Artist · chart history · #192 in indie & aaa artist polls
Nina Simone
Solo artist Tryon United States
Nina Simone is an artist from Tryon. Nina Simone has 48 chart appearances on 31 radio countdowns from 10 stations on RockLists, spanning 2001–2026. The most successful song on radio countdowns is “Feeling Good”, which appears on 19 lists with a best position of #57. The station that charted Nina Simone most often is WXPN (Philadelphia, PA), with 12 appearances. The artist’s biggest year on year-end countdowns was 2023.
Nina Simone, born Eunice Kathleen Waymon in North Carolina in 1933, set out to be a concert pianist. She studied Bach, spent a summer at Juilliard and applied to the Curtis Institute of Music, which turned her down, a rejection she blamed on racism. So she played cocktail piano in an Atlantic City nightclub, changed her name so her family wouldn't find out, and was told she had to sing too. That was the start of it.
What came out was unlike anything else: classical piano, jazz, gospel, blues and folk, fused under a deep, smoky contralto that could turn any song into a sermon. Little Girl Blue, in 1958, included "My Baby Just Cares For Me", and "I Loves You, Porgy" became her biggest American hit the next year. Her bearing on stage earned her the title High Priestess of Soul, and records like I Put a Spell on You, with "Feeling Good", and Pastel Blues, with the thundering "Sinnerman", are proof.
Later came "Mississippi Goddam", "I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel To Be Free" on Silk & Soul and "Suzanne" on To Love Somebody. She threw herself into the civil rights movement, too, and left the United States after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. to settle in France. She kept performing until she died in 2003, two days after Curtis finally gave her an honorary degree. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inducted her in 2018.
Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.
Songs by Nina Simone on radio countdowns
| # | Song | Strength | Lists | Best | #1s | Peak year |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Feeling Good | 19 | #57 | – | – | |
| 2 | Sinnerman | 6 | #221 | – | – | |
| 3 | Mississippi Goddam | 3 | #112 | – | – | |
| 4 | I Put a Spell on You | 2 | #415 | – | – | |
| 5 | To Be Young, Gifted, and Black | 2 | #197 | – | – | |
| 6 | To Love Somebody | 1 | #127 | – | – | |
| 7 | Baltimore | 2 | #327 | – | – | |
| 8 | Blues For Mama - Live | 1 | #46 | – | 2023 | |
| 9 | I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel To Be Free | 1 | #685 | – | – | |
| 10 | Gimme Some | 2 | #479 | – | – | |
| 11 | Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out | 1 | #460 | – | – | |
| 12 | Suzanne | 1 | #513 | – | – | |
| 13 | You've Got To Learn | 1 | #124 | – | 2023 | |
| 14 | I Want A Little Sugar In My Bowl | 2 | #167 | – | – | |
| 15 | My Baby Just Cares For Me | 2 | #1704 | – | – | |
| 16 | Funkier Than a Mosquito's Tweeter | 1 | #444 | – | – |
Albums with charting songs
Where each song was first released, from MusicBrainz.
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