:09,340
Andrew Young and artists,

624
00:52:09,502 --> 00:52:12,922
actors, actresses, poets, writers,

625
00:52:13,089 --> 00:52:15,169
people like myself who felt compelled

626
00:52:15,341 --> 00:52:17,261
to make the stand that I have.

627
00:52:17,969 --> 00:52:22,139
It was very important for her
to connect with the writers

628
00:52:22,306 --> 00:52:24,176
and playwrights of that moment

629
00:52:24,350 --> 00:52:28,020
because those people had
the intellectual background

630
00:52:28,187 --> 00:52:29,307
of the movement.

631
00:52:29,480 --> 00:52:32,570
She didn't have that.
She had the musical background.

632
00:52:33,359 --> 00:52:36,069
For instance, Langston Hughes
wrote the lyrics

633
00:52:36,237 --> 00:52:37,737
for "Backlash Blues" for her.

634
00:52:37,905 --> 00:52:39,115
Lorraine Hansberry...

635
00:52:39,282 --> 00:52:42,202
Nina took her play,
"Young, Gifted and Black"

636
00:52:42,368 --> 00:52:43,408
and made a song out of it.

637
00:52:43,578 --> 00:52:45,788
It's regarded as one of the most
important songs

638
00:52:45,955 --> 00:52:47,285
in the civil rights movement.

639
00:52:48,166 --> 00:52:51,456
I know there are only
300 black students here

640
00:52:51,627 --> 00:52:54,627
in this college of 18,000.

641
00:52:54,881 --> 00:52:58,381
So, this song is dedicated only to you.

642
00:53:15,943 --> 00:53:18,203
Lorraine Hansberry was my best friend.

643
00:53:18,446 --> 00:53:20,736
She wrote plays, "Raisin in The Sun"

644
00:53:20,990 --> 00:53:22,370
and "Young, Gifted and Black".

645
00:53:22,533 --> 00:53:25,953
She taught me a lot about
Karl Marx, Lenin and philosophy.

646
00:53:26,120 --> 00:53:28,000
The basic fabric of our society

647
00:53:28,164 --> 00:53:30,544
that has Negroes
in the situation they are in

648
00:53:30,708 --> 00:53:33,088
is the thing, which must be changed.

649
00:53:39,842 --> 00:53:41,642
Those times were pretty amazing.

650
00:53:42,220 --> 00:53:43,760
I look back now and I'm like:

651
00:53:43,930 --> 00:53:45,810
"Wow! Who's Who of Black America."

652
00:53:46,349 --> 00:53:48,099
Lorraine Hansberry was my godmother,

653
00:53:48,392 --> 00:53:52,102
Malcom X's wife, Betty Shabazz,
was my auntie.

654
00:53:52,355 --> 00:53:54,475
They lived right next door
in Mount Vernon.

655
00:53:54,982 --> 00:53:57,032
There are six daughters and
I was like the seventh.

656
00:53:57,193 --> 00:53:59,153
I was always riding my bike over there.

657
00:53:59,403 --> 00:54:01,163
Lisa and I were the same age

658
00:54:01,489 --> 00:54:05,159
I think we may have called
one another twins.

659
00:54:05,743 --> 00:54:07,333
It was just a great time.

660
00:54:07,703 --> 00:54:10,123
There was music, there were discussions.

661
00:54:10,289 --> 00:54:12,289
Whether it was at our house

662
00:54:12,458 --> 00:54:14,378
or Lisa's house, Nina Simone's home,

663
00:54:14,627 --> 00:54:17,417
it was definitely party with a purpose.

664
00:54:18,297 --> 00:54:20,257
We happened to be a fly on the wall

665
00:54:20,758 --> 00:54:25,428
with some of the genius poets
and poetesses

666
00:54:26,013 --> 00:54:27,973
of the time, the era.

667
00:54:28,140 --> 00:54:30,480
To sit in that room and listen...

668
00:54:30,768 --> 00:54:34,728
These were brilliant well-read,
well-travelled,

669
00:54:34,897 --> 00:54:38,107
charming, alluring, charismatic

670
00:54:38,276 --> 00:54:41,356
people who were moved to make
a difference in the world.

671
00:54:42,822 --> 00:54:46,532
I am born of the Young, Gifted
and Black affirmation.

672
00:54:46,867 --> 00:54:50,157
For me, and those of us
in that environment,

673
00:54:50,329 --> 00:54:52,579
it was daring to proclaim it.

674
00:54:53,249 --> 00:54:55,209
And then share it joyously.

675
00:54:55,710 --> 00:54:57,250
When she sang it...

676
00:55:01,799 --> 00:55:03,379
People would stand up

677
00:55:03,551 --> 00:55:07,561
and engage in their
African-ness without apology.

678
00:55:08,180 --> 00:55:11,600
It's like a contemporary,
hip song of the era.

679
00:55:12,351 --> 00:55:14,021
It means you get to hum it in public.

680
00:55:20,443 --> 00:55:23,903
She became a legend
in the activists' movement.

681
00:55:24,447 --> 00:55:27,697
And through meetings and
discussions I overheard,

682
00:55:27,992 --> 00:55:31,792
she was convinced that certain
things must be done in order to

683
00:55:32,913 --> 00:55:34,503
push the revolution.

684
00:55:34,707 --> 00:55:36,827
I told her that's not the answer.

685
00:55:37,251 --> 00:55:42,091
And it began to manifest in her
attitude towards me

686
00:55:42,256 --> 00:55:44,006
and the business. She'd fly off.

687
00:55:44,425 --> 00:55:46,385
I remember a few nights, you'd go to bed

688
00:55:46,552 --> 00:55:49,102
happy and holding one another
and wake up...

689
00:55:49,680 --> 00:55:53,020
She'd be sitting up in bed with
her arms folded looking at me,

690
00:55:53,184 --> 00:55:54,564
thinking about killing me.

691
00:55:55,186 --> 00:55:56,516
And this is how it went.

692
00:55:56,979 --> 00:56:00,399
The political work became very heavy.

693
00:56:01,984 --> 00:56:03,944
To me we are the most beautiful creatures

694
00:56:04,111 --> 00:56:06,071
in the whole world, black people.

695
00:56:06,238 --> 00:56:10,658
So, my job is to make them more curious

696
00:56:10,826 --> 00:56:12,906
about where they came from.

697
00:56:13,162 --> 00:56:17,582
And their own identity and pride
in that identity.

698
00:56:17,958 --> 00:56:21,338
That's why I try to make my
songs as powerful as possible,

699
00:56:21,754 --> 00:56:25,134
mostly to make them curious
about themselves.

700
00:56:25,383 --> 00:56:27,093
We don't know anything about ourselves.

701
00:56:27,259 --> 00:56:30,259
We don't even have the pride
and dignity of African people.

