Nina Simone—”Solitude”
Nina Simone--vocal/piano/arrangements, accompanied by The Malcom Dodds Singers and an orchestra conducted by Ralph Burns.
“Nina Simone sing Ellington!” was released in August 1962. It was Nina’s idea to do the Ellington album. She had taken a flock of Duke Ellington tunes, some familiar and some not-so-familiar, and handed them interesting and intriguing renditions in her own special style.
A quote from the Liner Notes on the album: “It was inevitable that Nina would one day sing Duke Ellington, and that day, much-waited and much-wanted, is happily here. Nina and the Duke are as natural together as music itself. Ellington’s individualistic and timeless music is complemented perfectly by one of the great stylists of our time. Her range, through the Ellington standards to the lesser-known but nonetheless unique creations, is nothing short of masterful.”
Eunice Kathleen Waylon (1933-2003) began practicing the piano at three and two years later she became the official pianist of the Methodist chapel of her birth town Tyron. At six she and two sisters formed the Waymon Sisters Group and performed at church and other functions.
The same year a Mrs. Miller sponsored Eunice’s first piano lessons with Muriel Mazzanovich. In 1943, ten-year-old Eunice gave her first classical piano recital at the Town Hall of Tyron.
After attending Allen High School of Asheville, Eunice moved to New York to attend Juilliard School of Music.
In August 1950 Eunice’s family moves to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where she begins to give piano lessons.
According to Billboard, Eunice, to supplement her income, took a job accompanying vocal students. She also started singing in order to show them proper phrasing.
In the summer of 1954, when most of her students were away, Eunice obtained her first singing date at the Midtown Bar and Grill in Atlantic City. Here Eunice changed her stage name to Nina Simone -- “I always liked the name Nina, and I saw the name Simone on a movie poster” -- and she sang there for three summers.
In 1957 she had an engagement with her own trio at the Playhouse Inn in New Hope, Pennsylvania. On the strength of a demo side made at that time, Nina was pacted by Bethlehem Records. There she recorded “Porgy,” which became a hit single.
In April 1959, Nina Simone signed with Colpix Records.
The 1962 Colpix LP “Nina Simone sing Ellington!” was produced by Stu Phillips. Nina Simone lend her distinctive talents as a jazz vocalist as well as a featured pianist, as she took a variety of tunes written by Duke Ellington and handed them interesting and intriguing renditions in her own special style. Even though the Duke wrote “Solitude” when this North Carolina girl had just been born, the way Nina sings this mood song would make you believe the Duke wrote it for her. Nina’s secret was that, no matter whose songs she was singing, Nina Simone remained, adamantly, Nina Simone.
For much more information about Nina Simone see Aaron Overfield’s “The Offical Home of Nina Simone” site at http://www.ninasimone.com/ and visit Mauro Boscarol’s very interesting website “The Nina Simone Database”
http://www.boscarol.com/ninasimone/pages/nina/bio.php
Or read Nina Simone’s own book “I Put a Spell On You, Autobiography” (DaCapo Press, reprinted 2003), in which she says about the cover picture for the Ellington album that it was originally a full size photograph of her, but because she was pregnant at the time the picture was cropped to her head, and that is how it was used on the original Colpix LP cover.
