Can everyone welcome to conversations. Last year at the La Cabaret Festival, Lisa Simone was a huge hit with Adelaide. But I think Adelaide was a huge hit with Lisa, so much so that she's asked to come back, and she will be performing at the Adelaide Cabaret Festival in July, the twenty six of you. I actually at Her Majesty's Theater, that wonderful venue. Lisa Samione, Welcome to the program.
It's good to be here with you today. Thank you for having me.
From. Where are we speaking to you?
I am currently in Scottsdale, Arizona in the United States and America.
Is that home?
Ah, for the moment. Yes, I'm kind of parapatetic, so here I'm in the Southwest and we'll see what happens in the monster come.
So why are you so mobile?
Why am I say mobile? I'm a woman of the world. What can I say? You know, I hope to put some roots down at some point, but we'll see what that looks like. But most of my life I've been traveling, I mean since I was born. So you could think you could say that that's my home. A suitcases, my home.
Well, indeed, Aman, your mother was nameless and mine a huge star indeed, and I think you repraise some of her legacy in your in your show. But it's more than just about your mother.
Is it not. Absolutely, the legacy lives on. So I am the walking embodiment of the Simone legacy, and so I stand on her shoulders. So while I turned back and give a wave, pay homage and celebrate the great one who walk before me, I also do it in my own way. That song My Way comes to mind.
And so far I've been able to walk that fine line quite successfully with audiences, so that the experience that I bring to the stage is not only one that audiences have found to be quite thrilling and enjoyable, but I have as well. And it's very important to me that everybody, the musicians, the crew, myself, and the audience have a good time, a participative kind of experience when I get on the stage.
You exposed your earlier life and your mother's life, and your mother's trials and tribulations in the recent Netflix documentary. We are happy with it very much.
So I promised my mother on her deathbed that I would make sure she was not forgotten. I had no idea how I would go about doing that. However, the impetus behind that promise was because she had spent many years swirling away tapes and dats at the time, remember dats, they don't even use those anymore, in case she lost her voice. My mother battles cancer for six years and so she was in chemo and radiation regularly, which is
not exactly information that the public was aware of. So she was squirreling away these items in case she couldn't sing anymore. And for a long period of time, Mommy didn't feel appreciated. Let's just face it, she wasn't really appreciated the way she is now. It took her dying, which seems to be the case for many artists, before she really reached her zenus. So it took twelve years for the right team to come along, and that came
in the form of Netflix. And it was wonderful to work with the people who were fearless enough to approach my mother's story honestly, openly and in a manner that she would want to be remembered like. And so the first time I saw the first version of it, much to my surprise, I thought I would cry. I actually danced around the room. It felt good to release a weight I didn't know that I had been carrying. I didn't feel like I had to defend or justify or
educate anyone anymore. And now her story lives large, and it's timeless, and it's in her voice, and we're all on the same page.
But I thought you were quite fearless in your own way to allow your mother's demons to be exposed. And of most thoughts were recorded in the die entries, and I mean, did you have any doubts at all about some of the graphic stuff that was exposed?
No, that was really it's interesting to use the word graphic. There's a lot more to the story. There's a lot more to Mom's journey. What Liz Garbus, the director, was able to do was to put the various elements together in a way that it fit into less than an hour and a half, and it flows and it gives people. What I wanted people to walk away from that documentary with was a sense of compassion for Mom and also saying, wow, I didn't know that. And both of those desires on
my part were fulfilled. So I think that you know, the truth is the truth. The truth is not always going to be bells and whistles and flowers. It can be quite ugly, but that's what enables us to appreciate it and to learn from it and to grow because of it.
I struggled with it, to be quite honest, because the issues of domestic violence. Both your father and your mother were so open about the episodes of domestic violence which she suffered. Yes, how did you feel. Did you find that confronting?
