Princess Noire : the Tumultuous Reign of Nina Simone.

As she does in her previous writings--for example, Queen: The Life and Music of Dinah Washington (CH, Sep'06, 44-0221)--Cohodas here captures the trials of the music business, particularly as experienced by women. Looking at every aspect of Simone's work, from stage decorum to audience interaction, the author offers many rich insights into her subject's conflicted emotional world. Throughout, she nurtures the reader's empathy for the artist but takes care to avoid unfounded speculation on racism or gender bias. In fact, this is a 360-degree profile of Simone, offering solid critical insights at every turn. Cohodas details the artist's musical influences, business arrangements, personal relationships, and social awareness, tracing her responses and allowing even those unfamiliar with this period of US music to understand Simone's personal, compositional response to such events as the bombing of a church in Birmingham. Although in using musical terms and concepts Cohodas occasionally deviates from commonly accepted meanings, this is neither sufficiently frequent nor severe enough to detract from the book's scholarship. A valuable title for students of music, women's studies, and the civil rights movement. Summing Up: Recommended. All readers. C. Wadsworth Walker Illinois Central College

"I WILL never be your clown," Nina Simone shouted at a restless nightclub audience in Cannes in 1977. The mostly French-speaking crowd was either unable or unwilling to join her in a singalong, and she took it as a personal affront. "God gave me this gift - and I am a genius. I worked at my craft for six to 14 hours a day, I studied and learned through practice. I am not here just to entertain you. But how can I be alive when you are so dead?" Her speech only prompted more requests for her to "SING!" She managed to get through some songs before delivering her parting words. "You owe me," she railed. "I don't wear a painted smile on my face, like Louis Armstrong." Scenes like this were all too common, especially during the latter Half of Simone's career. Her reputation as mercurial, moody and combative was well establisned, and she did little to dispel this image in her memoir, "I Put a Spell on You." She was nothing if not paradoxical. She promoted black militancy and spoke of her love for "my people," but often treated black audiences with contempt and condescension. She beat up white audiences, too, sometimes declaring her disdain for white people, and yet sustained a substantial crossover following with covers of songs associated with their youth culture. She might show up an hour or two late, ramble incoherently onstage and suddenly give a performance that could bring a weary crowd to tears. But when she called herself a genius - a term usually reserved for male artists - it was not mere hyperbole. Indeed, Nadine Cohodas's disturbing portrait in "Princess Noire" sets out to confirm Simone's genius. The author lingers on her stage performances, her musical decisions, her sartorial choices - the alchemy she created in sound and fury. Cohodas, who has written books about Dinah Washington and Chess Records, devotes more space to Simone's music than any biography to date. But as hard as the author tries, she can't avoid the fact that Simone's fame has more to do with her tempestuous behavior, both on- and offstage. Before Nina Simone arrived, there was Eunice Waymon, born in Tryon, N.C., in 1933, the sixth of eight children. Her father, J. D. Waymon, was a jack-of-all-trades entrepreneur, and her mother, Kate, was a domestic worker whose primary vocation was preaching the Gospel. Eunice was just a small child when she started playing piano in church. Cohodas paints a complex picture of Tryon and its environs, a community ruled by Jim Crow but with a color line porous enough for the Waymons to live fairly comfortably and for young Eunice to take piano lessons from Muriel Mazzanovich, known affectionately as Miss Mazzy. Eunice depended on a white patron to pay for her lessons, and she remained fairly sequestered in the quiet, cloistered world of Miss Mazzy's home, studying Bach and dreaming of a different path. But the walls between Tryon's polite society and the realities of racial subjugation were thin and vulnerable, occasionally tumbling down - as on the night her parents were asked to move out of the front row during one of her public recitals. Eleven-year-old Eunice threatened to refuse to play if her parents could not remain in their seats. Even then, she understood her power as an artist. Eunice continued her music studies at the Allen School, a private high school for black girls in Asheville, probably with the support of white benefactors. Upon