Nina Simone - Little Girl Blue (Bethlehem Records 1959)

Little Girl Blue" is a popular song with music by Richard Rodgers and lyrics by Lorenz Hart, published in 1935. The song was introduced by Gloria Grafton in the Broadway musical Jumbo. Eunice Kathleen Waymon (February 21, 1933 – April 21, 2003), known professionally as Nina Simone, was an American singer, songwriter, musician, arranger, and civil rights activist. Her music spanned a broad range of musical styles including classical, jazz, blues, folk, R&B, gospel, and pop. The sixth of eight children born to a poor family in Tryon, North Carolina, Simone initially aspired to be a concert pianist. With the help of a few supporters in her hometown, she enrolled in the Juilliard School of Music in New York City. She then applied for a scholarship to study at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, where she was denied admission despite a well-received audition, which she attributed to racism. In 2003, just days before her death, the Institute awarded her an honorary degree. To make a living, Simone started playing piano at a nightclub in Atlantic City. She changed her name to "Nina Simone" to disguise herself from family members, having chosen to play "the devil's music" or so-called "cocktail piano". She was told in the nightclub that she would have to sing to her own accompaniment, which effectively launched her career as a jazz vocalist. She went on to record more than 40 albums between 1958 and 1974, making her debut with Little Girl Blue. She had a hit single in the United States in 1958 with "I Loves You, Porgy". Her musical style fused gospel and pop with classical music, in particular Johann Sebastian Bach, and accompanied expressive, jazz-like singing in her contralto voice. Simone was diagnosed with bipolar disorder in the late 1980s. She was known for her temper and outbursts of aggression. According to a biographer, Simone took medication from the mid-1960s onward, although this was supposedly only known to a small group of intimates. After her death the medication was confirmed as the anti-psychotic Trilafon, which Simone's friends and caretakers sometimes surreptitiously mixed into her food when she refused to follow her treatment plan. This fact was kept out of public view until 2004 when a biography, Break Down and Let It All Out, written by Sylvia Hampton and David Nathan (of her UK fan club), was published posthumously. The documentary Nina Simone: La légende (The Legend) was made in the 1990s by French filmmakers and based on her autobiography I Put a Spell on You. It features live footage from different periods of her career, interviews with family, various interviews with Simone then living in the Netherlands, and while on a trip to her birthplace. A portion of footage from The Legend was taken from an earlier 26-minute biographical documentary by Peter Rodis, released in 1969 and entitled simply Nina. Her filmed 1976 performance at the Montreux Jazz Festival is available on video courtesy of Eagle Rock Entertainment and is screened annually in New York City at an event called "The Rise and Fall of Nina Simone: Montreux, 1976" which is curated by Tom Blunt. Sit there and count your fingers What can you do? Old girl you're through Sit there, count your little fingers Unhappy little girl blue Sit there and count the raindrops Falling on you It's time you knew All you can ever count on Are the raindrops That fall on little girl blue Won't you just sit there Count the little raindrops Falling on you 'Cause it's time you knew All you can ever count on Are the raindrops That fall on little girl blue No use old girl You might as well surrender 'Cause your hopes are getting slender and slender Why won't somebody send a tender blue boy To cheer up little girl blue

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