Nina Simone

   In class this week we went over a musical artist named Nina Simone. Nina grew up in a religious household, where she first began to play church music on piano. She played for her mother's church, and by doing this she was recognized for her talent. Nina was picked to play for a specific event for the church. In this event, there were two ladies sitting in the front row, and they watched and listen to Nina play the piano. These two ladies were the ones who owned the church, and allowed Nina's mother to do her work their. When Nina finished playing, One of the ladies offered to teach Nina piano to get her better. Nina and her mother accepted this, and Nina was practicing piano regularly and taking lessons. Nina started playing Classical Piano, playing artists like Beethoven, and Debussy. This inspired Nina to become the worlds first African American Classical Pianist.
   This whole dream changed for Nina when she got offered to play Jazz. Nina began to play at places, but strictly just playing piano pieces. She was making good money for herself and also enough to help out her family. Nina started to become popular, and was getting many listeners. So the person who she was playing for told her that she needed to start singing as well. Nina began to sing and play piano. This got her more recognized to the point where she had to change her name so her mother couldn't find out, and she started getting put on t.v. shows. This was when she was introduced to jazz, she played with a guitarist and a jazz band.
   Nina got very popular playing with the guitarist and a full band. She eventually married her husband and she started a family. Her husband became her manager and he started to get her shows. She eventually got her chance to play at a big theater but it wasn't classical music. something occurred to Nina which made her not play on stage for a while, but she eventually came back to the stage to play. Nina played a lot of inspirational music for the African American community, but was loved by all for her talent that she brought to the music world.