In that same interview she expressed strong opinions on everything from Michael Jackson's freakish skin-whitening to the separation of the races. "I do not believe in mixing of the races," she said. "I don't believe in it and I never have. I've never changed. I've never changed my hair. I've never changed my color, I have always been proud of myself, and my fans are proud of me for remaining the way I've always been. I married a white man one time, but he was a creep."

Simone continued making music on various labels, releasing albums like "Baltimore," covering Daryl Hall's "Rich Girl" and Judy Collins' "My Father," in 1978. In 1982 she released the album "Fodder on My Wings," consisting mostly of her own songs including "I Sing Just to Know That I'm Alive," and in 1985 she recorded "Nina's Back and Live and Kickin'." In 1987, 30 years after the Bethlehem release, "My Baby Just Cares for Me," another selection from "Little Girl Blue," became the theme for an ad campaign for Chanel No. 5 perfume in Britain. The song reached No. 5 on the English pop charts and brought Nina back from relative obscurity.

And in 1992, the movie "Point of No Return," starring Bridget Fonda as a female assassin obsessed with Simone, featured her music. As dull and obvious as that movie is, Simone's music represents for the heroine (whose code name is what? Nina!) longing and loss, and at the same time freedom. Simone's own "I Want a Little Sugar in My Bowl" plays on her headphones as Fonda, jonesing for a fix, is the only person left alive during a pharmacy shootout. A liberating moment, yes, but at the same time, a moment fraught with peril and sadness. Everyone in the film who listens to Simone's music is touched by this overall sensation, which is the double-edged quality of Nina Simone's music.

In "Point of No Return," you're a fool if you don't know who Nina Simone is: You haven't suffered and you certainly haven't lived. The year after the movie, Simone released "A Single Woman," with stunning tracks like the title song and "Love's Been Good to Me." On the album her voice is deeper with far less range than the voice heard in her earlier work and in the many compilations and best of's constantly being released. (There are three -- "The Legend at Her Best," "Misunderstood" and "Nina Simone's Finest Hour" -- to be released this summer.) And yet her voice had grown fuller, as if it expanded to accommodate the accumulation of her life.

Just two weeks ago I saw Simone play live in New York. I had never seen her perform before -- her dislike for the States doesn't bring her here often, so catch her now if you can -- and she walked onstage (more like shuffled) with assistance. She wore a bright blue African dress and her arm cut the air with a straw fly-swatter. The audience soon learned that when she moved the swatter, we were to applaud. We did so willingly. The audience was a reflection of Nina -- as diverse in age, color and choice of footwear (always a good indicator of class) as I have seen.

When she sang Dylan's "Just Like a Woman," after the line "but she breaks just like a little girl" Simone added, "I'm not a little girl." She kind of chuckled at that. And she wasn't kidding: For a 67-year-old woman, she moved, almost losing her balance, as if she were in her 80s.

Countless celebrities have become captive of their own persona -- look at Mae West -- and in many ways it seems this has happened to Simone, the person. But as much bitterness as she has for racist America, the record companies that have ripped her off, the failure of the civil rights movement and for audiences who talk while she is playing, Simone, the artist, defies that persona.

Beneath the complex layers of anger and isolation and bitterness lies a fan. In New York, when she sang her first hit and what has come to be her swan song, "I Loves You, Porgy," and in the middle segued into "Falling in Love Again," it was as if Billie Holiday had never sung a note of the former and Marlene Dietrich had never belted out the latter. And yet, as it was Nina Simone's song, it was also a song of admiration.

Who cares if we were expected to clap for 20 minutes -- with much coaxing from her band -- for her to come out and zip through "My Baby Just Cares for Me"? We were all willing to work for her, willing to wait as an assistant adjusted her head wrap in midsong. Plain and simple, those who listen to Nina Simone can't live without her music. She brings us both into and out of ourselves as we experience the best and worst of our lives at the exact same moment.

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