Well, I lived a lot of it, and as it's left its scars, I've healed from many of those scars. I have found my own path within my heart and assized the gift and the power of forgiveness in order to heal my own heart and not pass down tendencies to the next generation. But I wanted my mother's story to be told truthfully, and as the elders have always said, especially in the South and in church, the truth shall set you free. And so it's important that there's been
enough lies, there's been enough tall tales. I mean, before the documentary came out, I was amazed at the number of assumptions and just additions to my mother's story that seemed to pass as truth, and I feel like I got a lesson on how myths and legends are born. You take a kernel of truth and then you just add everything else that you want to it to turn it into something that it never was.
It was about everybody being feeling and experiencing what Mom's truth was in the first person, so that there could be a real deeper understanding of the person, the daughter, the artist, the black revolutionary, the wife, the mother, and the human being.
But you touch on that point about the black litt revolutionary, I mean her activism and her espousing of the civil rights movement. That was a fascinating part of it. You know, the people you were mixing with them, your little girl. Yeah, and there's these names. There's there's mountin Lutha. King is Malcolm X. You know, there's Stukeley Comichael.
Benny Shabbaz, Betty Shabbaz, Length and Hughes, James Baldwin, Ferdievy Grovener. Lorraine Hansberry was my ordained godmother. I mean the list of who's who in Black history, I mean Rock Peters and I can't think of anybody else right now. There are others, you know, you had secutuas His Highness Secutua who was a president of Guinea, Mary Mackayba. So all of these are my aunts and uncles. And as I reflect now back on my life, boy, it was rich.
But you didn't the same debate such an activist.
There's no need. My mother did enough of that and my family. I shared my mother with our people. I shared my mother with the civil rights movement, and she suffered mightily because of the choices that she made to stand up for our people, to use the stage as a podium, to speak out in a manner that so many others were not able to. This was her mission, her ministry, it was her heart and her passion. And
as her child, there was conflict. There was conflict between you know, when you're a fighter like that, a warrior, a gladiator, and then you come home and you deal with your child, and you know your sword and your butler and your armor is not needed. Sometimes you don't know how to do that. Sometimes you don't know how to separate the two. So I have made a conscious
decision in my career to not mix the two. And music is for everybody, the protagonists and the antagonists, and some people might have an issue with that, but this is my personal choice, my political views. My political position is personal. It's no one's business but mine.
Lisa's in mind is my guest, folks. She will be in Adelaide on the twenty sixth of July at Her Majesty's Theater. So much more to come, such an interesting life, such an interesting family. Will hope to uncover that back shortly. Welcome back, everybody you just churned in. We're chatting with Lisa's to mine and Lisa will be here in Adelaide on the twenty sixth of July about her majesty seat a part of the Adelaide Cabareet Festival. Demanded to come back to Adelaide after loving it so much.
Yes, I can't wait.
We can't help but talk about your mom in depth, Nina's and mine. There were so many things I learned in that Netflix documentary. I mean, I didn't know she was such a brilliant pianist. She must have been a prodigy. How did that happen?
She was a prodigy. She's a child prodigy and she trained for many years. Her dream not only just her dream, but when you watch a documentary, I think you remember that it was in there. The town of Tryon, where she was born in Tryon, North Carolina, came together and created a Eunice Kathleen Weyman, which is her maiden name. It created a fund to support the financing of her lessons.
She had that much talent and she was gifted, and so they planted in her brain the possibility that she could become the first black female classical pianist to grace the classical music world. Her dream was not only to attend the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, but it was also to grace the stage of Carnegie Hall playing classical music. So that was never her going to the Curtis Institute. That dream was never realized. However, she did grace the stage of Carnegie Hall many times.
But she studied on at Julia, that prestigious in New York City.
In New York City, she was there for a few months, yes, but her dream was to attend the Curtis Institute of Music.
The sentiment is she was rejected because she was black.
