Nadine Cohodas' recent book, "Princess Noire: The Tumultuous Reign of Nina Simone," gives the soulful singer the royal treatment, painstakingly detailing each chapter of her dramatic and sometimes dark life.
Simone was a classically trained pianist who, after being rejected from the Curtis Institute of Music, became a lounge singer in Atlantic City. From there she rose to fame through her jazzy versions of standards such as "I Love You Porgy" and her engaging live performances.
The hostile racial climate of America in the 1960s, the racism she endured throughout her life and her friendships with Lorraine Hansberry and Langston Hughes brought Simone into the civil rights movement. Songs such as "Mississippi Goddam," inspired by the the Birmingham, Ala., church bombing and the murder of Medgar Evers, and "To Be Young, Gifted and Black" have endured as civil rights anthems.
Throughout her life, Simone was plagued by troubles: loneliness, money woes, exhaustion, divorce and bouts with mental illness. "Princess Noire" fits this entire story into about 400 pages, drawing from a number of sources including Simone's autobiography, "I Put a Spell on You," newspaper articles and interviews with family members. The book is told without the author's point of view coming into play, but that doesn't mean that Cohodas wasn't emotionally involved in the story.
"You've got to be essentially living with them," Cohodas said in a phone interview. "So, I gave up a while ago trying to maintain a distance. By that I mean you have to be open to absorbing all the information and then stepping back ... to reconcile differing accounts of the moment you want to try to explain because you think it's instructive." The author will discuss "Princess Noire" at the 14th and V location of Busboys and Poets on June 1 at 6:30 p.m. Express spoke to Cohodas to get the story behind the book.
» EXPRESS: Were you a fan of Nina Simone before writing the book?
» COHODAS: Yes. I'm old enough to remember Nina when I was in college at the University of Michigan. My introduction to her was not her most well-known song, "I Love You Porgy," but rather her version of the Bee Gees' "To Love Somebody," which I thought was quite wonderful and got stuck in my mind for a long, long time.
» EXPRESS: What made you write this book?
» COHODAS: Of course it starts with the music. And the fact that Nina was such an interesting and complicated person. Perhaps you know my previous book was on the wonderful Dinah Washington, a very absorbing and challenging project as well. It seemed for what interests me, which is the intersection of race and culture, that Nina was an appropriate next step.
She is nine years younger than Dinah, which means a different generation, especially when you think of the great and important social upheaval in the United States in the '60s, and of course that's the civil rights movement. What interested me about Nina so much is how her identity as a proud African-American woman was so completely bound up in her art, as I see it, in a way different from singers of a previous generation: Dinah, Sarah Vaughan, Billie Holliday, Ella Fitzgerald. These women broke barriers simply by doing. But Nina made the struggle in having her art and even her physical presentation on stage. When she started wearing an afro and adopted these wonderful African gowns and turbans as part of her dress, it all fused together in a way that was different.
» EXPRESS: The book is extensively researched. How exhausting is the writing process?
» COHODAS: Well, that's a good word. Of the books I've had the good fortune to get out the door, this project took the longest. I think part of it was just that Nina lived a relatively long life. Her career achievements diminished in the latter part of her life, but nevertheless she was still there. So, the initial process was just to untangle the threads of the story, the separate fact from fiction. Then I hoped to present a compelling narrative.
Among the most enriching parts of it for me were the three trips I made to [Simone's North Carolina hometown] Tryon and then the visits in different parts of the country to spend time with her older siblings just to understand where it is that Nina came from. One of the challenges ... is to try to stay in the moment even though you know what's coming. You have to try to be right there with the subject and with the information in the moment.
» EXPRESS: Considering Nina's sometimes dark life, was it emotional to write this book?
» COHODAS: Absolutely. Sure, sure. When Nina was in trouble, so was I. That is to say, how to understand what's going on, how do I sort this out. There were times that I felt angry with her or frustrated or just say, "Oh, come on!" And then, I had to work through those moments and figure out how to tell the story. In this case, the perspective that came from it was to try to let the story tell itself and step back from what were extraordinary moments and sometimes ugly moments, to have the context that you could understand what might be going on.
» EXPRESS: Your talk at Busboys and Poets is being co-sponsored by the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights. Can you explain their involvement?
» COHODAS: The head of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights is a dear friend of mine, a wonderful person [named] Wade Henderson. ... Through Wade and Roscoe Dellums, these two individuals, from their slightly different perspectives, helped me understand how important Nina was to young African-American individuals. Wade remembered seeing Nina at Howard [University] at least once if not another time.
Of course, to me Nina's interest in confronting the racial divide in this country and the power of her music during the civil rights movement makes her important to that community. When I was talking to Wade about the book and talking about this, he so kindly said of course, this is something the organization is happy to sponsor because the interest in civil rights is so important to Nina's profile.
» EXPRESS: What are your favorite Nina Simone recordings?
» COHODAS: The songs that stand out for me are "To Love Somebody," and particularly a live version from the Montreux Jazz Festival. Also, I think Nina's "Four Women" is just a wonderful masterpiece. ... Everybody associates "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood" with The Animals, but Nina recorded that. It's such a lovely and compelling performance because it's so understated. As I say in the book, this is the phrase I use, it doesn't have the "bluesy muscle" of The Animals. So, when you hear Nina sing it, you hear a different kind of pleading in it.
» Busboys & Poets, 2021 14th St. NW; Tue., June 1, 6:30 p.m., free; 202-387-7638. (U St.-Cardozo)
Written by Express contributer Sarah Anne Hughes
Photo by Jason Miccolo
http://www.expressnightout.com/content/2010/06/nadine-cohodas-princess-noire-nina-simone-busboys-poets.php
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