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Simone Honors Her Mother Nina Simone With A New Website
This year on Mother's Day, Simone, the daughter of singer Nina Simone, will pay tribute to the woman who raised her with a gift for not only her mother, but her mother's fans as well. Simone -- the late singer's only child, born Lisa Celeste Stroud (pictured as a child with her mother) -- is re-launching NinaSimone.com with a new design and a deep trove of content, including unreleased songs, video performances and "Nina Simone Radio," a 24-7 Internet radio station that will provide hundreds of recordings, interviews and guest commentary. As the executor of her mother's estate, Simone has owned the rights to NinaSimone.com for over a year, but only began preparations for a re-launch about six months ago. "As her only child, I have a unique vision compared to anyone else walking this earth," Simone says. "So a lot of what we're bringing to the site is from my perspective." Simone, 48, describes the relationship with her mother as "many things." She says, "I didn't even know who Nina Simone was until I was around 11 or 12 years old, then I was able to make the distinction that she was someone else to the world." Simone went on to work in civil engineering for the United States Air Force, but at 28 decided she wanted to follow in her mother's footsteps. The elder Simone was not sure her daughter was ready. "She said to me, 'They're going to expect you to sing protest songs,'" Simone recalls. "I said, 'Well, then I'll sing your songs.' So she realized I was committed to it." And Simone is committed to and invested in clearing up whatever mistruths may exist out there about her mother. "As with any great figure there are rumors, there's gossip, there's assumptions, and I can't correct everything," Simone says. "But what I can do is make sure I have somewhere people can go to that they know when they hear something or see something that this is the truth and it's not going to change." Never quite as popular when she was alive to perform and record it as it has been since her passing in 2003, Nina Simone's music has long been beloved and respected. A pianist first, Nina Simone's voice took the spotlight at many of her early shows where she was told in auditions that if she wanted the gig she would have to both play piano and sing. Her 1959 cover of George Gershwin's 'I Loves You Porgy' was her only Top 40 hit, going as high as number 20 on the 'Billboard' charts, but her cult-like following was garnered largely through her affinity for protest songs during the civil rights era. Nina Simone's 1969 hit single, 'To Be Young, Gifted, and Black,' the title of which she borrowed from her close friend playwright Lorraine Hansberry, inspired many artists to do their own renditions, including Donny Hathaway and Aretha Franklin. In more recent years, hip-hop artists have created song using samples of her work. 'Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood' was a sample used on both Common's 2007 album 'Finding Forever' ('Misunderstood') and Lil Wayne's 2008 album, 'Tha Carter III' ('Don't Get It'). In addition to the re-launch of NinaSimone.com, daughter Simone is also producing a double album of her mother's music to be released next year, as well as a follow up to her own 'Simone on Simone' released last year. Simone says many of her mother's fans never knew Nina Simone ever had a daughter, a disconnect she seems to have accepted. On a recent trip to Finland, where she was performing alongside singer Bobby McFerrin, Simone recalls McFerrin saying he wasn't aware of who she was. "I said to him, 'I get that all the time.'" Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments More... |
Marble
Location: Moss Beach, California, USA
http://www.dailykitten.com/wp-conten...arblefloor.jpg Marble is the Calico sister of Taylor. They were adopted by their new forever family in early June 2008 when they were just six weeks old from a vet who was fostering them. Marble loves her bit of pureed pumpkin every day, warm laundry and she follows the sun around the house. Marble is also the top Kitler on www.catsthatlooklikehitler.com More... |
Mama and her Babies - May 08, 2011
http://goodmorningkitten.com/media/k...kitten1224.jpg
Mama and her Babies Jaime says: One of our many foster litters consisted of a mama cat named Mama and her four babies, Tonka, Mia, Nemo, and Zero. Happy Mother's Day to all mothers -- birth, adoptive, and foster alike! Courtesy of: Jaime Sundquist http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/TheDa...~4/npu_M7AaYfg More... |
A short review of my trip to Norway
Forum: Stormfront Baltic / ScandinaviaPosted By: LastSurvivorsPost Time: 05-07-2011 at 11:39 PM
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US releases 'bin Laden video tapes'
One shows him rehearsing before making a recording and another has him watching news coverage of himself on TV.
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Holyfield not Dane and dusted
Evander Holyfield kept alive his hopes of another world title shot by stopping Brian Nielsen in the 10th round in Copenhagen.
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European Poker Tour Grand Final Day 1a: Sonelin Storms in Front
A recap of Day 1a of the PokerStars European Poker Tour Grand Final in Madrid, where David Sonelin leads the way.
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Atomic Week
Welcome to Atomic Week where we will investigate the intriguing case of the development of the atomic bomb. Naturally, we must start such a week with Albert Einstein. Einstein was not directly involved in the Manhattan Project, which developed the bomb, but his theoretical work helped to lay the groundwork for the development of the bomb.
In Einstein's work on his theory of relativity, he came up with the famous relationship of: E = mc² E is energy, m is the mass, and c is the speed of light. The equation shows that the total energy in any given object is the mass of the object multiplied by the speed of light squared. Light is very fast, so the speed of light is a very large number. This means the total energy in even a relatively small object is very large. In fact, something as small as a grapefruit, if all the energy were released, would create an explosion that could level a city. Enrico Fermi was one of the first to make this connection. He had successfully established sustained nuclear chain reactions, in which mass was being converted to energy. He speculated that such a reaction could be used to create incredible amounts of energy, or even bombs. With World War II underway, Einstein realized that the technology existed to create a super weapon in which mass of radioactive material was converted to energy, creating an enormous explosion. He believed that Germany might be working on a super weapon, and that the US could be caught flat footed. Concerned about the matter, he wrote President Roosevelt the following letter. This letter then led to the development of the Manhattan Project to create the atom bomb. https://blogger.googleusercontent.co...s.blogspot.com http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/...frkNEDV0k/0/di http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/...frkNEDV0k/1/di http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/blogs...~4/UkDfaHchWHU More... |
Shadow of Life ::: Sirsendu Gayen
http://www.photoburst.net/photo_sect...endu-gayen.jpgShadow of Life ::: Sirsendu Gayen ::: Photo taken in Gangasagar Fair, India.
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