Nina Simone Passes Away

[Gina1201]

From aol.com:

NEW YORK (AP) -- Nina Simone, the jazz great whose rapsy, forceful voice helped define the civil rights movement, died Monday at her home in France, her manager Clifton Henderson said. She was 70.
Simone, who was born in North Carolina, was best known for her interpretation of "My Baby Just Cares for Me" in 1966 and "One Night Stand" a year later. She also recorded the socially conscious songs "Mississippi Goddamn" and "Old Jim Crow."

Henderson said she died of "natural causes."

Though she remained a top concert draw in her later years, she was quite frail.

At a 2001 concert at Carnegie Hall, she had to be helped to the stage, and was later seen sitting backstage in a wheelchair.

Simone spent much of her recent time in France.

She is survived by a daughter, Lisa, according to Henderson.

Simone, born Eunice Kathleen Waymon in Tryon, North Carolina, was a classically trained pianist whose songs ranged from blues to spirtuals to classical fare. But she gained fame in 1959 with her recording of "I Loves You Porgy," from the musical "Porgy & Bess."

She later became a voice of the civil rights movement, with her song "Mississippi Goddam," and later, "To Be Young, Gifted and Black."

In 1998, she blamed racism in the United States for her decision to live abroad, saying that as a black person she has "paid a heavy price for fighting the establishment." She did not elaborate but said racial inequality in the United States was now "worse than ever."

She left the United States in 1973 and lived in the Caribbean and Africa before settling in Europe.

Simone, who had a regal presence onstage, enjoyed perhaps her greatest success in the 1960s and 70s, with songs like "I Want A Little Sugar in My Bowl," and "Peaches."

She recorded songs from as diverse as Bob Dylan to the Bee Gees and made them her own. Perhaps one of her more popular covers was her version of "House of the Rising Sun."