Simone in concert in Morlaix, France May 1982

Born Eunice Kathleen Waymon  on February 21, 1933 , Nina Simone was an American singer, songwriter, pianist, arranger, and civil rights activist widely associated with jazz music. Simone aspired to become a classical pianist while working in a broad range of styles including classical, jazz, blues, folk, R&B, gospel, and pop.
Born the sixth child of a preacher’s family in North Carolina, Simone aspired to be a concert pianist, however, her musical path changed direction after she was denied a scholarship to the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, despite a well-received audition. Simone was later told by someone working at Curtis that she was rejected because of her colour. Simone then moved to New York City, where she studied at the prestigious Juilliard School of Music and went on to become a world renowned performer and recording artist.
Playing small clubs in Philadelphia to fund her continuing musical education she was approached by Bethlehem Records, and her rendition of “I Loves You Porgy” became a smash hit in the United States in 1958.  Over the length of her career, Simone recorded more than 40 albums
Her musical style arose from a fusion of gospel and pop songs with classical music, in particular with influences from her first inspiration, Johann Sebastian Bach and accompanied with her expressive jazz-like singing in her characteristic low tenor. She injected as much of her classical background into her music as possible to give it more depth and quality, as she felt that pop music was inferior to classical.
After 20 years of performing, she became involved in the civil rights movement and the direction of her life shifted once again. Simone’s music was highly influential in the fight for equal rights in the US. including songs in her repertoire that drew upon her African-American origins and spoke in great detail about events taking place in the southern US at that time.
Throughout her career, Simone assembled a collection of songs that would become standards in her repertoire. such as “I Loves You, Porgy”  “My Baby Just Cares for Me”, “Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood” “I Put a Spell on You”, ” and “Feeling Good”
Simone’s bearing and stage presence earned her the title “High Priestess of Soul
On stage, she incorporated monologues and dialogues with the audience into the program, and often used silence as a musical element. Simone compared it to “mass hypnosis”.  and was quoted as saying…”I use it all the time”.
House Of The Rising Sun… was originally a sixteenth-century English folk song about a Soho brothel, that English emigrants took to America where it was adapted to its later New Orleans setting.[2]
The oldest known existing recording is by Texas Alexander, recorded in 1927
Appalachian artists Clarence “Tom” Ashley (with Gwen Foster) recorded it in 1934
Ashley said he had learned it from his grandfather, Enoch Ashley.
In 1961, Bob Dylan recorded the song for his eponymous debut album, and Nina Simone recorded her first version on Nina at the Village Gate in 1962.
Nina Simone passed away on April 21 2003 in France at the age of 70

Source: Wikipedia