This is the wound that she carried in her heart until a few days before she died. A few days before she died, well unbeknownst to her, about maybe a year prior to her death, she had performed in Philadelphia, and while she was on stage, she recounted the experience of being rejected and how she'd always carried that with her. And there were a group of women, the title of their affiliation is so long, I can never remember it.
But they took it upon themselves, unbeknownst to my mother, to go to the Curtis Institute to see if they could get the Institute to award my mother something. Now, at this time, mommy had two honorary doctorates. She's a doctorate of Humanities from the Malcolm X University as well as Amherst. It's either Amherst College or Amherst University, I'm not sure which one. So she was already doctor Nina Simone. So when they went to the Curtis Institute to prevail
upon them, you know, let's do the right thing. A few days before mommy died, she found out that the Curtis Institute, and I have to be very specific here because many journalists had gotten it wrong, they gave her an honorary diploma, not a doctorate, not a degree. They gave her a diploma which I accepted on her behalf, because by the time it was ready, she was already dead. And I read from the speech that she had started to dictate to her team. But I'd have to say this,
I was told because I wasn't with Mom when she died. Unfortunately, that at a time when she had lost all her mobile skills, and she was not very responsive. When she heard that the Curtis Institute had agreed to give her a diploma, that she smiled, And in my heart that means that that part of her that had been open and painful for so long was finally able to heal.
I wonder about that, though, I mean, if I didn't want you, then why should she accept them? Now? You know, you know you didn't want me? Did jump onto my farme? Now? Did you not think that?
That's interesting? That's an interesting way of putting it. I mean, I can only answer you as me. Well, all my answers are as me. But looking at it from the perspective in which I lived my life at this time, I think there comes a time when when you're fighting all the time, it's exhausting. It's exhausting, and there comes a time when, especially on your deathbed, when acceptance begins to overshadow and eclipse a lot of the other areas that you've been fighting against and trying to control. So
this is just me putting my perspective on there. And you know, they hadn't given her anything. I mean, let's think about it. They had never given her anything much less any kind of throughout all those years, no acknowledgment whatsoever. So I'm happy that she was in a place within her heart where she was able to recognize the grace in that gesture and take that with her when she left this world.
We talked about your dad because he's an interesting Oh.
My dad, I love him.
Yes, he was a complex character, as they both were, as I would understand it.
But they both were complex.
We would describe him here in Australia in old fashioned terms as a man.
I think I think he would like that title. Yes, absolutely, he was very much that Mommy was attracted to Medle likea so she you know, I always said that. I think I might have said this in a documentary. I don't remember that. You know, if you told mom don't push that button because you might blow off your finger, she pushed it. That's that's just what she did, so
she You know, I am not defending anyone. As I said in the documentary, I think they were both crazy because you know, he allowed her to push her button, but push his buttons, excuse me, And she pushed the buttons he told her not to push. So there were options that both of them could have taken to prevent a lot of the dysfunction and toxic violence and conflict that was so much a part of their relationship. But now that I'm a woman and a grandmother, some people
thrive on that kind of step in their relationships. So who's who can really say? None of us were in their bed, were in their bedroom, None of us really know. All we're doing is looking through a people, and we are judging and placing our own labels on what we think their relationship was, Like are we not?
But you did live it?
I did? I did, and I got through it.
We would actually tell us a bit more. It could be he was he had music, he had a musical sense.
Oh yeah.
Then he joined the military towards the end of World War Two and then had a career as a police officer in New York. Now suggests to me he's a tough man.
My father was brilliant. First of all, he was the fifth son of a fifth son. My grandfather on Dad's side is from Holland, so he had a white father and a black mother, and he was born in Virginia, in the Bible Belt of the United States of America in nineteen twenty eight. That should tell you something, absolutely okay. So when babies are born, as we all know, they're pure as a tabla rosa. Everything is learned after that.
