Princess Noire: The Tumultuous Reign of Nina Simone

20. Definite Vibrations of Pride ~ 1971

20. Definite Vibrations of Pride ~ 1971 ~ O n a trip to Holland a few years earlier, Nina had befriended a young Dutch man, Gerrit DeBruin, perhaps impressed by the ingenuity he showed in getting backstage to meet her. He had offered to help some musicians who were playing the same night, and once inside the theater, he found Nina and announced that he was her biggest fan in Holland. Instead of shooing him away, she invited him to pull up a chair while she rehearsed a few songs. She introduced Gerrit to Andy and then told him to join them at a post-concert party at the Amsterdam Hilton. From that moment on they stayed in touch, and Gerrit made sure to attend Nina’s return concerts in 1968. He and his wife subsequently named their daughter after her. Gerrit finally came to the United States to see Nina and Andy in the fall of 1969 before returning home early in 1970. A few months later, just before Christmas, Gerrit received a phone call and was surprised to hear Nina on the other end. She was in Paris, she explained. She had left Andy and had no money. Could she scrape together enough to get to the airport? Gerrit asked. Nina said she could. So he bought her a ticket to Amsterdam, met her when she landed, and then put her up at the American Hotel at the Leidseplein, a popular square in the city. That suited her fine. Not long after the breakup, she had written Gerrit that she wanted to return to Holland anyway “to relax and refine the tuning of myself.” Safe and comfortable for the moment, Nina was still broke, but Gerrit had an idea. He contacted one of his musician friends known as Boy Edgar, and the two agreed that Nina could sing during a special television concert January 8 for the band’s twenty-fifth anniversary . In the meantime, Nina had asked Sam if he would become her manager. He was only twenty-six, but he was already an experienced musician and, more important, she trusted him—“truth, dialogue that only blood could have,” Sam explained. He flew over to Amsterdam to help with the concert, even sharing a room with Gerrit at a hotel near the Concertgebouw. Money was tight, and there was no time for rehearsal, only the chance for Nina to meet Boy Edgar and his musicians beforehand to sketch out the program. Nina swept onstage at the appointed time in a new dress, red and trimmed with fur, that was distinctly different from the bold African definite vibrations of pride · 251 Nina with Boy Edgar, a Dutch musician, and his band, before her performance in January 1971 in Amsterdam. (Gerrit DeBruin) prints she had worn so often the last couple of years. She opened with a jazzy version of “Compared to What,” which the young star Roberta Flack had recently recorded, and then offered a spare “Suzanne” with only modest accompaniment. So far so good. But when she turned to “My Father,” written by Judy Collins, the lack of rehearsal with the band was obvious. She started to sing but immediately realized something was off. She started again and willed her way through the rest of the song. Then she got up from the piano and hurried off the stage after barely ten minutes. The audience booed. For nearly a half-hour Gerrit and Nina’s old friend Big Willy, the man who had signed her to Philips, cajoled and prodded to persuade her to continue the performance. She finally agreed to do so after forbidding Boy Edgar’s band to make a sound, according to Gerrit. Then in her boiling state she sang a heartbreaking version of “Strange Fruit.” Nina was so used to improvising even in the best of circumstances that she decided to go on with “To Love Somebody.” When she got to “See-Line Woman,” she enlisted the crowd as her backup singers and won them over so completely that they cheered for more. She had saved the night, and she walked offstage to loud applause, carrying the bouquets that had been tossed her way in appreciation. Two days later Nina saw television footage of the concert and got angry at Boy Edgar all over again for what had happened onstage. “You are right,” he screamed back, “but in the end this...