All language subtitles for Nina Simone and Me with Laura Mvula [MVGroup]22

# Take me outside

# Sit in a green garden... #

'I'm Laura Mvula.

'When my debut album,
Sing To The Moon, was released,

'someone said I sounded like
Nina Simone.

'No-one sounds like Nina.

'But I'm hugely flattered,

'as I've always felt a deep
connection with her.'

# I put a spell on you...

APPLAUSE

# Cos you're mine, yeah... #

'Nina Simone's infectious music
still speaks to us,

'over half a century since
she first performed her songs.

'Her influence is immense.

'She's the one who opened the door

'for generations of bold black
female performers, including me.'

I remember when I was, like, 17,
I was like, "What is this,

"and why do I want to cry
when I hear her...wail or moan

"or chant or shout?"

'She's an artist with
an extraordinary song book

'that's almost impossible to
categorise.

'Her music has soul, jazz,
folk and classical elements.

'Sometimes it's feel-good and
joyful,

'other times it's like dark,
bewitching blues.

'I've come to New York City
to explore

'some of the Nina Simone songs that
mean most to me and to find out

'why Nina's music still casts
a spell over her listeners today.

# Because

# You're mine. #

APPLAUSE

'I'm going right back to the
beginning of Nina's musical story

'and I'm starting my journey
in Harlem.

'The young Nina Simone came here

'when it was the Juilliard School
of Music in the summer of 1950.

'Back then she was Eunice Waymon,
a gifted 17-year-old

'who aspired to become the world's
first black concert pianist.

'But Eunice never completed her
conservatoire training.

'To make money she started out
as a nightclub singer

'and renamed herself Nina Simone.'

# I want your love
and I don't want to borrow

# Have it today to give back tomorrow

# Your love is my love,
there's no love for nobody else... #

'In 1957 Nina recorded her first
album, which captured

'the rich variety of songs
and styles

'she'd been playing in the clubs.'

'Like Nina, I studied classical
piano, and to me

'it's clear from her arrangements
of songs like Love Me Or Leave Me

'that she owes as much the baroque
music of Johann Sebastian Bach

'as to any jazz or blues performer.'

I can hear so much how she's
influenced by Bach.

It's his melodies and the way
that she's using the fugue idea,

and so the fugue idea is
when we have one tune on top

and maybe there's another tune that
comes underneath, and they're

working independently and somehow
working together at the same time.

And I've transcribed just a little
bit of the part where she's

improvising classically.

Only four bars, because my hands
can't handle what she does.

# I want your love,
I don't want to borrow

# Have it today to give back
tomorrow

# Your love is my love

# There's no love for nobody else. #

Once she's sung the first verse
and the chorus

then she's free with
this improvisation.

What's even more awesome is that
she takes risks with this.

She knows all the rules but then
she completely abandons them.

# For nobody else. #

APPLAUSE

'I've come to Greenwich Village to
meet someone

'who tuned in to Nina's
distinct musical wavelength.

'Al Schackman was her musical
director,

'guitarist and friend for 46 years.

'Nina and Al would play
many songs on many stages together

'but the Village Gate was where
they played the most.

'The very first song
they played together

'was also the title track of Nina's
first album, Little Girl Blue.'

# Sit there

# Count your little fingers

# Unhappy little girl blue... #

'It's a record very dear
to my heart.

'I've covered the song and I'm going
to play it with Al today.'

# Sit there

# And count the raindrops

# Falling on you

# It's time you knew

# All you can ever count on

# Are the raindrops

# That fall on little girl blue... #

'I love the way she uses the
countermelody of Good King Wenceslas

'as if it were a Bach fugue.

'Mixing up her influences

'made Nina's arrangements
complex and exciting.

'She played popular tunes
like a classical pianist.'

# Blue boy

# To cheer up

# Little girl blue. #

Mmm.

Yes, ma'am! Thank you, sir. Oh, it's
chills being back here in this...

Really? I bet. In this place.
I never played the song again... Mm.

..since Nina, until now. Wow.
And it's, like, whoa!

And she never told me
what she was going to play, didn't

look at me, no key or anything, and
she started in on the introduction.

OK. Wow. To Little Girl Blue. Wow.

And I started to play
the counterpoint with her and then

she looked up at me and I looked
down at her

and we were off and running. Wow.

And it was...it was fabulous.

# We come

# And we go... #

It just seemed to be organic,
just natural.

We were like telepathic together.

'Nina and Al's musical relationship
was for the most part harmonious

'but from the beginning Nina
demanded

'only the best from her band.'

Suddenly she would decide to change
the key, and she would just start.