I've often wondered what happened to him in his life that made him get to the point where he was that guy who you didn't want to mess with. Obviously, he was hurt, so he went into the navy. While he was in the navy, one of the things that he played was the trumpet. I don't know if that was his job. I don't think that was his job, but he did play in a naval band. So Dad's
instrument of choice was a trumpet. And for everybody who are need a simone fans listener right now, if you go to the High Pricess of Soul album and listen to take Me to the Water, which is a song that precedes going back Home, you're going to hear her singing this gospel tune, and you're gonna hear a bunch of people in the background backing her up. And the loudest voice is this incredible tenor, this male tenor. And I remember asking my dad, is that you? He was
like yes. I was like, wow, you should have been an opera singer. Give me the story and he said that when mom was recording that song, she wanted some backgrounds. So they got the security guard, they got the secretary, and all the people that are around us us come in and seeing and Dad's voice is the loudest. My father was brilliant. He had a brilliant business mind. He
was an exceptional musician. He was a tactician, a strategist, and like I said, he had his office on Fifth Avenue in the sixties, a publishing company and a production company called Stroud Productions. So he was way ahead of his time. He had a vision, he understood the industry, and he had a plan.
As we got to the bright Lace, so let's see if we can hear your dad's voice in the back ground of this Take Me to the Water rendition. Lisa Simone is my guess. Back shortly. Welcome back everybody. If you just tuned in, we're chatting with Lisa Simone in Arizona. That's sort of home for a little while. She will be here on the twenty sixth of July doing I think a tribute to a mother, Nina Simone. I think that's a way of saying. But as well as had
some of her own stuff, which is quite renowned. It did seem to me though, that you shunned any musical pathway when you were young because you joined the military, joined the Air Force.
I know, I still try to make sense of that. That was an act of desperation. My parents did not encourage me to be a musician. While when their marriage was flourishing, I took dance class, I took piano, I
was immersed in the arts. When their relationship became freid when I was eight years old, all of those experiences and classes that come along with having a foundation in your life ceased to be But the one thing that I've always been able to do, one thing that I've always gotten positive responses from anyone in the room because of was when I sang or when I sing, and harmonies come easily for me and so one thing that I've always been able to fall back on, that's never
let me down, and that is now bringing so much joy to others and myself is my voice. So when I went into high school and I started living with other family members, I started singing in an a cappella group. There were five of us. I was fifteen, and I used to give everybody their parts. And so the first time I ever sang in front of a group of people was in church, and it was very nerve wracking. However, I guess I caught the bug because I'm talking to
you now. But I went into the military. I did go into the military, and I was an exceptional student in school, and my last year of high school I combined my first year of college, or they would say yes, university in some places, with my last year of high school. And the college plans that I had put in place with my uncle, my mother's brother fell through. So rather than having patients, which does not usually come along with youth, I said, I just don't want to stay here for
another year. I don't want to be around these grown ups. I want to have my own life. I want to be independent. And so I don't quite remember how the Air Force became an option, But obviously it did because I went into the Air Force. And my mother's best friend, my godmother, who met her in high school, who was in the educational world, she did her best to dissuade me from going in.
But what what was it about it?
Though?
That was it the uniform? Was it the No?
I don't know. It wasn't the uniform.
No, it wasn't.
No.
It was me getting out of where I was. I did not want to be where I was anymore. I wanted to be on my own. I wanted to be independent. I had been waiting for this. That was That was my sole focused nothing else. I couldn't see anything else, and so I didn't realize and when when my godmother was as beautiful as she was, actually even got a captain on the phone to tell me, even though you've taken your oath and you're on delayed en listening, you
can still break your oath. And that was an issue that I had as well, because there'd been so much much distrust in my life. I didn't trust my parents. I didn't trust my mother. I didn't trust I mean when I was twelve years old, let me tell you what my motto was, I'll never fall in love, I'll never get married, and I'll never have children. That way, I'll never be hurt. Because if you can't trust your own parents, who can you trust. So fast forward to
going into the military. I had given my oath, and my word meant something to me so much so that no one could talk me out of not going in because I'd already given my oath.
