Legendary jazz singer and civil rights activist Nina Simone provides the inspiration for one-woman musical play Black Is The Color Of My Voice, which stops off in Wolverhampton next month.
The show’s creator and star, Apphia Campbell, talks to What’s On...

Inspired by the life of jazz icon Nina Simone, Black Is The Color Of My Voice follows a successful singer and civil rights activist seeking redemption after the death of her father. Her grief provides an opportunity to reflect on the journey that took her from a piano prodigy destined for a life in the service of the church, to a renowned jazz vocalist at the forefront of the Civil Rights Movement.

Featuring classic tunes such as Feeling Good, I Put A Spell On You, Mississippi Goddamn, I Love You Porgy and See-Line Woman, the acclaimed one-woman play has enjoyed sell-out seasons in Shanghai, New York, Edinburgh and London’s West End since its premiere almost 10 years ago and is currently on tour with its creator back in the lead role.

After a spell directing another actor as the protagonist, Apphia Campbell has returned to performing as Nina - or rather Mena Bordeaux, the fictional character inspired by the real-life icon. There’s nothing sinister or judicial for the name change, Apphia tells me, it’s simply because she didn’t want audiences to focus on the fact that she doesn’t really sound like the iconic jazz singer.

“I feel like when people go to shows about someone famous, it’s as if ‘I don’t care about the story, I just want to hear how much you sound like her’,” she says. “That’s why I changed the character’s name and decided to use my own voice - so I can interpret it as a singer, as a vocalist, and get to the essence and the heart of the song without having to try and imitate her sound.”

And Apphia believes Simone’s story is every bit as important as her celebrated tunes - which is what prompted her to write the play in the first place. 

“I was inspired by Nina Simone as a woman. I loved her music, but I wanted to show the woman behind the music because I felt like there was a lot of mystery around her, and a lot of myth as well. People had all these stories about her and her erratic behaviour, and I just felt really moved by it and wanted to know where all that pain and all the feeling she put into her songs came from.”

A hugely important element is Simone’s involvement in the Civil Rights Movement, which didn’t just damage her career, but made her a target at an especially dangerous time in America.

“The things she would say, I was like ‘Oh my God!’ She didn’t have any fear about what it would do to her career because she had so much conviction in what she believed in. I found that really inspiring because as artists sometimes, even though you don’t want to think about the bottom line and whether people are gonna come see my work, you do have to pay your rent as well.

“But that wasn’t even a thought for her - even when people were telling her she was jeopardising her career by singing these protest songs, she didn’t care.”

Apphia believes Simone did ultimately question the route she took, as her career suffered but little progress was made in terms of civil rights.

“It’s sad because when you’re broke and everybody has left the movement and you don’t really see the impact of what you’ve done, you kind of wonder if you made the right decision.

“In terms of racism and the status of black people in America, things weren’t shifting that much, and people who were in the movement with her were either killed or moved on. She was left on her own, trying to hold the torch for it - the last soldier on the battlefield.”

Had that last-man-standing scenario lent itself to the one-woman show?

“Yeah, I suppose. The first draft was a big show, and then I brought it down to the one-person format because I really wanted to concentrate on her as a woman and the relationship between her and her father. I wanted to strip it to the basics so people would have no choice but to empathise with her and see her as a woman, not as this ‘high priestess of soul’.”

Simone’s journey as an artist and a singer - she started out as just a piano player - also struck a chord with Apphia, who discovered her own singing voice out of necessity too.

“I grew up in a really religious community and was singing my whole life, but I didn’t really think of myself as a singer until I moved to China in 2009.

“In 2010 I got a job singing in a bar, so in a way I was having my own awakening as an artist, as a vocalist, and discovering that ‘I have a sound’. I completely empathise with that in this woman’s journey because she wasn’t a vocalist, she was a pianist, and the only reason she started singing was because she got a job in a bar, and they told her ‘if you wanna keep this job you’re gonna have to sing something’. They were like ‘this isn’t Carnegie Hall, honey’.”

Returning to the character after a period directing Florence Odumuso in the role has also given Apphia a new perspective on it, as well as even greater respect for the nature of being a touring artist, performing the same material night after night and finding ways to enjoy it.

“Seeing Florence’s interpretation gave me a new insight and a renewed joy with the piece because I was losing a little of that after performing it for so long.

“I performed it recently, and even though I’m quite settled into it, I realised my pacing was really different and I was finding new ways of doing parts of it.”

When pressed, she picks Plain Gold Ring (“it’s not in the show, but it’s a song I sing in the shower all the time”) as her first-choice Simone tune, with Mississippi Goddam and I Love You Porgy the tunes she enjoys, and connects most with, in the production.

“When I step out on stage, something comes over me, and I like to think that’s Nina Simone’s spirit and essence that I’m able to capture. There are parts of the show that are really special to me and really emotional for me to do, especially given my own journey.

“I’ve grown a lot [in the 10 years since I wrote it] - I’ve moved countries, I’ve gotten married, I’ve had a child, my career has changed quite dramatically, so a lot of the things that I’ve written have different interpretations for me as a performer just because of my own life shift. 

“So there are things that I connect with differently and more emotionally, and that’s really fun for me and really beautiful to enjoy as a performer. So yeah, I still enjoy it!”

Black Is The Color Of My Voice shows at The Albany Theatre, Coventry, Friday 16 June.

Feature by Steve Adams