Entertainment

Nina Simone Documentary a Powerful Portrait of the Artist

Published

11 years ago

January 23, 2015

Liz Garbus, right, director of the documentary film “What Happened, Miss Simone,” poses with singer Nina Simone’s longtime guitarist/musical director Al Schackman at the premiere of the film on the opening night of the 2015 Sundance Film Festival on Thursday, Jan. 22, 2015, in Park City, Utah. (Photo by Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP)

SANDY COHEN, AP Entertainment Writer

PARK CITY, Utah (AP) — Through archival footage and interviews with her family, closest confidants and collaborators, Nina Simone comes to life again — still enigmatic but more easily understood — in the new documentary “What Happened, Miss Simone?” which premiered Thursday night at the Sundance Film Festival.

A classically trained pianist, accidental singer, passionate activist and often-lost soul, Simone’s many facets are illuminated in the film by director Liz Garbus, whose first film played at Sundance 16 years ago.

“This is the film I’ve been practicing to make all these years,” Garbus said before the screening.

The film opens with Simone onstage in 1968, just before her self-imposed exile to Liberia, then goes back to her childhood piano lessons. She took instantly to piano as a young girl, catching the notice of a white teacher who offered to provide lessons. Still known then by her given name, Eunice Waymon, she is shown walking across the train tracks that separated whites from blacks in her North Carolina hometown to reach the teacher’s home.

Eunice Waymon dreamed of becoming the first black classical pianist in the United States, and she saw herself at Carnegie Hall — until she was denied admittance to the Curtis Institute of Music because of her race.

That denial turned her into an entertainer. She started playing in bars to make a living, and the managers there required her to sing. Before long, she was playing at the Newport Jazz Festival, and, eventually, Carnegie Hall.

Still, she felt a profound emptiness, reflected in her journal entries included in the film. She was lonely and depressed, and her husband and manager, Andrew Stroud, was abusive.

Simone found purpose in the civil rights movement, and realized she could use her fame and talents to support the fight for equality.

“I could sing to help my people,” she says in the film, “and that became the mainstay of my life.”

“What Happened, Miss Simone?” — the title taken from a Maya Angelou quote — tells the story of a troubled, gifted and passionate woman who found her voice in music. She was fervent about the dignity of African-Americans and fought staunchly for equality.

Simone’s songs for justice are just as relevant now, the film’s director said.

“If we had voices like Nina Simone’s today, speaking the pain and the passion of the movement that’s been building, I think, on the streets in the past six months…” Garbus said, “I think we can all see the place of these songs today.”

___

Follow AP Entertainment Writer Sandy Cohen at www.twitter.com/APSandy.

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Oakland Post: Week of July 1 – 7, 2026

The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of July 1 – 7, 2026

Published

2 days ago

July 5, 2026

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Arts and Culture

Prescott Circus Theatre Presents Free Summer Performance Series

Now in its 41st year, the Prescott Circus Theatre is a nationally recognized performing arts education program for Oakland youth. The circus offers safe environments that challenge Oakland youth, through circus arts training, to develop the skills and confidence to thrive on stage, in school, and in life.

Published

2 weeks ago

June 26, 2026

Oakland Post

Prescott Circus showcase pathways pyramid. Photo courtesy of Prescott Circus.

By Post Staff

The Prescott Circus, Oakland’s longest-running youth circus, is returning this summer with its free shows. Join the Prescott Circus’s young stars as they share their joys and talents through stilt-dancing, tumbling, juggling, and more.

At the heart of this one-hour show, which demonstrates teamwork, pride, and joy, are Oakland Unified School District students ages 8 – 17 from more than 10 different schools

This is accomplished through no-cost school and community programs for more than 300 Oakland youth each year. Performing company members from Prescott, where the program began, perform and make appearances at as many as 40 Bay Area events each year.

The summer program is funded in part by Oakland Fund for Children and Youth, California Arts Council, Port of Oakland, and the West Davis & Bergard Foundation.

