Talk | Listening Party: The Life and Music of Dinah Washington and Princess Noire: The Tumultuous Reign of Nina Simone

Author Nadine Cohodas presents rare video footage of vocal legends Dinah Washington and Nina Simone.

Nadine Cohodas is the author of the biographies Queen: The Life and Music of Dinah Washington and Princess Noire: The Tumultuous Reign of Nina Simone.

Queen is the landmark biography of the brief, intensely lived life and soulful music of the great Dinah Washington. A gospel star at fifteen, she was discovered by jazz great Lionel Hampton at eighteen, and for the rest of her life was on the road, playing clubs, or singing in the studio-making music one way or another. Washington's tart and heartfelt voice quickly became her trademark; she was a distinctive stylist, crossing over from the "race" music category to the pop and jazz charts. Known in her day as Queen of the Blues and Queen of the Juke Boxes, Washington was regarded as that rare "first take" artist, her studio recordings reflecting the same passionate energy she brought to the stage.

Princess Noire is a complete account of the triumphs and difficulties of the brilliant and high-tempered Nina Simone. Her distinctive voice and music occupy a singular place in the canon of American song. Tapping into newly unearthed material-including stories of family and career-Nadine Cohodas gives us a luminous portrait of the singer who was born Eunice Waymon in Tryon, North Carolina, in 1933, one of eight children in a proud black family. We see her as a prodigiously talented child who is trained in classical piano through the charitable auspices of a local white woman. We witness her devastating disappointment when she is rejected by the Curtis Institute of Music-a dream deferred that would forever shape her self-image as well as her music. Yet by 1959-now calling herself Nina Simone-she had sung New York City's venerable Town Hall and was on her way. As we watch Simone's exciting rise to stardom, Cohodas expertly weaves in the central factors of her life and career: her unique and provocative relationship with her audiences; her involvement in and contributions to the civil rights movement; her two marriages, including one of brief family contentment with police detective Andy Stroud, with whom she had her daughter, Lisa; the alienation from the United States that drove her to live abroad. Alongside these threads runs a darker one: Simone's increasing and sometimes baffling outbursts of rage and pain and her lifelong struggle to overcome a deep sense of personal injustice, which persisted even as she won international renown. Princess Noire is a fascinating story, well told and thoroughly documented with intimate photos-a treatment that captures the passions of Simone's life.

Nadine Cohodas is the author of several books about race, politics and music. Among her other books are: And the Band Played Dixie; Strom Thurmond & The Politics of Southern Change and Spinning Blues Into Gold: The Chess Brothers and the Legendary Chess Records.

Doors open at 6:30 pm.