What Happened, Miss Simone? Page #2

But she did tell me about times

when she was told her nose was too big,

her lips were too full

and her skin was too dark.

And after she was told that,

they probably told her,

"There's only certain things

you'll be good for in your life."

What I knew, I knew.

But we weren't allowed to mention

anything racial in our house.

I wasn't consciously dealing with race.

That wasn't consciously

on my mind at all...

until years later.

After I graduated from high school,

the money that had been saved

from the Eunice Waymon Fund

sent me to New York to Juilliard

for a year and a half.

And then I applied for a scholarship to

Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia.

I was playing Czerny and Liszt

and Rachmaninoff and Bach.

I knew I was good enough,

but they turned me down,

and it took me about six months

to realize it was because I was black.

I never really got over

that jolt of racism at the time.

Then the money ran out

and the reality hit me

that I had to go to work.

My parents had moved the whole family

to Philadelphia to be near me,

and my family is very poor,

so I had to work.

What else was there for me to do?

So, I got myself a job

in Atlantic City for a summer.

It was a very crummy bar

and I used to go in in evening gowns.

I didn't know any better.

And I played everything

that I could think of.

Pop songs, classical,

spirituals, all kinds of things.

It was very strange.

And I had never sung before,

and the owner came in the second night

and told me if I wanted to keep the job,

I had to sing.

So, $90 was more money

than I had ever heard of in my life,

so I said, "Well, I'll sing,"

and ever since then, I've been singing.

Eunice Waymon was playing

in the bars to support her family

and to have money to continue

her classical piano training.

But since she didn't want

her mother to know that

she was playing

"the devil's music" in bars,

she changed her name.

Eunice Waymon became Nina Simone.

She named herself "Nia,"

meaning "little one,"

and she had a boyfriend

who called her "Nia,"

and "Simone" came from

the French actress Simone Signoret.

I didn't want

my mother to find out.

I knew she would hate it.

So I, kind of, kept it from her

for a long, long time.

Was it lonely for a young girl

entertaining in these strange bars?

Extremely. Extremely lonely.

Working peculiar hours, I imagine.

12:
00 midnight to 7:00 in the morning.

It ruined your social life, uh...

Never had much of one.

- Why'd you keep on with it?

- Couldn't help it.

I have to play

and I needed money.

It was always a matter of necessity

from day to day what I'm going to do.

I didn't even know I was

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