You know, instead of playing E flat
she'd start in E,

and I knew she was in E. Whoo!
We both had perfect pitch.

I'd be standing, usually on a riser,
above her piano on that side,

and the audience would be out here,

and the bass player would be there,

the drummer there
and percussion...out there.

And I would just quickly say, "E!"
Wow.

God help us if we stumbled and made
a mistake. Really? Yeah. OK.

She was a taskmaster. Right.

And if one of us just goofed
something in the arrangement of

anything we did in rehearsal,

we'd have to repeat the piece ten
times.

Oh, wow.
Because that's how she was taught

when she was a youngster by her
piano teacher.

You know this one?
HE PLAYS "MY BABY JUST CARES FOR ME"

# My baby don't care for shows

# My baby don't care for clothes

# My baby just cares for me!

# My baby don't care for

# Cars and races

# My baby don't care for

# Don't care for high-tone places

# Liz Taylor is... #

'Within her repertoire,
Nina Simone effortlessly covered

'everything from ballad to blues,
show tune to pop song.

'In her hands they were
transformed into extraordinary,

'timeless classics.'

# My baby don't care who

# Who knows

# My baby just cares for me. #

THEY LAUGH

# Baby

# My baby don't care for shows... #

'Nina arranged her cover
of My Baby Just Cares For Me

'as a filler for that same
debut album in 1957.

'But 30 years later this
long-forgotten song

'became a worldwide hit,

'inspiring a new generation
of fans to discover her music.

'From TV adverts to
dance floor remixes,

'Nina's songs have surrounded us
ever since.'

# My baby just cares

# For me. #

'So what is it about Nina's music
that makes it so hard to resist?

'Underneath her grooves,
showmanship and classical stylings,

'there's something else that gives
her songs deep emotional impact.'

# Listen here

# Nobody's fault but mine

# Nobody's fault but mine

# I said, if I die
and my soul is lost

# Hey! Nobody's fault but mine... #

'Nina's mother was a Methodist
minister.

'She had her musically gifted
daughter

'playing the opening hymn
in church from just four years old

'and leading the congregation
at the piano from the age of five.

'In her mother's eyes,

'Eunice had a gift from God that had
to be shared.'

# Well, if I die and my soul is
lost

# Nobody
Nobody's fault but mine

# Nobody's fault but mine... #

We were all born in the Depression

and grew up in the South
in the '30s and '40s,

and what life was like then
formed us.

We're around the same age and
we both are from North Carolina.

'Bill Eaton is a musical arranger
who's worked with

'Harry Belafonte, Roberta Flack
and Bill Withers,

'and he shares the same Southern
gospel roots with Nina.'

So what do you think Nina
took from her church upbringing,

the gospel music that
surrounded her as a kid?

Playing in church, you know,
you sit there and you listen,

and when the preacher gets to
a certain level of fervour

you start doing
stuff on the piano. OK.

And he says, "Yeah!", you go...hmmm.
He says, "Yeah!", you go...
You know.

And then people...you know,
the people respond to that,

and pretty soon you've got
a maelstrom of emotions going on.

And you lit the match. Yes.

Gives you a sense of power, and you
never forget that sense of power.

You can bring that into any arena
if you're a performer.

'Decades later, the lessons
she learnt in church would

'inspire Nina to create her
version of an old spiritual

'that remains one of her most
popular songs today.'

# Oh, sinnerman,
where you gonna run to?

# Sinnerman, where you gonna run to?

# Whoo!

# Where you gonna run to

# On that day?

# Well, I run to the rock... #

'Sinnerman... Nina made it
sound like gospel song.

'She brought her genius to it

'and applied what she learned
in church to the music.

'What she did to the song was,

'she just made it a vehicle for her
creativity, that's all.

# Lord, Lord, Lord

# On that day

# I said, rock

# What's the matter with you? #

'Like Nina, I grew up with
gospel music.

'Once it's in your blood
it stays with you,

'and I'm still
drawing on its influence.'

# So I ran to the devil

# Devil was waiting
I ran to the devil

# Devil was waiting
I ran to the devil, oh, oh, oh

# Lord, on that day... #

'And the call and response that we
hear in the song,

'it's not a thing that's a...
roots thing that came up,

'that she heard around her.

'That's totally her invention.'

# Power

# Oh, sinnerman,
where you gonna run to?

# On that day... #

You can take a choir

and have them perform it
the way she performed it...

Mm. ..and it becomes powerful.

In the same way that it became
powerful when she performed it.

That's a real gift
if people do that. Mm-hm.

By the time she went
out to the world, she'd already

made people get in the aisle and
dance around like that, so she...

