Princess Noire: The Tumultuous Reign of Nina Simone

25. Fodder on Her Wings ~ 1982–1988

25. Fodder on Her Wings ~ 1982–1988 ~ T he day I discovered Jacques Brel was one of the most exciting days of my whole life,” Nina wrote in her memoir. “So Paris seemed to make sense.” She knew the city had a large African community with residents from several countries, “so I would be able to create my own Africa in the heart of Europe, Africa in my mind.” She found a small apartment and decided to book herself into small clubs until she got established rather than work with a promoter. She distrusted them all. She liked the New Morning, one of the city’s popular jazz spots despite its out-of-the-way location (northeast Paris, not the trendy Left Bank), and she brought her old habits with her. On the night that Jazz Magazine reviewed a show, Nina arrived more than an hour late, but she looked fetching, combining Indian-rose pants, a black leotard and a dashiki with several bracelets and silver chokers as accessories. She gave the impression of being a new-age African priestess. But she sang spottily, announcing a song and then changing her mind, or starting a song and then brusquely changing the key in the middle. “Vous êtes seuls” (You are the only ones), she sang in French, repeating the line over and over in a rhythmic chant. “Je desire être avec vous.” (I want to be with you.) For many in the audience, however, the evening was, as Nicole Cerf-Hofstein wrote, “a missed rendez-vous.” Nina found enough creative rejuvenation to return to the studio in January 1982 for her first album in four years, this time on the local Carrere label. She recruited three musicians—two African percussionists , Sydney Thiam and Paco Sery, who between them played congas, bells, woodblock, and timpani, and bassist Sylvin Marc, who also did backup vocals. This eclectic mix accounted for the calypsoreggae feel to most of the tracks. With songs in English and French and some that alternated between the two, the entire project felt both international and deeply personal. “I Sing Just to Know That I’m Alive” reflected Nina’s belief in her art, and “Liberian Calypso” celebrated her African adventure. And if “Alone Again Naturally,” her improvisation about the death of her father, still seemed overwrought , it suggested, a decade after J.D. died, that Nina was still coming to terms with the loss. She thanked her father on the record jacket. The album took its title, Fodder on My Wings, from a somber track. “It’s about a bird that fell to earth and was crippled when it landed in fodder and other human debris,” Nina explained. “Although it was able to survive, it couldn’t fly. So it walks from country to country to see if people had forgotten how to live, how to give. As it went, the bird found that most of the people had forgotten.” Nina was especially proud of the record. Except for borrowing from Gilbert O’Sullivan on “Alone Again,” she composed, arranged, or conceived every song, and she insisted that the liner notes say so. “What I did on this new album was to try to get myself deep into joy.” But that joy was short-lived. When she came onstage May 7 at Barbican Hall in London, she gave another disjointed performance of unexpected exits from the stage followed by hasty returns, bits of quasi-African dancing, a tête-à-tête with a chattering fan, and a smoldering exchange with a few in the crowd who asked her to sing “Baltimore .” She offered the first chorus and then stopped. “Randy Newman gets the money from this,” Nina said. “We are not going to sing it tonight.” fodder on her wings · 315 “Why not?” someone yelled. “Because I said so.” “Those who had paid to hear music walked out in droves, laughing incredulously,” Richard Williams told London Times readers after the concert. But this evening was nothing compared to the embarrassment in Pamplona, Spain, on July 23. Raymond Gonzalez, a promoter in Paris who was artistic director of a festival there, had booked Nina, but the day before the event, he couldn’t find her. He knew she was temporarily back in Geneva, and he finally tracked her down. After much argument, he persuaded her to get on a plane for Pamplona via Madrid. Nina changed planes...