I draw this image of the cracked bell not from nothing but from the 19th century French poet Charles Baudelaire. In his poem "La Cloche fêlée," he presents the voice and soul of the artist of modern and urban times as "the death rattle of a wounded person." The greatness of this kind of artist isn't soundness but brokenness. Nina Simone was such an artist. Also, she only sang out of necessity. She was in fact a classically trained pianist, and planned to make her career through music by way of that mastery. But the masses in the clubs and bars where she had to make ends meet wanted a voice, and she gave it to them, but not without a price. Those who call Nina's voice soothing like to wipe away tears and blow their noses with sandpaper.
Her broken voice won millions of fans and finally one of the top spots in the history of American popular music. "I was warned not to sing her work," Jones told me over the phone one rainy afternoon. "I would be identified with her problems. She was not an easy person. She was difficult... Sing Sarah Vaughan or Ella Fitzgerald, they said. But I do not like to be boxed in... I make my own decisions. Nina's music means a lot to me. It's a part of me—of who I am as an artist. I'm going to sing her songs." When I asked Jones how she—a singer who is so swing-sound, so confident—would interpret a singer who is so vulnerable, irritable, and often just angry, Jones perfectly explained that no one is normal. We all have our past, pains, and problems.
Her show, Eugenie Jones Sings Nina Simone, is likely to sell out.