702
00:56:30,763 --> 00:56:33,563
We can't even talk about
where we came from.

703
00:56:33,724 --> 00:56:37,314
We don't know. It's like a lost race.

704
00:57:57,641 --> 00:57:59,601
I really mean to provoke

705
00:57:59,768 --> 00:58:03,018
this feeling of "Who am I?"
"Where do I come from?"

706
00:58:03,439 --> 00:58:06,939
You know, "Do I really like me?
and "Why do I like me?"

707
00:58:07,151 --> 00:58:09,111
Like, you know,
"If I'm black and beautiful,

708
00:58:09,278 --> 00:58:10,608
I really am and I know it,

709
00:58:10,779 --> 00:58:12,699
I don't care who cares or says what."

710
00:59:05,626 --> 00:59:08,746
This is what compels me
to push black people

711
00:59:08,963 --> 00:59:11,303
to identify with black culture.

712
00:59:11,632 --> 00:59:16,852
Giving out to them that
blackness, that black power.

713
00:59:26,605 --> 00:59:28,435
Nina was a real rebel.

714
00:59:28,649 --> 00:59:33,069
She didn't really fit in the
revolutionary black female role

715
00:59:33,237 --> 00:59:34,407
that was offered her.

716
00:59:34,572 --> 00:59:37,662
She could avoid pretentious phoniness

717
00:59:37,908 --> 00:59:40,158
and get more depth out of her song

718
00:59:40,578 --> 00:59:43,038
than people are used to hearing
out of those songs.

719
00:59:46,667 --> 00:59:50,457
She was that kind of
patron saint of the rebellion.

720
01:00:01,557 --> 01:00:03,767
Nina started to get more aggressive.

721
01:00:04,351 --> 01:00:07,901
I remember one time as she
walked to Dr King and said:

722
01:00:08,606 --> 01:00:10,516
"I'm not non-violent."

723
01:00:11,191 --> 01:00:14,951
He said: "That's OK, sister.
You don't have to be."

724
01:00:15,779 --> 01:00:18,699
I was never non-violent. Never.

725
01:00:19,158 --> 01:00:22,748
I thought we should get our
rights by any means necessary.

726
01:00:23,245 --> 01:00:25,155
And then she met Stokely Carmichael.

727
01:00:25,497 --> 01:00:28,377
Miss Simone says something
very significant

728
01:00:28,542 --> 01:00:30,462
in her song "Mississippi Goddam".

729
01:00:30,753 --> 01:00:35,843
She says, "This country is built on lies."

730
01:00:36,008 --> 01:00:38,468
You're gonna sit in front of
your television set

731
01:00:38,636 --> 01:00:40,296
and listen to LBJ tell you that

732
01:00:40,471 --> 01:00:44,141
"Violence never accomplishes
anything, my fellow Americans."

733
01:00:44,725 --> 01:00:46,345
And the honky drafting you out of school

734
01:00:46,518 --> 01:00:48,098
to go fight in Vietnam.

735
01:00:48,270 --> 01:00:51,610
If you don't want any trouble,
keep your filthy white hands

736
01:00:51,774 --> 01:00:53,534
off our beautiful black skin.

737
01:00:53,942 --> 01:00:55,242
Keep them off!

738
01:00:55,986 --> 01:01:00,116
I am just one of the people
who's sick of the social order,

739
01:01:00,282 --> 01:01:03,412
sick of the establishment,
sick to my soul of it all.

740
01:01:03,702 --> 01:01:07,622
To me, America's society is
nothing but a cancer,

741
01:01:07,790 --> 01:01:10,710
and it must be exposed
before it can be cured.

742
01:01:10,876 --> 01:01:12,706
I am not the doctor to cure it.

743
01:01:12,878 --> 01:01:15,588
All I can do is expose the sickness.

744
01:01:18,509 --> 01:01:20,299
Are you ready, black people?

745
01:01:20,969 --> 01:01:22,259
Yeah!

746
01:01:23,931 --> 01:01:25,311
Are you ready, black people?

747
01:01:25,641 --> 01:01:26,641
Yeah!

748
01:01:28,102 --> 01:01:29,442
Are you really ready?

749
01:01:29,812 --> 01:01:30,812
Yeah!

750
01:01:31,355 --> 01:01:33,315
She wanted to align herself

751
01:01:33,482 --> 01:01:36,242
with the extreme terrorist militants

752
01:01:36,402 --> 01:01:37,952
who were influencing her.

753
01:01:38,112 --> 01:01:40,412
And after all of these meetings
with all these people,

754
01:01:40,572 --> 01:01:41,782
she would come to me and,

755
01:01:41,949 --> 01:01:45,079
"Let's get the guns.
Let's poison the reservoir."

756
01:01:45,244 --> 01:01:48,004
All sorts of violent terrorist acts.

757
01:01:48,163 --> 01:01:53,343
Are you ready to call the wrath
of black gods, black magic,

758
01:01:54,503 --> 01:01:55,753
to do your bidding?

759
01:01:55,921 --> 01:01:57,761
Black people are never
gonna get their rights

760
01:01:57,923 --> 01:02:00,093
unless they have their own separate state.

761
01:02:00,259 --> 01:02:01,839
And if we'd have armed revolution,

762
01:02:02,219 --> 01:02:03,679
there'd be a lot of blood.

763
01:02:03,846 --> 01:02:05,886
I think we'd have that separate state.

764
01:02:06,056 --> 01:02:09,806
Are you ready to smash white things?

765
01:02:09,977 --> 01:02:11,017
Yeah!

766
01:02:12,855 --> 01:02:14,605
To burn buildings, are you ready?

767
01:02:14,773 --> 01:02:15,773
Yeah!

768
01:02:16,275 --> 01:02:18,855
At a certain point, Nina started to play

769
01:02:19,027 --> 01:02:21,277
only political songs and nothing else.

770
01:02:21,655 --> 01:02:23,405
That started to hurt her career.

771
01:02:23,574 --> 01:02:25,584
That became a problem to book her,

772
01:02:25,743 --> 01:02:27,663
because promoters were a bit afraid

773
01:02:27,870 --> 01:02:32,460
it might only be the political
message that you were getting.

774
01:02:32,666 --> 01:02:35,166
Are you ready to kill if necessary?

775
01:02:35,335 --> 01:02:36,545
Yeah!

776
01:02:37,045 --> 01:02:39,795
- Is your mind ready?
- Yeah!

777
01:02:39,965 --> 01:02:41,465
Is your body ready?

778
01:02:41,800 --> 01:02:42,800
Yeah!

779
01:02:43,010 --> 01:02:45,970
If I'd had my way, I'd have been a killer.

