Princess Noire : the tumultuous reign of Nina Simone /

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Bibliographic Details
Author / Creator:Cohodas, Nadine.
Edition:1st ed.
Imprint:New York : Pantheon Books, c2010.
Description:vi, 449 p. : ill. ; 25 cm.
Language:English
Subject:
Format: Print Book
URL for this record:http://pi.lib.uchicago.edu/1001/cat/bib/7932733
Hidden Bibliographic Details
ISBN:9780375424014
0375424016
Notes:Includes bibliographical references and index.
Includes discography.
Description
Summary:From the author of the acclaimed Dinah Washington biography Queen comes this complete account of the triumphs and difficulties of the brilliant and high-tempered Nina Simone. Her distinctive voice and music occupy a singular place in the canon of American song.<br>    <br> Tapping into newly unearthed material--including stories of family and career--Nadine Cohodas gives us a luminous portrait of the singer who was born Eunice Waymon in Tryon, North Carolina, in 1933, one of eight children in a proud black family. We see her as a prodigiously talented child who is trained in classical piano through the charitable auspices of a local white woman. We witness her devastating disappointment when she is rejected by the Curtis Institute of Music--a dream deferred that would forever shape her self-image as well as her music. Yet by 1959--now calling herself Nina Simone--she had sung New York City's venerable Town Hall and was on her way.<br>  <br> As we watch Simone's exciting rise to stardom, Cohodas expertly weaves in the central factors of her life and career: her unique and provocative relationship with her audiences (she would "shush" them angrily; as a classically trained musician, she didn't believe in cabaret chat); her involvement in and contributions to the civil rights movement; her two marriages, including one of brief family contentment with police detective Andy Stroud, with whom she had her daughter, Lisa; the alienation from the United States that drove her to live abroad. Alongside these threads runs a darker one: Nina's increasing and sometimes baffling outbursts of rage and pain and her lifelong struggle to overcome a deep sense of personal injustice, which persisted even as she won international renown.<br>  <br> Princess Noire is a fascinating story, well told and thoroughly documented with intimate photos--a treatment that captures the passions of Nina's life.
Physical Description:vi, 449 p. : ill. ; 25 cm.
Bibliography:Includes bibliographical references and index.
Includes discography.
ISBN:9780375424014
0375424016