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Portsmouth — Trying to decide where to take your loved one for Valentine's Day 2009? How about spending a classy, sexy, Valentine's Day with Simone, the daughter of the legendary High Priestess of Soul Nina Simone, at the Victorian landmark theater in historic downtown Portsmouth.
Backed by her amazing sidemen, this highly praised powerhouse vocalist knows how to deliver a song. Her impressive resume includes starring roles on Broadway in acclaimed musicals, Rent and Aida, and an exciting repertoire of pop, soul, jazz, rock and funk. Her solo debut album released in 2008, Simone on Simone, is a big band tribute to her mom.
According to All About Jazz, "This artist can do anything! Simone has inherited her mother's charisma, but when she sings you immediately realize that she stands out on her own. This is just the beginning."
Patricia Lynch, executive director at The Music Hall says, "This will be the perfect night – after you've dined at any of Portsmouth's great restaurants, head over to The Music Hall – relax in our dazzling new lobby and then head upstairs to the theater for this sensational show. Anyone who's been to the hall knows that the acoustics are superior. Then the show – we saw Simone in New York City last year and were blown away – you will be too!"
About Simone
Born Lisa Celeste Stroud in Mount Vernon, N.Y., Simone's earliest exposure to music naturally came through her mother's work as a globally-loved musician and freedom fighter, but she recalls, "I heard a lot of other artists because we had albums by Aretha Franklin, Otis Redding, and Gladys Knight & The Pips. The radio was on when my mother was traveling to gigs so I heard everything – The Beatles and The Mamas & The Papas to two of my all-time favorites, Ronnie Dyson and Donny Hathaway. Of course I heard my mother's music: the albums I remember the most are "Silk & Soul" and "The High Priestess Of Soul." Miriam Makeba was a constant favorite in our house."
Simone had a privileged life growing up. Nina Simone embodied racial pride and consciousness; Langston Hughes, Lorraine Hansberry, Miriam Makeba, Malcolm X and their families were regular visitors in her home. There were trips to exotic places around the world, Barbados, Monrovia, south of France, trying to find somewhere to settle, and an education — ultimately abandoned for New York and her father's home — at a Swiss boarding school. Although the sounds of music filled her home — "singing was so natural to me growing up, it was like reading" — there was no thought of a career in entertainment.
After abandoning college and dreams of becoming an international lawyer, Simone joined the military which ultimately led her back to entertainment. According to Simone, "It was about 1989 and I was stationed in Frankfurt. One night after a glass or two of wine, I just got up and starting singing with a guy on stage." Calls to sing backup for other artists followed, and Simone began performing in clubs around Germany. At 28, Simone did her first solo show at a Swiss ski resort where she first sang a song closely associated with her mother. "I did 'My Baby Just Cares For Me' and afterward, I thought, 'this is what I should do with my life.'
After traveling as a backup singer for the Latin superstar Raphael, she returned to the United States and began doing regular shows in Los Angeles, which ultimately led to a national touring company offer in the successful musical "Jesus Christ Superstar." She later moved to leadings roles "Rent" and "Aida" on Broadway. (Simone earned the National Broadway Theatre Award For Best Actress in a Musical for "Aida".) By 1999, she started performing with her mom.
"Today I have come to place of healing and true admiration for my mother. It was not easy being female in those times and carrying the mantle she took up. Her true desire was to have become a classical musician. I am now walking in her footsteps, closer than I could have imagined. I see her even in something as simple as the way I put together my set list and in the way I respond to the ebb and flow of an audience. My mother's spirit is always with me, and that was especially true when I was working on this project," Simone says.
To purchase tickets
Simone will appear at The Music Hall on Saturday, Feb. 14, at 8 p.m. Tickets are $30 and $25 and can be purchased at box office, 28 Chestnut St., by phone at 436-2400, or online at www.themusichall.org
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