graduation, she took classes at Juilliard and worked long hours to prepare for her audition to the prestigious Curtis Institute in Philadelphia. She was rejected, her dream of becoming a concert pianist crushed. In Simone's eyes, the school's rebuff was a racial slight. While Cohodas quotes a Curtis faculty member, Vladimir Sokoloff, who suggests Simone simply wasn't up to the task, she is unwilling to admit that Simone's piano skills were less than brilliant. She may have been the greatest prodigy to come out of Tryon's black community, but in New York City pianists of her caliber were plentiful. Simone's genius lay elsewhere, and it seems she discovered it quite by accident when she accepted a solo piano gig at an Atlantic City nightclub for the summer of 1954 and began singing when pressed by her boss. Adopting the name Nina Simone, she used her deep, husky voice, wideranging knowledge of musical genres and eclectic tastes to push her performances to the foreground in clubs where cocktail piano was meant for atmosphere. And as Cohodas observes, Simone replaced the sexuality of a torch singer with the elegance of a concert pianist, evoking respectability and "race pride" along the way. After reaching the pop charts with her 1959 cover of George Gershwin's "I Loves You, Porgy," she quickly became an international star. She gave audiences more than a concert; -she presented an overall cultural experience, different from pop and jazz, so original that she belongs in a category unto herself. Music made Simone a star; politics made her a force. She joined a small circle of New York-based intellectuals in support of the civil rights movement, speaking out against racism and injustice from her own platform, performing protest songs and writing a few of her own. Her "Mississippi Goddam," written in the wake of Medgar Evers's assassination and the murder of four black girls in a church bombing, became a veritable anthem. Although Simone believed that her politics cost her jobs, by the late '60s she had embraced her role as songstress of black militancy, composing "To Be Young, Gifted and Black," a powerful tribute to the memory of Lorraine Hansberry. Surprisingly, Cohodas devotes little space to understanding the source of Simone's political views and her engagement with the likes of Hansberry, James Baldwin and Stokely Carmichael, or how the larger context of African liberation shaped her own vision. After establishing Simone's musical genius, international success and political prominence, Cohodas details her long downward spiral. To the author's credit, she tries valiantly to keep our attention on the stage and Simone's music, even when it is subpar, and even when Simone's life becomes a litany of self-destructive acts and bitter disappointments. Yet while Cohodas provides vivid descriptions of Simone's behavior, she offers very little by way of explanation. How shy Eunice Waymon became a demanding diva almost overnight remains a mystery. Not until the last 50 pages do we learn that Simone probably suffered from schizophrenia. But was her anger a manifestation of an undiagnosed chemical imbalance, or did it reflect a life of failed marriages, failed affairs, failed motherhood, dislocations, financial woes, and a history of racial and sexual discrimination? Apparently, Simone also survived domestic violence and rape. (Her bisexuality, as well as the manner in which marriage suppressed it, deserves more than the few sentences it receives.) During her final two decades (she died in 2003), as her illness progressed, financial considerations compelled Simone to work. She had to make money - for herself and her handlers, whose livelihoods depended on her - and her shows became exhibitions of her deteriorating life and mental health. Cohodas captures a piteous moment when, after a gig at Swing Plaza in New York in 1983, federal agents turned up to confiscate her earnings. But they didn't touch the cash left out front in a bucket labeled "the Society for the Preservation of Nina Simone." By the end of her "tumultuous reign," Simone was a shadow of her former self, a woman practically broken by an unscrupulous industry, exploitative men and her own demons. Like her performances, the book's final chapters are hard to experience but impossible to ignore. And like so many of us who saw Simone onstage when she should have been convalescing or simply enjoying life, readers may feel an urgent need to listen to her old recordings to remind themselves of what they loved about her in the first place. Robin D. G. Kelley's most recent book is "Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of an American Original." Simone might show up very late, ramble incoherently onstage and then suddenly give a great performance.