You know. Yeah. She knew she could
do it. She knew what she was doing.

Oh, she was always
confident in that way.

'Nina's background in gospel
gave her an exceptional ability

'to improvise
and connect with her audience.

'It made her a compelling
and unpredictable stage presence.

'Nina lived to perform.
As she herself said...

'If I had my way, it would
just take off.

'If a band could be there right then
and start playing

'and everybody start dancing,
oh, wow, what a happening.

'What a happening.'

'As the 1960s took hold and Nina
grew as a performer, she would use

'her talent for rousing an audience
in a new and radical way.

'And it was in 1963 that Nina was
first spurred into action.

'First there was the murder
of Medgar Evers, a leading light

'in the civil rights movement,
at the hands of a white man.

'Then four black schoolchildren were
killed when Ku Klux Klan members

'threw dynamite into a Baptist
church in Birmingham, Alabama.

'Nina Simone was determined
to fight back.'

She just went ballistic,

and wanted to buy a gun and
go down South and just kill people.

You say, "You don't know how to
shoot a gun."

She says, "I can learn."
THEY LAUGH

She once said, "All I have to do
is point and pull the trigger

"and I know what I'm pointing at."

And we all said, you know, "Why
don't you just turn that into...

"you know, write about it,
tell the story,

"do what you can,
what you know how to do."

# Hound dogs on my trail

# Schoolchildren sitting in jail... #

'Instead, Nina chose music
as her weapon,

'and, fired up with rage, wrote both
the words and the music of a song

'for the first time in her career.'

# God have mercy on this land of mine

# We all gonna get it in due time

# I don't belong here,
I don't belong there

# I've even stopped
believing in prayer

# Almost, but not quite... #

She wrote that song,
like, in minutes, almost. Really?

Yeah, and we performed it for the
first time here at the Village Gate.

Depending on her mood or what
she had been thinking about,

she would change some phrasing,
drop a different line in, especially

during the interlude, where,
you know, we're just playing...

Yeah, so...

Right. So keep that going.

And that's where she'd do...

Er, "This is a show tune but the
show hasn't been written for it yet.

"Did you hear about what happened
in North Carolina?

"It's just another goddam
example of Mississippi Goddam,

"Carolina Goddam,
the whole South Goddam."

And that's how she would...
Yeah. She would just go...

So could we try a little
bit of Mississippi Goddam? Yeah.

Yeah, you've got the vamp, you...
OK, well, I'll do my best.

Or I'll do it, if you want.
Yeah, yeah, you start.

# Alabama got me so upset

# Tennessee make me lose my rest

# Everybody knows about
Mississippi Goddam

# Can you see it... #

'Mississippi Goddam is a song
that makes me

'want to sing along with its catchy
show-tune rhythm.

'But what makes it
so amazing are the bitter,

'electrically charged
lyrics that she places on top.'

# Well, that's just the trouble
Too slow!

# Desegregation
Too slow!

# Mass participation
Too slow!

# Unification
Too slow!

# Do things gradually
Too slow!

# Will bring more tragedy
Too slow!

# Why don't you see it?
Why don't you feel it?

# I don't know... #

What was the response from the
audience? Erm...kinda shocked. OK.

I mean, there really wasn't
a song like that,

dedicated so strongly and with such
strong statements, like,

"You don't have to live with me,
just give me my equality."

# You don't have to live
next to me... #

'Releasing Mississippi Goddam
was a bold decision for Nina.

'Crates of her records
were broken in protest.

'Nina's bravery would cost her
the loyalty of much of her white
audience.

'But in 1965, when
Martin Luther King led thousands

'marching 54 miles over five days
for black voting rights in Alabama

'and the South, Nina couldn't stand
watching the unrest

'unfold from the sidelines
and decided that she and Al would

'take the firebrand song to an
audience who would appreciate it.'

We actually were
playing at the Village Gate
and we flew down from there

and we had to go through
the lines of state police that were

surrounding the seminary,

where the big concert was going to
happen on the soccer field.

Harry Belafonte, James Baldwin,
erm, Leonard Bernstein,

and we had to cross those lines to
get in to perform.

# Can't you see it,
can't you feel it?

# It's all in the air

# I can't stand the pressure much
longer

# Somebody say a prayer

# Alabama's got me so upset

# Selma makes me lose my rest
CHEERING

# And everybody
knows about Mississippi Goddam... #

'In Mississippi Goddam, Nina Simone
proved herself a brilliant

'and original songwriter,
who could write powerful music

'and lyrics that helped inspire
and agitate her generation.'