780
01:02:46,346 --> 01:02:48,806
I would have had guns and
I would have gone to the South

781
01:02:48,974 --> 01:02:52,144
and gave them violence for
violence, shotgun for shotgun,

782
01:02:52,311 --> 01:02:53,731
but my husband told me...

783
01:02:53,896 --> 01:02:56,516
I didn't know anything about
guns and he refused to teach me.

784
01:02:56,690 --> 01:02:59,110
The only thing I had was music,
so I obeyed him.

785
01:02:59,485 --> 01:03:02,275
If I'd had my way, I wouldn't be
sitting here today.

786
01:03:02,613 --> 01:03:04,453
I'd be probably dead.

787
01:03:04,740 --> 01:03:07,160
Are you really, really, really ready?

788
01:03:07,326 --> 01:03:08,576
Yeah!

789
01:03:08,744 --> 01:03:11,124
She's putting down the white people...

790
01:03:11,330 --> 01:03:14,250
You know, like a barking dog.

791
01:03:14,625 --> 01:03:17,165
But she still wanted all the good things.

792
01:03:17,461 --> 01:03:23,131
Whenever she'd see
Aretha Franklin, Gladys Knight

793
01:03:23,300 --> 01:03:26,470
and all of these people
on the prime television shows,

794
01:03:27,012 --> 01:03:29,562
she, of course, was very upset because

795
01:03:29,723 --> 01:03:31,813
she wasn't able to get on to these shows

796
01:03:31,975 --> 01:03:34,225
because of her reputation.

797
01:03:34,394 --> 01:03:36,694
It got so that there wasn't that much work

798
01:03:36,855 --> 01:03:38,935
and the expenses were high.

799
01:03:39,191 --> 01:03:42,491
It was cutting the legs out from
all the work that I had done.

800
01:03:42,653 --> 01:03:43,653
See you later.

801
01:03:44,738 --> 01:03:45,778
I'll see you later.

802
01:03:46,406 --> 01:03:48,126
I remember my dad
complaining about the fact

803
01:03:48,283 --> 01:03:49,913
she never stopped speaking out.

804
01:03:50,369 --> 01:03:51,869
But that's who she was.

805
01:03:52,496 --> 01:03:53,776
It was OK when you were on stage.

806
01:03:53,914 --> 01:03:55,482
It's OK 'cause you let it all
hang out and then

807
01:03:55,582 --> 01:03:57,462
when the show ends and the lights go out,

808
01:03:57,626 --> 01:04:00,416
"OK, let's put the monkey back
in the cage and eat your banana,

809
01:04:00,587 --> 01:04:02,457
you know, just behave yourself."

810
01:04:03,215 --> 01:04:07,505
It was like she was penalised
and punished for being herself.

811
01:04:08,804 --> 01:04:12,474
That's a very painful, lonely place to be.

812
01:04:15,269 --> 01:04:16,269
Good evening.

813
01:04:16,562 --> 01:04:18,362
Tonight my guest in the studio with me

814
01:04:18,522 --> 01:04:20,362
needs almost no introduction.

815
01:04:20,732 --> 01:04:22,402
She is Miss Nina Simone.

816
01:04:22,609 --> 01:04:24,239
Nina, when it comes to the artists today,

817
01:04:24,403 --> 01:04:25,953
we find that more of the artists

818
01:04:26,113 --> 01:04:30,123
are attempting to alert America
to the need for change.

819
01:04:30,284 --> 01:04:32,244
Is this really the artist's role?

820
01:04:32,494 --> 01:04:37,294
Well, I think it's something
that I've chosen to do

821
01:04:37,708 --> 01:04:40,038
and I've felt compelled to do it.

822
01:04:41,336 --> 01:04:43,296
So it is my role...

823
01:04:43,672 --> 01:04:45,922
but sometimes, I wish it wasn't.

824
01:04:47,342 --> 01:04:50,512
I think that the artists who
don't get involved

825
01:04:50,679 --> 01:04:54,889
in preaching
messages probably are happier.

826
01:04:55,309 --> 01:05:00,269
But you see, I have to live with
Nina and that is very difficult.

827
01:05:44,024 --> 01:05:47,034
I think 19 people depend on me
for their livelihood.

828
01:05:47,194 --> 01:05:48,574
That's a hell of a lot of people.

829
01:05:48,779 --> 01:05:51,819
I know that if I say, "Look, I'm
too tired to work tonight,

830
01:05:51,990 --> 01:05:53,410
I'm gonna get it from both ends.

831
01:05:53,659 --> 01:05:57,079
Nobody's gonna understand
or care that I'm too tired.

832
01:05:57,704 --> 01:05:59,164
I'm very aware of that.

833
01:05:59,706 --> 01:06:01,916
Now, I would like some freedom,
somewhere...

834
01:06:02,459 --> 01:06:04,169
Where I didn't feel those pressures.

835
01:06:33,031 --> 01:06:36,411
By the late '60s, I realised
that Nina was fighting

836
01:06:36,576 --> 01:06:39,996
demons that could appear at any
moment and you wouldn't know it.

837
01:06:40,580 --> 01:06:42,960
She could get violent,
she could get really physical,

838
01:06:43,125 --> 01:06:46,085
and the change in her would be dramatic...

839
01:06:46,378 --> 01:06:47,838
Boom, like a switch.

840
01:06:48,672 --> 01:06:53,592
After a while, I realised
I wasn't with my sister...

841
01:06:53,760 --> 01:06:55,640
I was with "that one".

842
01:06:56,471 --> 01:06:59,981
And that one was menacing.

843
01:07:15,824 --> 01:07:19,164
She was very concerned,
in her sane moments,

844
01:07:19,578 --> 01:07:23,998
about these fits of depression and anger.

845
01:07:24,166 --> 01:07:26,706
We even went to
Columbia-Presbyterian Hospital,

846
01:07:26,877 --> 01:07:29,587
I think we signed her in
for four or five days.

847
01:07:29,755 --> 01:07:34,585
They conducted every test known
to medicine at the time.

848
01:07:35,093 --> 01:07:38,263
They were unable to find anything.

849
01:08:15,675 --> 01:08:19,425
And her downward spiral,
it just got worse and worse.

850
01:08:20,806 --> 01:08:23,136
We did a tour with Bill Cosby,

851
01:08:23,350 --> 01:08:26,390
and the last night, she became erratic.

852
01:08:27,020 --> 01:08:29,150
She had a can of shoe polish.

853
01:08:29,731 --> 01:08:32,111
She was putting it in her hair.

854
01:08:32,317 --> 01:08:35,277
She began talking gibberish...

855
01:08:35,654 --> 01:08:38,664
She was totally out of it, incoherent.

856
01:08:39,116 --> 01:08:42,036
It appeared she was having
a nervous breakdown.

857
01:08:42,244 --> 01:08:46,874
When it came time to go on,
I had to escort her

858
01:08:47,165 --> 01:08:50,335
by holding her arm onto the stage

859
01:08:50,502 --> 01:08:52,672
and sat her down at the piano.

