Sunday, April 23, 1967, Brixton, London
As her UK appreciation society founder, I’ve let Nina Simone know that the audience at the The Ram Jam Club is primarily going to be West Indian. Nina is sitting at the piano, begins the show and about five songs in, the crowd starts calling out, ‘My baby just cares…’. Nina stops. She doesn’t know what they’re saying and she asks them to stop yelling at her. She continues on with her planned performance. The audience starts up again, ‘sing, my baby just cares’. Nina – who has already been known to admonish US audiences to be quiet while she performs – is furious. ‘If you don’t shut up,’ she tells the now-irate clubgoers in the packed venue, ‘I’m stopping the show!’ One more loud chant of ‘my baby just cares’ and Nina slams down the piano lid and walks off! The crowd boos…
I go backstage and Nina is fuming! Husband-manager Andy and the club owner are pleading with her to go back onstage. I explain to Nina that the crowd wants to hear ‘My Baby Just Cares For Me,’ a track from her first LP which is a favourite in Jamaica. I know because at Soul City record store, we would get constant requests for the 45 which was issued in Jamaica in 1962. When she now understands what the audience is asking for, she is enraged, ‘I’m not singing that piece of shit!’ A swig of gin and a desperate plea from the club owner who says the paying customers are about to tear the club up, Nina begrudgingly goes back onto that small stage, slams open the piano lid.. ‘This is what you want?’ she bellows and begins pounding out the ska-flavoured chords of the song. The crowd is overjoyed. Nina turns, asks what I, as her fan club secretary, want to hear. I choose ‘Since I Fell For You’ from her then-new LP and she beams…
