| Princess Noire: The Tumultuous Reign of Nina Simone |  | Author: Nadine Cohodas
Publisher: Pantheon
Category: Book
List Price: $30.00
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Rating:  5 reviews
Sales Rank: 217,648
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1
Pages: 464
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.9
Dimensions (in): 9.3 x 6.3 x 1.5
ISBN: 0375424016
Dewey Decimal Number: 921
EAN: 9780375424014
ASIN: 0375424016
Publication Date: February 2, 2010
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
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.
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.
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.
Princess Noire is a fascinating story, well told and thoroughly documented with intimate photos—a treatment that captures the passions of Nina’s life.
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| Customer Reviews:
 GREAT March 15, 2010
BABATUNDE ABDULLAH (Atlanta, Ga USA)
2 out of 5 found this review helpful
I became a fan of Nina Simone when she first song "I love you Porgy" and later became a friend of hers and grew to truly love her. She was truly the "High Priestess of Soul" and there will never be another like her.
A TRUE ARTIST UNDER APPRECIATED March 1, 2010
James L. Woolridge (Sunny Florida)
13 out of 14 found this review helpful
Nina Simone has often been an enigmatic figure. A tremendously talented singer/musician and a recognized figure in the Civil Rights Movement, she often showed a troubling personality. Nadine Cohodas has done a wonderful job giving us a biography of this prominent lady. Born Eunice Waymon in North Carolina, when she was very young she started showing great musical talent. Usually she is classified as a jazz singer but Simone hated classifications. Her failure to be selected in to a prestigious musical school for being black set a feeling that would follower in her live. Now singing as Nina Simone in New York she became a huge performer and would enter into the world of the black intelligentsia. Soon her passion was the Civil rights Movement. But this book shouts out at the problems she had in life. Often she was perceived as having bad behavior with her audiences, and even friends. Turns out she was suffering from bipolar disorders and these were hidden from almost everyone until after her death. Cohodas does a good job writing about her life and giving us background on her mental issues.
worth reading March 6, 2010
J. Anderson (Monterey, CA USA)
8 out of 11 found this review helpful
A middlingly written account of the life of the great Nina Simone, not an unkind book, but not, for all its details about Nina's personal descent, an exceptionally engaged portrait. Cohodas fails to establish a tone with her writing, so that what might have been a warm sparkling telling instead trundles along, an account of moods and events. Prevented, of course, is a genuine reckoning with the interior legacy of one of music's modern masters. It's a disappointment ameliorated by spending time with Nina, pure and simple. But I would add that I saw Simone live probably fifty times in various performance settings, and though that's fifty times less what I'd have been happy to have seen and heard this woman and her ineffacable art, I yet know her better and deeper by that than this book gives me. Still, it's good once again to trace in the mind and memory Nina Simone, a gift of the gods to us that will never die.
 A Worthwile Biography, But Not The Best April 6, 2010
David Penn (NYC)
7 out of 7 found this review helpful
Nadine Cohodas' biography of Nina Simone is well researched, yet I find that the author paints an untrue picture of events that supposedly took place during some of Nina Simone's concert performances. Much is made of her erratic behaviour on stage, in one instance in a Billie Holiday Tribute that Simone took part in at the Hollywood Bowl. I have an audio tape of her complete performance. It was one of Nina's very greatest performances, yet the reader is led to belive that her appearance was a disaster. Cohoda's brief review of Simone's 1976 Montreux Jazz Festival appearance (which exists on DVD) makes one wonder if the author actually watched the entire performance. Too little attention is made of what made Nina Simone such an important and original artist. Her prolific recording activity and filmed performances should have been given more attention. I found another biography, "Nina Simone: Break Down and Let It All Out" by Sylvia Hampton, David Nathan, and Lisa Simone Kelly to be a more intersting read. This book does contain some fascinating photographs, though.
Nina Simone Live April 6, 2010
Sacramento Book Review (Sacramento, CA)
1 out of 3 found this review helpful
//Princess Noire// is a rich, exacting blend of the professional and personal demons which inspired and exasperated jazz-blues artist Nina Simone. Cohodas starts with the birth of Eunice Waymon in North Carolina and follows her through extensive classical training in her quest to become the first black female classical pianist. Her dreams were destroyed when she was denied entry to the Curtis Institute of Music after a stint at Julliard. Convinced she was refused because of race, she began playing and singing as Nina Simone, a spirited chanteuse, on her way to becoming a music legend.
Uniquely gifted as a pianist, arranger, composer, and singer, Simone used the stage to promote civil rights and black power. Convinced her professional limitations were caused from a white establishment and nefarious record producers, she began a descent into racial madness that ended with a mental diagnosis of schizophrenia. Financial problems, temperamental outbursts, and alcohol compounded the underlying mental condition of an otherwise intelligent and gifted performer.
Exquisitely composed and extensively researched from newspapers, historical documents, interviews, coupled with photographs and excellent design, make this hardcover a collectible for jazz lovers. Much of the book is dedicated to details associated with different performances. Those who can persevere will appreciate the unbiased, thorough account.
Reviewed by Sheli Ellsworth
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