By arts editor Helen Musa

“I’m the only person in the world who can call her mom,” Lisa Simone tells me via WhatsApp from her home in Ghana, speaking about her mother, the legendary high priestess of soul, Nina Simone. 

Lisa, born Lisa Celeste Stroud, has addressed her variable relationship with her mother in the 2015 Netflix documentary What Happened, Miss Simone?, directed by Liz Garbus and executive-produced by Lisa, which draws on archival footage, diaries and interviews.

“It leads you through mom’s life, moment by moment,” she says of the film, which traces Nina’s early years studying classical piano, her marriage to Lisa’s father, Andy Stroud, the former detective who managed her career, her transformation into a Black Power advocate, and her self-imposed exile in Barbados, Liberia and France.

“Of course I was with mom. I lived with her in Barbados and in Liberia and in France and Switzerland. Mom always said we were nomads,” Lisa says.

The documentary, along with her upcoming concert at the Canberra Theatre, fulfills a promise she made to her mother on her deathbed. 

“I call it ‘a daughter’s promise fulfilled’… I want everybody to be on the same page and have a deep understanding of the person I want them to feel for,” she says.

“You were your own person, I say to my mom. But I’m not primarily political, my music is for humanity, I’m not antagonistic, but mom was a fighter… she was, until her last breath, a revolutionary, from the time she sang Mississippi Goddam. And she paid a huge price for that.”

The reference is to Nina Simone’s angry 1964 anthem of frustration, written in response to the 1963 murder of Medgar Evers and the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing in Alabama. The song helped define her as a civil rights activist, but it was banned on Southern radio, damaging her commercial prospects in the US.

The concert marks a personal milestone for Lisa. 

“I feel I’m finally free to cross over into my own world,” she says.

“I just sang Mississippi Goddam for the first time in public after a direct request from the audience. When first asked, I said, ‘Absolutely not.’ Then when I got home, I thought to myself, let’s see, it would be a very interesting thing to do, considering what it did to my mother and what it took out of her.

“But mom’s version was like a hammer hitting an anvil, whereas I’m more like a rock skipping over the water… I was able to translate it so it has not lost its essence, but it’s not heavy any more.”

“Mom was classically trained and, until the day she died, considered herself a pianist, not a singer, and I asked, ‘Are you for real?’” Lisa says.

While Lisa sings and writes songs, she admits she doesn’t know music theory.

“My dad was also a tenor who played trumpet, so music was in the blood,” she says.

She went on to become an accomplished performer, starring on Broadway in Aida, Rent and The Lion King. Nina saw her perform in Aida in 2002. After her mother’s death in 2003, Lisa left Broadway.

Now, after decades of performance and reflection, she is charting her own path on her own terms.

Although both are veterans, (Lisa served for over 10 years in the US Air Force) she and Robert, her half-Ghanian, half-American husband of 30 years, have recently relocated to Ghana, concerned about changes in America. It seemed like the right time to pull the plug, she says. 

As for the concert, “of course it will include I Put a Spell on You, Feelin’ Good, Black Is the Colour and Mississippi Goddam. But mom had a vast catalogue of music, so I can choose, add different ones and even include some of my own songs.”

Lisa Simone: A Daughter’s Tribute to Nina Simone, The Playhouse, May 14.