860
01:08:52,921 --> 01:08:56,471
I immediately stood in the wings
on the opposite side

861
01:08:56,633 --> 01:08:58,763
where we could see one another.

862
01:08:58,927 --> 01:09:03,387
She's watching me pantomime
and she performed.

863
01:09:04,683 --> 01:09:08,273
Basically, she had no control
over her emotions,

864
01:09:08,436 --> 01:09:12,266
and underneath it all, sex dominated her.

865
01:09:12,607 --> 01:09:15,277
There were times, once or twice a week,

866
01:09:15,443 --> 01:09:21,583
when there was a sex attack when
she goes into a maniacal rage.

867
01:09:21,867 --> 01:09:24,697
There had to be sex.
I mean, this is driving her.

868
01:09:25,871 --> 01:09:27,621
My attitude towards sex was

869
01:09:27,789 --> 01:09:29,579
that we should have it all the time.

870
01:09:30,250 --> 01:09:32,170
How did Andy act towards you?

871
01:09:32,335 --> 01:09:34,665
I just wanted him to move me sexually,

872
01:09:34,838 --> 01:09:36,378
and he never was able to.

873
01:09:36,548 --> 01:09:37,258
Right.

874
01:09:37,424 --> 01:09:40,514
He didn't know how to touch me
and he never had enough time.

875
01:09:40,719 --> 01:09:42,299
He'd come to see me late at night

876
01:09:42,470 --> 01:09:44,810
and be there two hours and leave.

877
01:09:46,057 --> 01:09:49,897
I knew that she was dating other people.

878
01:09:50,270 --> 01:09:54,980
We agreed we could both have
our own outside partners.

879
01:09:56,026 --> 01:09:57,646
But we would work together

880
01:09:57,861 --> 01:10:00,411
for the sake of the business
and the child.

881
01:10:03,533 --> 01:10:06,373
I can't sit here and speak about

882
01:10:06,536 --> 01:10:09,286
Aunt Nina and Uncle Andy's marriage.

883
01:10:09,497 --> 01:10:11,457
What I can say is that

884
01:10:11,625 --> 01:10:15,835
participation and activism during the '60s

885
01:10:16,796 --> 01:10:21,176
rendered chaos in any individual's lives.

886
01:10:22,427 --> 01:10:26,347
People sacrificed sanity,
well-being, life.

887
01:10:27,641 --> 01:10:29,891
Nina Simone was a free spirit

888
01:10:30,060 --> 01:10:33,940
in an era that didn't really
appreciate a woman's genius.

889
01:10:34,231 --> 01:10:37,731
So what does that do
to a household and a family?

890
01:10:38,235 --> 01:10:39,685
Not because of income,

891
01:10:39,903 --> 01:10:42,413
but because of your soul
not being able to do

892
01:10:42,572 --> 01:10:43,912
what you need to do.

893
01:10:56,211 --> 01:10:58,051
Direct from our newsroom in Washington,

894
01:10:58,213 --> 01:11:01,633
this is the CBS Evening News
with Walter Cronkite.

895
01:11:02,801 --> 01:11:05,351
Good evening. Dr Martin Luther King,

896
01:11:05,553 --> 01:11:08,433
the apostle of non-violence
in the civil rights movement,

897
01:11:08,598 --> 01:11:11,228
has been shot to death
in Memphis, Tennessee.

898
01:11:11,685 --> 01:11:12,805
Jesus!

899
01:11:14,980 --> 01:11:17,360
There was shock in
the nation's negro communities.

900
01:11:18,400 --> 01:11:20,690
Men, women and children poured
into the streets.

901
01:11:20,986 --> 01:11:23,236
They appeared dazed. Many were crying.

902
01:11:24,614 --> 01:11:27,334
I think White
America made its biggest mistake

903
01:11:27,951 --> 01:11:30,791
when she killed Dr King last night.

904
01:11:31,663 --> 01:11:34,753
He was the one man in our race

905
01:11:34,958 --> 01:11:36,918
who was trying to teach our people

906
01:11:37,085 --> 01:11:39,125
to have love, compassion and mercy

907
01:11:39,296 --> 01:11:41,086
for what white people had done.

908
01:11:41,423 --> 01:11:44,013
When White America killed
Dr King last night,

909
01:11:44,843 --> 01:11:47,433
she killed all reasonable hope.

910
01:11:51,057 --> 01:11:57,107
We wanted to do a tune written for today,

911
01:11:57,981 --> 01:12:02,071
for this hour, for Dr Martin Luther King.

912
01:12:03,320 --> 01:12:06,990
We had yesterday to learn it and...

913
01:12:08,616 --> 01:12:09,616
So we'll see.

914
01:12:44,986 --> 01:12:47,946
Last year, Lorraine Hansberry left us.

915
01:12:48,531 --> 01:12:50,491
She was a dear friend.

916
01:12:50,658 --> 01:12:52,828
Then Langston Hughes left us.

917
01:12:53,036 --> 01:12:54,036
Who can go on?

918
01:12:54,162 --> 01:12:57,212
Do you realise how many we have lost?

919
01:12:58,333 --> 01:13:01,673
Then it really gets down
to reality, doesn't it?

920
01:13:03,755 --> 01:13:05,085
Not a performance.

921
01:13:07,300 --> 01:13:09,760
Not microphones and all that crap,

922
01:13:10,470 --> 01:13:12,220
but really something else.

923
01:13:14,099 --> 01:13:16,349
We can't afford any more losses

924
01:13:17,018 --> 01:13:19,848
Oh, no. Oh, my God.

925
01:13:20,897 --> 01:13:23,527
They're shooting us down, one by one.

926
01:13:23,900 --> 01:13:24,980
Don't forget that...

927
01:13:26,444 --> 01:13:27,784
'Cause they are.

928
01:13:29,989 --> 01:13:32,239
Killing us one by one.

929
01:14:24,252 --> 01:14:26,172
I knew that we were lost.

930
01:14:27,130 --> 01:14:28,880
I felt chased all the time,

931
01:14:29,048 --> 01:14:31,758
no matter what I did or how sad I got.

932
01:14:32,343 --> 01:14:35,853
I felt that there was just no
life for me in the country.

933
01:14:36,890 --> 01:14:39,560
I knew I had to quit
or I had to leave Andy

934
01:14:39,726 --> 01:14:41,846
or do something.

935
01:14:42,437 --> 01:14:45,687
So I took my ring off, put it on the table

936
01:14:45,940 --> 01:14:47,440
and I left the country.

937
01:15:18,097 --> 01:15:21,387
According to my godsister
Attallah Shabazz...