So many things come to mind when you tell me that. I mean, I can imagine somebody you served within the military signing now I know I work with.
Oh yeah, a few. There's a few. I was in for almost eleven years. But I'll tell you what. The day, the morning after I arrived at Basic training in San Antonio, Texas, I looked around going, oh my god, what have I done? Oh my goodness, Wow. I felt like I was sleepwalking. For the next ten years, I was in a job that I hated, but I learned a very good skill, civil engineering, you know. And it was while I was in the military that I was reunited with what I love doing, which is seeing I had it.
Not falling in love, getting married and having kids work out for you.
Not at all. I have three kids, and I've been married. I've been married twice, so it didn't work out at all. But I have to say that I've reached a point in my own path and in my own relationship to myself and life where I'm able to trust not only myself, which was the hardest lesson. I think of all as if you can trust yourself, you can trust others. If you can have compassion for yourself and love yourself, you
can have the same for others. And so it took me many years to find my own peace, and I'm glad that I have had the colorful, textured life that I've had.
When you when you discharge from the military, some people are a little lost as to what they're gonna do. Now, how was that for you?
I knew that I wanted to be an entertainer at that point, so I started singing about man. I was in a group called the Magic Platters. We sang all the Platters soon songs do do Do Do Do? I? Yeah did that? I sang background with a Cuban singer Bessuck.
A capella of a Platter song for me.
Oh my goodness, remember when do do Do Do Do Do? I was the girl, you know, and there were there were.
Who ah, whoa, whoa, whoa whoa.
So oh my goodness, that was the easiest gig. I loved it. So I did that. And then, like I said, I sang with a Cuban singer. I also sang with another R and B singer who I was reunited with in twenty nineteen. I did. I was with a party band that we did like Whitney Houston and Lisa Stanfield, all those songs. So I got my feet wet doing music when I wasn't in uniform all my off hours. And then when I got out of the military, I
was stationed in Germany. I was in Frankfurt, Germany at the time, at Ryan Mainair Base, and I got a what they call a European out, meaning I stayed in Germany and I just became a civilian. I was also I've also always been into physical fitness, so I was a bodybuilder and a fitness instructor aerobics instructor. So I got a job managing the Bass gym. So and I
made my own schedule. So during the week I was in the gym and on the weekends I was taking the train from Germany into Belgium and France and all these other places, performing with the Magic Platters, with Margarita Cantaro and with Joan Faulkner. And that's how music came into my life. And I remember I was doing I was asked to do a gig at a resort in Switzerland and the musician started asking me if I wanted to do some stuff on my own with them, which
I thought was interesting. And I remember the day that I realized I had this epiphany. I was like, wait a minute, if I can get the response from the audience, said I think I can, because I was going to be doing My baby just cares for me, believe it or not. I said, maybe this is what I should be doing with my life. Well I got a good response. I called my mom. I was so excited to give her the news. Mom, I know what I want to do. When I get out, She's like, oh, what is that.
I was like, I don't want to be a singer.
What did she say?
The pause was so long, it was like this pregnant pause. I thought that our connection had been cut. And by the time she found her voice, she said only one word why. Why? And then when I told my dad, because I was originally go to work with my dad. When I told him I had changed my mind, he did his best to just kind of lull me into well, you know, and once again he had a strategic mind. He said, well, you might want to go into computer programming.
You might want to get into the tech world, because you know that's really going to be the place to be in the years to come. So it got to the point where every time he talked about that, I would knod my head up and down and give answers. Meanwhile, I wasn't paying him any attention, but I believed in myself. It was the first time I can sagram that I felt this fire in my bones. Was like, no, this is what I'm supposed to be doing. And for the first time ever, at twenty eight years old, I'm going
to follow my own instincts. I'm not going to be led in a direction that someone else thinks I should go in. And I thought it would be easy. I was, I don't know, either arrogant, narcissistic, or just innocent ignorance, but I never for one instant thought that being the daughter of my mother would hinder me in any way. That's also when I decided to drop my middle name
that saw my birth certificate and become Lisa Simone. So I became at that time, I had another last name because I had been married, but Simone became my middle name, and so that's when I adopted the Simone name to honor my mother, to honor this legacy, and I've carried it ever since.
