Nina Simone Parents: Meet John Devine Waymon & Mary Kate Irvin

Nina Simone was born on February 21, 1933, in Tyron, North Carolina. Her father, John Divine Waymon, worked as a barber and dry-cleaner as well as an entertainer, and her mother, Mary Kate Irvin, was a Methodist preacher.

The sixth of eight children in a poor family, she began playing the piano at the age of three or four; the first song she learned was “God Be With You, Till We Meet Again”. Demonstrating a talent with the piano, she performed at her local church.

After her graduation, Simone spent the summer of 1950 at the Julliard School as a student of Carl Friedberg, preparing for an audition at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia.

Throughout her career, Simone assembled a collection of songs that became standard in her repertoire. Some were songs that she wrote herself, while others were new arrangements of other standards, and others had been written especially for the singer.