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NINA SIMONE was born Eunice Kathleen Waymon in Tryon, North Carolina but adopted her stage name, Nina Simone, in 1954, partly to hide her secular singing success from her Methodist minister mother. She took Nina from the Spanish for Little Girl and Simone from the French actress Simone Signoret. She recorded her landmark debut album Little Girl Blue for Bethlehem Records in 1958. Despite including the Top 20 hit single "I Loves You, Porgy" and her cool jazz standard "My Baby Just Cares For Me", Simone never saw a dime in royalties, an estimated loss of over $1 million! Here we couple "My Baby Just Cares For Me" with her jazzy version of Oscar Brown Jr's civil rights message "Work Song", a fitting tribute to Simone's life-long campaigning for racial equality. |
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