Lisa's mind is my guess, folkes, if we get into her singing career, which is interesting, fascinating back shortly, Lisa Simone is my guest, folks on conversations. It's a great story. The daughter of Nina Samone, of course, famous black activist and jazz singer. A lady had some troubles in her life,
I think, but Lisa's emerged from that. She joins the military, much much to her parents, trying to dissuade her from doing that comes up, but she realizes she can sing, and when she gets out of the military, out of the Air Force, she wants to be a singer. Lisa, how do you find yourself on Broadway?
Oh? My uh. I was in California for a little while and I was doing odd jobs and a gentleman who I was working for spoke with a casting agent who happened to be casting the Bus and Truck tour of Jesus Christ Superstar with Ted Neely and Carl Anderson Hello from the Brown Album. I got hired to be a Solstice Mary understudied vocal coach for the whole tour. And it's interesting because it was non union, so that
in and of itself was an experience. But when you're young and you're doing what you love, that's those are decisions that you make. And it's from there that I met and made friends with a dear friend, Rodney Hicks, who wound up being in the original cast of Rent, and he told the casting agent, Bertie Kelsey about me. Jonathan Larson was still alive at the time, and by the time I auditioned, Jonathan Lawson was no longer with us.
He is the one who originally wrote the Rent and so my second theatrical show ever was the original cast of Rent at the Neederlander Theater in New York City as a swing and I understudied four excuse me, I was a swing for four of the five roles, and then I wound up taking out well. In the midst of that, I did the workshop of Aida as Aida and also King as Nala, which were both Disney productions.
But the director of Rent asked me so nicely if I would audition for the role of Mimi Marquez, which is one of the main female role in Rent, to take out the first National Tour, my favorite role, and so I got that part. I took out the first National Tour and from there I took a break and joined the Liquid Soul band excuse me, the acid jazz band. Liquid Soul gave Berts and my daughter. My agent called in New York to see if I wanted to come back to Broadway and join the Aida cast, which I did.
I was under study for Heather Hedley, who won the Tony took out the first National Tour to critical acclaim, came back to Broadway. Then my mom died, but the last time I saw her she came to see me as Aida on Broadway.
I was intrigued with Aida. I mean that Elton John and Tim Rice is a Tree didn't return Elton John's fine calls.
No, no, no, my mother didn't what happened. But as we say, what had happened was I got this call on a Saturday from a number I didn't recognize, and the gentleman identified himself as Elton John's assistant. Well, of course that stopped me. Called and he just said, you know, Staying and his wife are putting on their annual concert for the Rainforest at Carnegie Hall, and they would really love your mother to join, but she's not accepting my calls.
Oh my god, So excuse me, mister, Sir John asked me to call you on his behalf because your mother's not accepting his calls, and he was hoping that you would talk to her about the possibility of coming. So when I called her and brought it up, she wasn't interested. But then I said, but mom, you can come and see me because Carnegie Hall was literally five blocks away from where I was performing on Broadway in Aida at
the Palace Theater. And so I just kind of laid it on really thick in terms of all of the wonderful, fantastic experiences she could have. And so she's okay, okay, So she came.
What does she think?
Oh, she loved it. She loved the entire experience. She I have pictures of her on stage with what's the the mother of the judge there was Ashley Judge, his three It's two daughters and the mother, So the Judge, the Jugs, Trudy Styler, sting Elton, John, Patty LaBelle. She was she really felt welcomed by her peers, which she wasn't used to feeling, and so that was really nice to hear and see. And she was in a really good place. She was so cheerful. I was like, what's
the matter with you? She was really just really like unusually happy. And then she came to see me on Broadway. She came twice, met the cast, and she actually broke the fourth wall from the audience, which I usually tell this story. I told her a lot of times. You know, as you say to your parents, don't embarrass me, don't embarrass me mom, whatever you do. And you know how you know your mother's voice no matter where you are.