*Starred Review* Born in 1933, Eunice Waymon was a musical prodigy, amazing North Carolina churchgoers with her piano playing beginning at age four. Serious, proud, and hardworking, she dreamed of becoming a classical pianist and only began performing her unique blend of classical, gospel, jazz, and pop when she took a nightclub gig to earn money for graduate school. Eunice's spontaneous invention of her alter ego, Nina Simone, is evidence of her formidable capacity for improvisation, the lifeblood of her world-altering music and the skill that helped her survive the bloody turmoil of the civil-rights era. Cohodas infuses every scene with electrifying detail and penetrating insights into Simone's struggles as an African American musician of phenomenal talent and exalted ambition. Cohodas provides gripping descriptions of Simone's indelible music along with profoundly moving accounts of her commanding, increasingly militant, and eventually downright bizarre stage presence. From her regal demeanor to her friendships with James Baldwin and Lorraine Hansberry, courageous activism, and the tragedies that pushed Simone into mental illness, Cohodas chronicles every turn with precision and empathy. The result is a wrenching story of how racism can undermine even the most ascendant life, and a dramatic portrait of an uncompromising, audacious, and beleaguered musical genius of conscience.--Seaman, Donna Copyright 2010 Booklist

Cohodas follows her biography of Dinah Washington (Queen) with that of another prominent African-American jazz singer-although Nina Simone would bristle at that label, insisting from the very start of her career that her music was grounded in the classical. (Eunice Waymon only began performing in nightclubs as Nina Simone after a failed application to the Curtis Institute of Music.) If Cohodas is respectful of Simone's legacy, particularly the impact of songs like "Mississippi Goddam" and "Young, Gifted and Black" on the civil rights movement, she's also forthright about Simone's contentious relationship with audiences and critics, and the possible mental illness underpinning that turmoil. It seems as if every one of Simone's onstage outbursts is recounted, along with every review describing her as "a very angry young woman" or wishing she'd stop playing protest songs. One of the few areas in which Cohodas shows full deference to her subject is in brushing off rumors of lesbian relationships, although a passing comment that Simone was "inexorably drawn" to the playwright Lorraine Hansberry raises questions. For the most part, though, Simone's complex personality-arrogance and brilliance in equal measure-receives a long-overdue elaboration. B&w illus. throughout. (Feb. 2) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

With newly discovered source material, Cohodas (Queen: The Life and Music of Dinah Washington) chronicles the transformation of child prodigy Eunice Waymon into jazz artist Nina Simone. Simone began her childhood as a classically trained pianist in what seemed like a racial vacuum in North Carolina. She learned, however, that the world didn't turn a blind eye to color. Racial injustice was the first of many problems for Simone, which included record industry malpractice and mental illness. Simone's intense interactions with her audience branded her with a high-tempered reputation that made her difficult to watch as well as work with. Verdict Whereas David Brun-Lambert, in his recent Nina Simone, focuses on the events that created the brilliant but angry singer, Cohodas demonstrates what it was like to be in her wake. Music lovers will want a taste of this supersized ego; both books are complementary and recommended. [See Prepub Alert, LJ 10/15/09.]-Brian Sherman, McNeese State Univ. Lib., Lake Charles, LA (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

By-the-numbers biography of irascible jazz singer Nina Simone (19332003). Cohodas (Queen: The Life and Music of Dinah Washington, 2004, etc.) culls his research mostly from Simone's autobiography, newspaper clippings and other secondhand sources, creating a cut-and-paste patchwork that only skims the surface of the singer's artistic persona and never gives a satisfying sense of the private woman behind the public performer. However, early chapters isolate certain important factors that would have undeniable and increasingly negative repercussions throughout Simone's 40-plus-year career. As a teenager, the classically trained Simone (formerly Eunice Waymon) was accepted into Juilliard but rejected by the ber-prestigious Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. Cohodas mildly suggests that this rejection burned its way into Simone's subconscious where it partly metamorphosed into lifelong resentmentand thus, a compensatory overinflated sense of self. What began as activist zeal and a positive, healthy sense of racial pride swelled into mean-spirited public racial divisiveness. This behavioral shift took place, ironically, just as she began to find more popular acceptance and financial success after years of struggling in small clubs and racking up anemic album-sales figures. The author's obvious attempt at a conservatively objective take on Simone's life is admirable, but Cohodas never deals with why Simone's increasingly erratic, narcissisticand often downright unprofessionalbehavior onstage never seemed to have significant negative financial consequences or elicit any serious career-damaging backlash. Simone continued to pull in huge fees for her concerts well into her waning years just before her death in 2003. Although Cohodas gives the reader a pleasingly vivid sense of what a typical live performance was like, this is anything but a comprehensive psychological portrait of the offstage Nina Simone. A timid, uncontroversial look at one of the most controversial, outspoken female musicians in history. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.