# I want a little sugar...
APPLAUSE

# In my bowl... #

'But Nina didn't only lend her voice
to the struggle.

'She also expressed the new-found
female confidence

'and independence of the era
in a very personal way

'with her versions of songs like
I Want A Little Sugar In My Bowl,

'originally performed by blueswoman
Bessie Smith.'

The blues singers are the most
famous performers

in the African-American
tradition at the time

but they're also making us
think about black women's sexuality,

not in the stereotypical way
of being hypersexual

but about women who have sexual
agency, who have sexual desire.

# I put a spell on you...
APPLAUSE

# Cos you're mine, yeah

# I don't like the things you do

# I ain't lyin'... #

There's something
about Nina Simone's style

that I think most audiences would
think is quite haunting,

that we're left with this spell.

But I think Nina Simone, and I can't
think of too many artists who can

do this, but she brings
vulnerability and defiance together.

# They say you're mean and evil... #

And I think that
actually is something that

artists are trying to find
and articulate for themselves today.

Part of that I think is what the
blueswomen gave her,

and then she kind of adapts it,
because with the 1960s

there's this vibrant
feminist movement and women really

are redefining what it means to be
sexual and what it means to be free.

And so even though she didn't
self-identify as a feminist

she's also shaping that movement
and part of that movement as well.

'I've come to meet
Camille Yarbrough,

'an activist, writer and musician.'

How are you?! Hi! Come on in,
come on in!

'Camille knew
and was inspired by Nina

'and I want to talk to her today

'about my favourite Nina song,
Four Women.'

Hello.

'For me, it's her most striking
and original composition, where

'she binds together all her themes

'of sexuality,
race and emancipation.'

# My skin is black

# My arms are long... #

'Here, Nina Simone dared examine

'the troubled history of
black female experience

'in an America that was still
dealing with the legacy of slavery.'

# And my back is strong... #

# Strong enough to take the pain

# Inflicted again and again

# What do they call me?

# They call me Aunt Sarah

# My name is Aunt Sarah... #

What does this song mean to you?

All of these lyrics are disturbing
to me. "My name is Aunt Sarah."

You ain't no aunt to this family,
you know what I mean?

But when you're elderly
they would refer to aunt and uncle,

as if you belong to the family
of the slaveholders.

# My father was rich and white

# He forced my mother
late one night... #

If people don't know what these
lyrics mean, they should examine it.

Again, Nina Simone showed her
strength,

her wisdom and her courage.

There's the obvious
expression of deep pain,

and, like you say,
it's not a comfortable song.

But, for me, I remember thinking
when I first heard it, I'd never

heard a song before talking about
four women of different shades.

There you go. So this to me
was revolutionary. Yes.

# Whose little girl am I?

# Why, yours,
if you've got some money to buy... #

It had that longing that you
hear in old spirituals.

# Mmmmm-mmmmmmmm.... #

You know, they just go on and on.
Everlasting space.

CAMILLE IMPROVISES MELODY

You can feel it, you can hear it.

# Sweet Thing... #

So she always goes back to
spirituals and gospel,

and that's in most of her music,

whether it's an upbeat or not
it's still...it's still there.

I think it's probably the rawest
female...black female vocal...
Mm-hm.

It's in my head, I'll never
forget that...sound. Mm-hm.

'Nina's songs shine a spotlight
on all kinds of human pain

'and experience and are often
full of sadness, anger and longing.

'But some of her most well-loved
and famous songs are also hopeful,

'uplifting and irresistibly
feel-good.'

She had to say, "We experience this
but we go above it."

Mm. "Birds in the sky,
you know how I feel.

"A breeze going by, something,
you know how I feel."

It was a difficult period,
in which she nourished us,

through which she nourished us.

# Birds flying high, you know
how I feel

# Sun in the sky,
you know how I feel

# Breeze drifting on by,
you know how I feel

# It's a new dawn

# It's a new day, yeah

# It's a new life for me

# And I'm feeling good
Good... #

# Fish in the sea

# You know how I feel

# River running free

# You know how I feel... #

Nina Simone's music stirs the soul,
restores, challenges,

nourishes, uplifts and comforts.

'She opened the door for the black
female songstress and voice.

'Here is an artist who used
the broadest palette -

'gospel, blues, classical and pop.

'She created a musical style to
express political anger,

'personal pain
and her desire for freedom.'

I don't know if there'll ever be
another artist like Nina

but I'm thankful that
the power of her legacy

and the power of her voice lives on.

# Oh, freedom is mine

# And I know how I feel

# It's a new dawn, it's a new day,
it's a new life

# For me

SHE SCATS

# I'm feeling good... #