Nina Simone: The Biography Paperback – February 25, 2010

I’d always loved her music but now I understand her story

I ordered the hard back!

it provided a wealthy context of the life of this artist. this book also gives interesting music history. thank you

It arrived today and I can't wait till I read this book!

It is a great book. I have read them all and this one has also been purchased as gifts for friends

Perfect for what I wanted!

I looked forward to the publication of this book to see if the definitive book about this icon was about to be published. Unfortunately it is a book of two halves.Part one: dealing with her early life until the end of her RCA contract in 1974 is little more than a rehash of Nina's autobiography albeit with a tidying up of the dates and chronology of events; something which plagued the autobigraphy.Part two: gives a pretty comprehensive view of the final 20 years of her life. Strangely enough the final decade is dealt with comprehensively and with passion.The faults of the book are:1) David Brun-Lambert recounts his story in a strangely detached fashion as though observing her life through binoculars. When you read the source notes - Chapters 1 to 10 are almost exclusively sourced from the Autobiography and Sylvia Hampton's "Break Down and let it all out" biography. Only chapters 11 & 12 dealing with the final 10 years of her life has original source material.2) The research is flawed, I doubt that he contacted the surviving members of the Waymon family for their thoughts. Sam Waymon appears a sketchy figure yet played in her band during the 1960's and early 1970's yet just a few mentions. Andy Stroud was not sourced. Unsure if Lisa (Simone) Kelly was contacted.3) His appreciation of her catalogue appeared shallow - aside from a glowing review of "Sinnerman". He mentions her "Single Woman" album but fails to mention that the expanded edition is now available. His commentary of the album (3 paragraphs leads me to think he may not have listened to it or least only in a cursory fashion.)4) There is no discography/sessionography at the end of the book a really major ommission; especially in view of the fact new material on disc and dvd are being made available as we speak. Tantalisingly he mentions a catalogue of unreleased material that is held somewhere and may see release one day and then fails to give any information of when the material was recorded nor any details of the material! A cardinal ommission in my book. The only hint he gives is that someone has heard it and feels it matches anything recorded in the 1960's! Very frustrating.5) I felt Sylvia Hampton's biography whilst severely flawed had passion about her subject matter something Mr Brun-Lambert lacks - his effort feels more like a workmanlike journalistic assignment.6) There is a distinct paucity of photographs, 15 in total - 8 I have seen before. Surely that implies a lack of research!To be fair there are some new insights, his coverage of her severe bipolar disorder is full frank and at last exposed with both candour and sympathy. We have to remember that genius and madness can be close bedfellows. Had Nina not had her condition she may not have scaled the heights she did.I have always been puzzled by Nina's troubles with the IRS following her split with husband, Andy Stroud. We have no insights into this at all. Was he was a rogue or was it revenge? Where did all the money disappear to? Why did he vacate their marital home removing all his possessions and making himself completely unavailable to Nina? Since this was such a major factor in her fall from grace in the 1970's, why was this not put under the microscope?One interesting factor is to view her Montreux 1976 dvd, in 1976 she was a deeply beautiful if troubled woman. The extras from the 1987 and 1990 concerts show a woman who aged rapidly, menapause perhaps? Her appearance at the Live at Ronnie Scotts 1984 performance show her still in full bloom. Comment is made how she put on weight in the final 10 years - I have a DVD of her 1997 performance in Sao Paulo and she has aged and put on weight but it seems more water retention, a side effect of her medication? No investigation is made of this factor.Were it not for the final two chapters I would only have given the book two stars. Since the remainder of the book is basically a rehash of the autobiograhy and the Hampton biography.Miles Davis has been graced with two outstanding biographies by Ian Carr and John Szwed. Nina has not been blessed with the same good fortune - so whilst an interesting read it cannot, by any stretch of the imagination, be viewed as the definitive work. For that, we will have to wait a little longer I guess.

Have to take issue with the misinformation on pages 3 and 4 of the book where David Brun-Lambert mistakenly states Tryon, NC " lost in the agricultural heartland of the east of the state, is a few miles from the Mason-Dixon line". He then goes on to describe Tryon's "dreary streets. As soon as you reach your destination, you are struck by a sense of torpor. There is nothing of interest in the town - it's just like any other city in the Midwest. It's stores serve bad hamburgers, and shop windows display dresses long since out of fashion". I live in Asheville, NC, approximately a 45-60 minute drive from Tryon. Tryon is NOT in the east of the state in agricultural land, it is in the west of the state in the mountains. In addition, it is NOT in the Midwest, it is in the South! And it is nowhere near the Mason-Dixon line. This man obviously never went there, or could not read a map accurately. Obviously, he needed to acquaint himself better with the area of this country he was writing about, and he apparently does not know east from west! It is indeed a small town, but it's streets are NOT dreary, and it does not have places selling bad hamburgers and out-of-fashion dresses. It is a lovely little town with craft/art galleries and antiques. Even though there are only a few restaurants, they serve good food, not "bad hamburgers". This book was published in 2005, so if Tryon was ever the way he describes it, it was long, long ago. Furthermore, there are actually quite a few well-to-do people who live there, and many of them are involved in the equestrian world. There is now a state-of-the-art international equestrian center near Tryon. A few years ago, I attended a ceremony dedicating the Nina Simone statue that now sees in the middle of town. If you read this book, take the information about Ms. Waymon's hometown with a grain of salt, as it is all wrong!

Got this very cheap second hand. A generally good read for anyone wanting to learn more about this fascinating and talented diva.

Well researched book but desperately sad that she had such a difficult life. I am fed up with being asked for more words