What Happened, Miss Simone? 2015

The title of the documentary comes from a poem by Maya Angelou. I went in knowing next to nothing about the amazing singer and musician Nina Simone. Nina Simone was born Eunice Waymon in North Carolina in 1933. Her mother was a maid, and her employer took an interest in her piano talents, and paid for her lessons with an English piano teacher in town. She was trained to be a classical pianist and attended Julliard in New York. She was denied admission to a prestigious musical college in Philadelphia due to her race and then began to earn money playing in nightclubs in Atlantic City. So that her mother would not know, she took the stage name Nina Simone.

This excellent documentary...