938
01:15:21,559 --> 01:15:24,769
I was staying with them,
and Mom had gone away,

939
01:15:25,313 --> 01:15:28,533
and the phone would ring and
whenever it would ring,

940
01:15:28,691 --> 01:15:31,691
I would go running, saying,
"Is that my mommy on the phone?"

941
01:15:32,570 --> 01:15:35,200
Then I remember going back
to the house in Mount Vernon

942
01:15:35,406 --> 01:15:36,986
and Dad just wasn't there.

943
01:15:37,492 --> 01:15:38,492
He wasn't there.

944
01:15:38,868 --> 01:15:41,828
And nobody told me anything, you know?

945
01:15:41,996 --> 01:15:42,996
And...

946
01:15:43,873 --> 01:15:44,873
So...

947
01:15:47,252 --> 01:15:51,262
One day you're at home and the
staff is there, your dad's there

948
01:15:51,422 --> 01:15:54,682
the dog's there and everything
that's familiar to you is there.

949
01:15:54,884 --> 01:15:57,684
And then you come back,
I don't know, weeks later and...

950
01:15:58,429 --> 01:16:00,519
Nothing's there, nobody's there.

951
01:16:19,158 --> 01:16:22,538
I decided that I wanted
to go to Africa to live

952
01:16:22,745 --> 01:16:24,655
and never come back to America.

953
01:16:25,206 --> 01:16:28,876
I got divorced from Andy and
I went to Liberia

954
01:16:29,711 --> 01:16:31,091
and I moved there to stay.

955
01:16:33,756 --> 01:16:38,046
When I got to Africa,
I am happy, I'm beyond happy.

956
01:16:39,053 --> 01:16:43,393
Liberia is a place that was
founded by the American slaves,

957
01:16:43,558 --> 01:16:46,808
and it only makes sense that
I should feel at home there.

958
01:16:49,272 --> 01:16:51,022
Bikinis and boots is all I wore.

959
01:16:51,190 --> 01:16:51,770
Yeah.

960
01:16:52,025 --> 01:16:54,645
There was no loneliness.
There was no boredom.

961
01:16:54,986 --> 01:16:57,276
The days flew into nights,

962
01:16:57,447 --> 01:17:00,067
and you just couldn't keep up
with the times

963
01:17:00,241 --> 01:17:02,791
'cause there was so much to do.
It was always fun.

964
01:17:06,039 --> 01:17:08,329
I also am keenly aware

965
01:17:08,499 --> 01:17:14,049
that I've entered a world that
I dreamed of all my life

966
01:17:14,505 --> 01:17:16,965
and that it is a perfect world.

967
01:17:17,550 --> 01:17:19,760
I remember thinking of the United States

968
01:17:19,927 --> 01:17:23,557
as something that I had had in a dream

969
01:17:24,223 --> 01:17:26,183
sometime in my life

970
01:17:26,434 --> 01:17:30,194
but is now gone, like it never existed!

971
01:17:30,938 --> 01:17:33,778
It was a dream that I had had

972
01:17:34,108 --> 01:17:35,648
and I had worked myself out of it

973
01:17:35,818 --> 01:17:39,908
because I had toiled so long
in that place, in that prison...

974
01:17:40,990 --> 01:17:43,700
And now I'm home, now I'm free,

975
01:17:44,327 --> 01:17:46,327
and there is no going back.

976
01:17:46,746 --> 01:17:49,666
There, it was vast and open,

977
01:17:49,832 --> 01:17:51,832
and everything was natural.

978
01:17:52,001 --> 01:17:52,751
Everything.

979
01:17:52,919 --> 01:17:57,299
I have seen lightning in Africa
not flash, but hover,

980
01:17:57,590 --> 01:18:00,180
and what it does is it electrifies you

981
01:18:00,343 --> 01:18:02,513
into complete speechlessness.

982
01:18:02,929 --> 01:18:07,389
I have seen it! I have seen God.

983
01:18:14,065 --> 01:18:17,685
In my seventh grade year,
Mom moved me to Liberia,

984
01:18:18,027 --> 01:18:21,317
but she was always travelling
and I never knew half the time

985
01:18:21,489 --> 01:18:22,569
if I wasn't going,

986
01:18:22,740 --> 01:18:24,660
that she was leaving
or when she was coming back.

987
01:18:25,284 --> 01:18:29,794
So, I lived with a family for a
year and I went to school there.

988
01:18:30,289 --> 01:18:31,539
And I lived with them,

989
01:18:31,708 --> 01:18:34,958
until Mom came and decided
to buy a house on the beach.

990
01:18:35,586 --> 01:18:38,546
I went from living with them
to living with her.

991
01:18:38,715 --> 01:18:40,215
And she just...

992
01:18:43,928 --> 01:18:45,388
I could never do anything right.

993
01:18:47,849 --> 01:18:52,099
She went from being my comfort
to the monster in my life.

994
01:18:52,937 --> 01:18:55,647
Now she was the person that was
doing the beating,

995
01:18:56,065 --> 01:18:57,275
and she was beating me.

996
01:18:59,235 --> 01:19:01,645
One time, we were in public somewhere,

997
01:19:01,863 --> 01:19:05,703
I did something and she went off
on me in front of everybody

998
01:19:06,284 --> 01:19:08,374
I didn't show any emotion

999
01:19:08,536 --> 01:19:10,826
because when Mom would see you cry

1000
01:19:11,414 --> 01:19:14,214
she knew she could push your
buttons. That's what she wanted.

1001
01:19:14,375 --> 01:19:16,335
And I would not give her
that satisfaction.

1002
01:19:16,502 --> 01:19:19,422
When she would hit me, I would
look her dead in her face.

1003
01:19:21,674 --> 01:19:25,644
She'd be like, "You better cry.
You better cry."

1004
01:19:26,387 --> 01:19:27,387
I wouldn't do it.

1005
01:19:29,474 --> 01:19:31,024
Times got really bad,

1006
01:19:31,768 --> 01:19:34,348
to the point where I thought
about committing suicide.

1007
01:19:35,938 --> 01:19:38,398
So, when I was 14, I flew to New York.

1008
01:19:38,858 --> 01:19:41,818
I wound up living with my dad
and I never went back.

1009
01:19:45,573 --> 01:19:48,163
After we broke up,
a lot of things happened.

1010
01:19:48,326 --> 01:19:49,826
She didn't file taxes.

1011
01:19:49,994 --> 01:19:51,544
She didn't take care of business.

1012
01:19:51,913 --> 01:19:53,463
She lost the house in Mount Vernon.

1013
01:19:53,623 --> 01:19:55,793
Everything went crazy.

1014
01:19:56,834 --> 01:19:58,924
She lived a nomadic life,

1015
01:19:59,086 --> 01:20:01,166
having no manager, having no husband

1016
01:20:01,881 --> 01:20:03,841
but she always said living in Africa

1017
01:20:04,008 --> 01:20:06,178
was the happiest time in her life.