Performances will be held Tuesday, July 14, 11 a.m. and 1:30 p.m. (ASL interpreted) and Wednesday, July 15, 11 a.m., at the Malonga Casquelourd Center for the Arts, 1428 Alice St., Oakland. For free reservations go to

https://PrescottCircusSummerShows.eventbrite.com

For group reservations for camps, childcare centers, senior centers, go to www.prescottcircus.org

A community show will be held Saturday, July 18, 2 p.m. to 3 p.m., at DeFremery Park,1651 Adeline St., Oakland.

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50 Years Later, ‘Wake Up Everybody!’ Still Resonates During Black Music

The words of the song, “Wake Up Everybody,” debuted by Harold Melvin & The Blue Notes in 1975, still resonate today as those words are just as relevant more than a half century later.

Published

2 weeks ago

June 26, 2026

Oakland Post

iStockphoto.

By Hazel Trice Edney, Special to The Post

Hazel Trice Edney

“Wake up, everybody, No more sleepin’ in bed

No more backward thinkin’. Time for thinkin’ ahead

The world has changed so very much from what it used to be.

There is so much hatred, war, and poverty.

“The world won’t get no better If we just let it be.

Naw, naw, naw, naw, naw, naw, naw.

The world won’t get no better. We gotta change it, yeah– just you and me.”

The words of the song, “Wake Up Everybody,” debuted by Harold Melvin & The Blue Notes in 1975, still resonate today as those words are just as relevant more than a half century later.

In a rare, nearly somber moment, the group’s celebrated lead singer, Teddy Pendergrass, introduced the song on Soul Train, the weekly dance and live performance TV show that aired roughly between 1971 and 2006. Pendergrass told the attentive live audience and thousands watching by television that Wake Up Everybody, the title tune of their most recent album, was intended to inspire people to take action with a goal to change America for the better.

“I’m sure that you will all agree that there are things that need to be done in this country today,” he said. “So, what I’d like for you to do is listen very carefully to see what you can do to lend a hand.”

The song’s appeal worked.

“I played that song over and over and over again because it was a constant warning to keep ourselves prepared for the society that we were living in,” says A. Peter Bailey, then a 37-year-old former aide to Malcolm X.

When “Wake Up Everybody” hit the airwaves, Bailey was working as an associate editor of Ebony Magazine. “It was a call to be aware of what we were dealing with in the country that we lived in, the world we lived in, the neighborhood we lived in, the cities that we lived in,” Bailey said in an interview with the Trice Edney News Wire.

He concluded that during Black Music Month 2026, such songs should be recalled and celebrated as a key to changes for the good across America; especially because such songs successfully encouraged people to deal with the issues that might otherwise denigrate the promises of America, including the promise that “All men are created equal,”as stated in the Declaration of Independence.

“The rhythms and blues expressed our joys, our sorrows and our fears,” Bailey recalls. “It was those songs and the singing of those songs by our people that attracted us to the campaigns for justice.”

With his life inspired by that song and others, Bailey, now 88, went on to establish and teach a Black Press class at Virginia Commonwealth University. Also, he has since written three books, including a memoir, “Witnessing Brother Malcolm X, the Master Teacher,” in which he expounded upon successful principles of social justice, some of which are reflected in “Wake Up Everybody.”

Long before the term “woke” became associated with campaigns for justice, Pendergrass led the song that reverberated across America and still holds deep meaning.

The ‘wake up’ call exhorts teachers to ‘teach a new way,’ doctors to heal elders, and builders to ‘build a new land… we can do it if we all lend a hand.”

The song concludes:

“The world won’t get no better if we just let it be. Naw, naw, naw, naw, naw, naw, naw. The world won’t get no better. We gotta change it, yeah – just you and me.”

Hazel Trice Edney wrote this story as part of a four-part series powered by AARP in commemoration of Black Music Month, June 2026.