So I was in the middle of a scene. I was in the middle of a scene, and a very poignant scene because Aida is a Nubian princess. Nubia and Egypt are at war. Aida is captured by an Egyptian captor who becomes her love and so her father, the Nubian king, comes to rescue her. He gets captured and thrown in jail. From this particular scene, Aida is saying to her father, you know we can get you out
of here. I'm wearing this ambulance that my lover gave me, and he's like, Aida, do not tell me that these Egyptians grieve for the Nubian men execute the women ravaged and out of the darkness. All I heard. The whole theater heard. Oh my god, you could have heard a pin drop, and of course I knew who it was. It took about maybe ten seconds before the next line was mine. And at the end of the show, I said, Mom, Mom, come on, why'd you do that? She said, I couldn't
help myself. I couldn't help myself. I was touched by the scene. I'm sorry, honey.
So she burst into song where you dropped out when you did the sound effect.
She went on, she said all she said, all right, the word was all right, but she yelled it and she extended the word out. And the gentleman who played my father only had maybe five minutes in the entire show. He was preening after that, saying, Nina Simone commented on my scene.
Was confused about that version of it id. It was originally an opera di verdie.
Absolutely, and it was Leontine Price, I believe, who originated the role who came to see me when I was performing in Aita, Thank you very much. Yes, definitely an opera.
Yes, so did you have to sing an operatic style?
No, but as the star of the show, I sang eleven songs per show and it was a load, a heavy load. I was in great voice. It was an exceptional experience, and when my mother died, I was able to immerse myself in the role like never before because, unlike some Disney shows, I was not playing a teapot. So there's one particular line when I came back after my mother's funeral, I only took ten days off and
I got on that stage. There's a particular scene that Sir Tim Rice had written that was like, you talk about art imitating life, and it said, it goes it's knowing what they want of me that's scares me. It's knowing having followed, I must lead. It's knowing that each person there compares me to those in my past whom I now succeed. When I sang those words the first time I came back after my mother's funeral. It was
as if I was riding a razor's edge. It took everything I had to stay in character and to not break down, because that is my truth. It's knowing that each person there compares me to those in my past whom I now succeed. Hello.
Yeah, well that is you, isn't it. I mean, do you find yourself being compared to you.
All the time? You can say, till the cows come home, this is just a tribute. It's an homage. There's only one nemss Simon. People cannot help themselves. But I will say this. I'll tell you what my father said to me after one such concert. He said, you've been compared to your mother, and you've done good. Baby.
I don't see that. I mean, your mother's daughter. And I've seen the you know, I've seen clips of you. I mean, you're very active on social media. There's lots of stuff of you. The documentary, there was lots of you there. I mean, your mother was your mother, an intriguing personality. But similarly, you are forging your own way, even though you are singing your mother's songs. But your mother's daughter. But I don't see the comparison.
Well, first of all, I want to think, I want to thank you. I feel it because I've always seen me in the mirror. I've always known that, but for many years until the documentary came out, most people would refer to me as, oh, you're the daughter of and I would say, I do actually have a name, you know, So it's nice to be seen for me. I appreciate that from you. I've even had some people literally say
to me, Nina Simone doesn't have a child. I'm a big fan of Nima Simone, and if she had a child, I would know serious.
Oh she has a child, and we can see her on the twenty sixth of July and Her Majesty's Theater. Lisa Simone, thank you so much for chatting, Thanks so much for being open, and look forward to seeing you back in Adelaide and I hope you enjoy coming here again.
I look forward to getting there and I'm eager to get back on that stage again and to continue the conversation that the Adelaide audience and myself began last year.
Lisa Simime was my guest. Folks, thank you so much for joining us.