1018
01:20:06,594 --> 01:20:08,434
She could just be there, enjoy herself.

1019
01:20:08,596 --> 01:20:10,426
She didn't have to sing at all.

1020
01:20:10,848 --> 01:20:14,348
She wasn't playing piano
and she wasn't performing.

1021
01:20:14,560 --> 01:20:17,020
She said she hated the piano.
She hated it.

1022
01:20:18,022 --> 01:20:21,072
Think about it. She's playing
since she was four years old.

1023
01:20:22,026 --> 01:20:24,696
On the other hand, she was well aware

1024
01:20:24,862 --> 01:20:26,912
in Africa, no money came in.

1025
01:20:27,156 --> 01:20:29,276
So she had to pick up her career again.

1026
01:20:30,701 --> 01:20:33,871
She didn't want to return to
what she called,

1027
01:20:34,163 --> 01:20:36,293
"The United Snakes of America."

1028
01:20:36,499 --> 01:20:37,919
So, she moved to Switzerland,

1029
01:20:38,084 --> 01:20:41,094
which was the complete opposite of Africa.

1030
01:20:41,295 --> 01:20:43,835
The first thing she did was
the Montreux concert.

1031
01:21:09,907 --> 01:21:10,907
You on, yeah?

1032
01:21:13,119 --> 01:21:15,039
Do you hear all those noises?

1033
01:21:15,663 --> 01:21:17,373
You didn't forget me, huh?

1034
01:21:17,915 --> 01:21:21,085
That's what's so wild,
you didn't forget me.

1035
01:21:24,255 --> 01:21:25,875
I didn't expect you to.

1036
01:21:28,259 --> 01:21:29,509
But I'm tired.

1037
01:21:32,388 --> 01:21:33,968
You don't know what I mean.

1038
01:21:36,350 --> 01:21:38,980
And they are many people
in show business who said:

1039
01:21:39,145 --> 01:21:41,645
"You know, she used to be a star.

1040
01:21:41,814 --> 01:21:43,824
She's gone all the way to the bottom"

1041
01:21:43,983 --> 01:21:47,493
and all kinds of crap, which
means nothing to me at all.

1042
01:21:49,238 --> 01:21:53,078
I hope that you will see me or
see the spirit

1043
01:21:53,451 --> 01:21:57,831
in another sphere,
on another plane very soon now.

1044
01:21:58,539 --> 01:22:01,169
And again, I don't wanna let you
down and I get this feeling.

1045
01:22:01,334 --> 01:22:05,054
So I think the only way to tell
you who I am these days,

1046
01:22:05,630 --> 01:22:09,800
is to sing a song by Janis Ian.

1047
01:22:27,485 --> 01:22:28,645
Hey, girl, sit down.

1048
01:22:29,946 --> 01:22:30,986
Sit down!

1049
01:22:36,869 --> 01:22:37,869
Sit down!

1050
01:25:39,635 --> 01:25:41,635
In Switzerland, I had no money.

1051
01:25:41,971 --> 01:25:43,851
I never got anything from Andy.

1052
01:25:44,014 --> 01:25:47,184
He just cut himself off from me
and I was left high and dry.

1053
01:25:47,977 --> 01:25:50,897
So, I left Switzerland and
I went to Paris,

1054
01:25:51,063 --> 01:25:53,153
thinking I could resume my career.

1055
01:25:53,315 --> 01:25:57,235
I did it alone.
And I landed in the wrong place

1056
01:25:57,736 --> 01:26:01,026
I was working every night in a small café,

1057
01:26:01,282 --> 01:26:02,832
for about $300 a night.

1058
01:26:05,995 --> 01:26:08,155
- Do you speak English?
- Yes.

1059
01:26:11,000 --> 01:26:12,170
The show is over.

1060
01:26:12,334 --> 01:26:14,634
No, we just do " Vous Etes Seuls."

1061
01:26:15,004 --> 01:26:16,094
It goes like this.

1062
01:26:21,677 --> 01:26:25,097
I was desperate and
no one believed I was there.

1063
01:26:25,264 --> 01:26:28,394
I was too big to be there.
No one came to see me.

1064
01:26:28,809 --> 01:26:31,599
I had fallen from grace.

1065
01:26:32,771 --> 01:26:35,071
I'm sorry that I didn't become

1066
01:26:35,232 --> 01:26:38,152
the world's first black classic pianist.

1067
01:26:38,861 --> 01:26:41,281
I think I would have been happier.

1068
01:26:41,530 --> 01:26:43,200
I'm not very happy now.

1069
01:26:44,950 --> 01:26:47,870
I wouldn't change being part of
the civil rights movement.

1070
01:26:48,037 --> 01:26:49,077
I wouldn't change that.

1071
01:26:49,622 --> 01:26:52,422
But some of the songs that
I sang have hurt my career.

1072
01:26:52,666 --> 01:26:54,246
All of the controversial songs

1073
01:26:54,418 --> 01:26:57,298
the industry decided to punish me for.

1074
01:26:58,214 --> 01:27:00,424
They put a boycott on all of my records,

1075
01:27:01,091 --> 01:27:03,051
and it's...

1076
01:27:05,095 --> 01:27:07,675
hard for me to incorporate
those songs any more

1077
01:27:07,848 --> 01:27:09,808
because they
are not relevant to the times.

1078
01:27:10,142 --> 01:27:13,102
In terms of the civil rights
movement, how far have we come?

1079
01:27:13,479 --> 01:27:15,019
There aren't any civil rights.

1080
01:27:16,523 --> 01:27:17,523
What do you mean?

1081
01:27:17,775 --> 01:27:20,275
There is no reason to sing those songs.

1082
01:27:20,444 --> 01:27:21,614
Nothing is happening.

1083
01:27:21,779 --> 01:27:22,972
There's no civil rights movement.

1084
01:27:23,072 --> 01:27:24,372
Everybody's gone.

1085
01:27:25,991 --> 01:27:30,831
I met Nina in 1967and I've been
her friend all her life.

1086
01:27:31,080 --> 01:27:34,380
She called me in 1982 and
she was here in Paris,

1087
01:27:34,541 --> 01:27:36,001
living in a very small apartment,

1088
01:27:36,168 --> 01:27:37,628
hardly with any money.

1089
01:27:37,795 --> 01:27:40,415
She did concerts of four hours
long at Trois Mailletz,

1090
01:27:41,048 --> 01:27:44,468
that nightclub, and she got
a few hundred dollars a night.

1091
01:27:45,386 --> 01:27:46,886
That was the worst period.

1092
01:27:47,054 --> 01:27:51,434
I visited her in that little
apartment and it was so dirty.

1093
01:27:51,600 --> 01:27:52,770
I cleaned it all up and...

