Nina Simone

American singer, songwriter, pianist, and civil rights activist born in Tryon, North Carolina in 1933. One of the most singular artists of the twentieth century — her voice moved between jazz, blues, gospel, classical, and folk without belonging fully to any of them, and her piano playing reflected a formal classical training that she never abandoned regardless of the genre she was working in. I Put a Spell on You, Feeling Good, and Mississippi Goddam are essential recordings. Her instrument was the Steinway grand piano, played with a technique that combined classical precision with blues feeling.