1094
01:27:53,102 --> 01:27:55,312
"Nina, you can't live like this."

1095
01:27:55,771 --> 01:27:57,941
At that moment, she was still
uncontrollable.

1096
01:27:58,857 --> 01:28:01,067
This thing in the Grand Hotel
in Paris happened.

1097
01:28:01,235 --> 01:28:03,775
Somebody looked her in the eyes
a bit too long,

1098
01:28:03,988 --> 01:28:07,488
She was already a bit nervous
and she kind of...

1099
01:28:08,826 --> 01:28:09,906
made a movement,

1100
01:28:10,077 --> 01:28:11,697
and I thought, "She's gonna hit him."

1101
01:28:11,870 --> 01:28:15,330
Immediately, my arms around her
and I dragged her out in a taxi.

1102
01:28:15,499 --> 01:28:17,959
I said to the taxi driver, "Drive."

1103
01:28:19,545 --> 01:28:21,005
When I saw her in Paris,

1104
01:28:21,255 --> 01:28:24,295
she was like a street urchin,
dressed in rags.

1105
01:28:24,591 --> 01:28:28,431
I couldn't believe what was
happening and I was really sad.

1106
01:28:29,930 --> 01:28:32,470
Gerrit and I knew something
was very wrong.

1107
01:28:32,933 --> 01:28:35,103
We were trying to figure out,

1108
01:28:35,477 --> 01:28:37,897
"What is it? What is it, really?"

1109
01:28:39,815 --> 01:28:44,605
So Gerrit found her a condo
in Nijmegen in Holland

1110
01:28:45,279 --> 01:28:48,569
Gerrit had a friend, a doctor,
that he brought to Nina's place

1111
01:28:49,158 --> 01:28:51,908
The doctor examined her and
asked her questions,

1112
01:28:52,286 --> 01:28:58,456
and he prescribed a medication,
new spectrum, called Trilafon.

1113
01:28:59,793 --> 01:29:01,303
It wasn't until I was in my 20s

1114
01:29:01,462 --> 01:29:03,422
that I went to visit her in Nijmegen.

1115
01:29:03,797 --> 01:29:07,887
That's when I learned the term
"manic-depressive"and "bipolar"

1116
01:29:08,052 --> 01:29:09,411
and I remember asking, "What is that?

1117
01:29:09,511 --> 01:29:10,681
What do you mean by that?"

1118
01:29:10,888 --> 01:29:12,598
And her mood swings

1119
01:29:12,848 --> 01:29:14,978
and a lot of the things
I dealt with earlier in life

1120
01:29:15,142 --> 01:29:17,522
when one minute she'd be happy,
the next minute...

1121
01:29:19,396 --> 01:29:22,066
I'd be dealing with someone that
wasn't in the room

1122
01:29:22,232 --> 01:29:23,362
five minutes ago.

1123
01:29:23,859 --> 01:29:25,399
It started to make sense.

1124
01:29:26,362 --> 01:29:29,372
She got so deep in the shit in the end

1125
01:29:29,615 --> 01:29:33,115
that she realised
it's either dying or give in.

1126
01:29:33,577 --> 01:29:35,537
And she gave in because we said, "Nina...

1127
01:29:36,288 --> 01:29:39,998
we'll get you a house,
we'll get you your musicians,

1128
01:29:40,667 --> 01:29:43,337
we'll make the things all right
around you,

1129
01:29:43,837 --> 01:29:45,257
we'll book your concerts,

1130
01:29:46,298 --> 01:29:49,008
but you have to do what we say.

1131
01:29:50,135 --> 01:29:52,425
You have to take your medicine.
You have to work.

1132
01:29:52,805 --> 01:29:54,425
God has given you the possibility

1133
01:29:54,598 --> 01:29:56,768
to be able to do what you do, so do it.

1134
01:29:57,101 --> 01:29:59,811
The only thing we want to hear
is either 'yes' or 'no'."

1135
01:29:59,978 --> 01:30:02,818
She said, with tears in her eyes, "Yes."

1136
01:30:04,733 --> 01:30:05,823
When I saw her,

1137
01:30:05,984 --> 01:30:08,994
I was very concerned
because she had a nervous tic.

1138
01:30:09,905 --> 01:30:12,405
She'd be talking or sitting and this...

1139
01:30:12,574 --> 01:30:14,664
Her mouth would always be twitching.

1140
01:30:14,993 --> 01:30:17,703
When she would walk,
it was more of a shuffle.

1141
01:30:18,247 --> 01:30:20,287
And I'm like, "What's going on here?"

1142
01:30:20,707 --> 01:30:24,167
You know, "Why... What's going on?

1143
01:30:24,378 --> 01:30:25,378
What am I missing?"

1144
01:30:25,546 --> 01:30:26,876
And they had her on medication.

1145
01:30:28,257 --> 01:30:31,257
She started taking the Trilafon
and the doctor said,

1146
01:30:31,552 --> 01:30:33,602
"Through the years,
it's going to have an effect

1147
01:30:33,887 --> 01:30:35,057
on her motor skills.

1148
01:30:35,472 --> 01:30:37,562
Her voice is going to start to slur

1149
01:30:37,808 --> 01:30:40,638
and her piano abilities will decline.

1150
01:30:41,103 --> 01:30:42,403
You can deal with that

1151
01:30:42,563 --> 01:30:46,153
or you can deal with her
probably damaging herself

1152
01:30:46,567 --> 01:30:47,777
or someone else."

1153
01:30:49,486 --> 01:30:51,696
But the Trilafon really helped.

1154
01:30:51,947 --> 01:30:55,157
There were times in Holland,
sitting on her terrace

1155
01:30:55,784 --> 01:30:58,504
in these lounge chairs
and just holding hands...

1156
01:30:58,662 --> 01:31:01,002
She was like... She was my sister

1157
01:31:01,540 --> 01:31:06,210
and not talking at all for
hours, just enjoying the day.

1158
01:31:08,422 --> 01:31:11,722
I suppose that medication
enabled her to perform

1159
01:31:11,884 --> 01:31:15,144
and fulfil the business
dealings that were taking place

1160
01:31:15,345 --> 01:31:17,805
so that her career could get
back on track.

1161
01:31:18,015 --> 01:31:19,805
But there were times
when I questioned that.

1162
01:31:19,975 --> 01:31:21,185
"But what about her heart?"

1163
01:31:21,351 --> 01:31:22,691
Because at the end of the day,

1164
01:31:22,853 --> 01:31:25,193
you guys got wives and husbands,
and lives.

1165
01:31:25,397 --> 01:31:26,817
But she's alone.

1166
01:31:29,234 --> 01:31:32,204
My personal life is a shambles.

1167
01:31:32,446 --> 01:31:37,116
I've had a few love affairs and
I would love to be married,

1168
01:31:37,284 --> 01:31:41,294
but everything has had to be
sacrificed for the music.

1169
01:31:54,051 --> 01:31:56,431
We had to do, first
in Holland, eight concerts,

1170
01:31:56,595 --> 01:31:59,675
and the word spread
that Nina's doing the job well.

1171
01:32:00,432 --> 01:32:03,352
Then she was on the road again
and it was... poof.

1172
01:32:03,644 --> 01:32:04,774
The business was going.

1173
01:32:07,189 --> 01:32:08,189
She came onstage

1174
01:32:08,357 --> 01:32:11,607
and you had this overwhelming
emotional feeling

1175
01:32:11,777 --> 01:32:15,527
coming from the audience,
just because she was there.

1176
01:32:17,699 --> 01:32:19,789
Now listen to me.

1177
01:32:20,786 --> 01:32:23,156
I love you very much.
I think you know that.

1178
01:32:23,413 --> 01:32:25,083
And I know that you love me.

1179
01:32:25,874 --> 01:32:26,884
I know that.

1180
01:32:29,836 --> 01:32:31,296
We never knew too well

1181
01:32:31,463 --> 01:32:33,723
what was going to happen and
how the mood would be.

1182
01:32:34,341 --> 01:32:36,551
So this place is very hot,

1183
01:32:36,760 --> 01:32:39,350
it's very crowded and it's very ugly.

1184
01:32:43,350 --> 01:32:47,230
But she opened her heart
and soul at that moment.

1185
01:32:47,396 --> 01:32:49,186
This is a special kind of connection

1186
01:32:49,356 --> 01:32:50,766
she had with an audience.

1187
01:32:51,400 --> 01:32:54,240
This song is popular all over France.

1188
01:32:54,903 --> 01:32:56,993
It's from our first album,

1189
01:32:57,281 --> 01:32:59,741
the very first album
we made in this world,

1190
01:33:00,033 --> 01:33:02,243
which is at least 25 years old.

1191
01:33:02,953 --> 01:33:05,123
I only wish I was as wise...

1192
01:33:05,372 --> 01:33:08,382
I could have been as wise
then as I have become now.

1193
01:33:10,210 --> 01:33:11,340
I have suffered.

1194
01:33:12,629 --> 01:33:16,009
But there's a Bösendorfer here,
so we'll see what happened.

1195
01:33:16,174 --> 01:33:17,884
"My Baby Just Cares For Me."

1196
01:33:24,933 --> 01:33:27,143
She was helped by
"My Baby Just Cares For Me",

1197
01:33:27,311 --> 01:33:31,061
that song that became a hit
because of the Chanel ad.

1198
01:33:31,398 --> 01:33:34,028
When "My Baby Just Cares
For Me" came along,

1199
01:33:34,192 --> 01:33:36,452
I said, "I have to take this
opportunity now

1200
01:33:36,653 --> 01:33:39,953
to go all over the world,
because it's my last chance."

1201
01:33:40,115 --> 01:33:44,235
So, I worked very hard to take
advantage of my second coming

1202
01:33:44,411 --> 01:33:46,751
because it was my last time
as far as I was concerned.

1203
01:34:25,702 --> 01:34:29,122
She was happiest doing music.
I think that was her salvation.

1204
01:34:29,289 --> 01:34:31,629
That's the one thing
she didn't have to think about.

1205
01:34:31,833 --> 01:34:34,593
When she sat at the piano,
her fingers could fly.

1206
01:34:40,801 --> 01:34:43,931
She was an anomaly, she
was a genius, she was brilliant.

1207
01:34:44,096 --> 01:34:47,306
That brilliance shone through,

1208
01:34:47,557 --> 01:34:49,477
no matter what she was going through.

1209
01:34:49,685 --> 01:34:53,515
Even into her old age, she was brilliant.

1210
01:35:00,320 --> 01:35:03,030
She was genius.
She could do whatever she liked.

1211
01:35:03,281 --> 01:35:05,661
And when she didn't have her medicine,

1212
01:35:05,826 --> 01:35:08,996
she, musically,
could get even further out.

1213
01:35:17,003 --> 01:35:19,463
In one of those little concerts,
and it's recorded,

1214
01:35:19,631 --> 01:35:22,931
she starts playing one song and
she sings another.

1215
01:35:23,093 --> 01:35:25,683
At this recording, I made Miles Davis...

1216
01:35:25,846 --> 01:35:26,846
While we were on tour,

1217
01:35:27,013 --> 01:35:29,103
we were on the same jazz tour
as Miles Davis...

1218
01:35:29,266 --> 01:35:31,306
And I made him listen to it and he said,

1219
01:35:32,811 --> 01:35:36,111
"Let me listen to it again.
How is she doing this?"

1220
01:35:36,481 --> 01:35:38,071
He couldn't understand.

1221
01:35:44,906 --> 01:35:47,026
As I got older, I started to look at her

1222
01:35:47,200 --> 01:35:52,040
and I thought to myself,
"Wow, she's from another time."

1223
01:35:52,372 --> 01:35:54,462
But she was not at odds with the time.

1224
01:35:54,624 --> 01:35:56,754
Time was at odds with her.

1225
01:35:57,461 --> 01:35:59,211
I think when a person moves

1226
01:35:59,588 --> 01:36:04,218
to their own kind of clock, spirit, flow,

1227
01:36:04,885 --> 01:36:06,635
if we were living in an environment

1228
01:36:06,803 --> 01:36:09,063
that allowed us to be exactly who we are,

1229
01:36:09,765 --> 01:36:11,555
you're always in congress with yourself.

1230
01:36:11,725 --> 01:36:12,885
The challenge is,

1231
01:36:13,059 --> 01:36:16,229
"How do we fit in in the world
that we're around?"

1232
01:36:16,396 --> 01:36:18,896
"Are we allowed to be exactly who we are?"

1233
01:36:19,941 --> 01:36:23,991
"Was Nina Simone allowed to be
exactly who she was?"

1234
01:36:25,864 --> 01:36:28,704
As fragile as she was strong,

1235
01:36:28,867 --> 01:36:31,697
as vulnerable as she was dynamic,

1236
01:36:32,496 --> 01:36:34,246
she was African royalty.

1237
01:36:35,540 --> 01:36:38,290
How does royalty stomp around in the mud

1238
01:36:39,419 --> 01:36:41,089
and still walk with grace?

1239
01:36:42,214 --> 01:36:46,384
Most people are afraid to be
as honest as she lived.

1240
01:37:01,358 --> 01:37:02,358
Good night!

1241
01:39:03,772 --> 01:39:05,772
All right!

1242
01:39:05,941 --> 01:39:06,941
Whoo!

1243
01:39:17,118 --> 01:39:19,448
It's so hard!