Singer Nina Simone Dies

Updated:10:20, Tuesday April 22, 2003

Legendary jazz and blues singer Nina Simone has died of natural causes at the age of 70.

In a statement, her manager said she died at her home near Marseille in southern France.

Simone in New York last year

"It is with great regret and sadness that we announce the death of the legendary jazz singer, the great Nina Simone, who died this morning at her home in Carry-le-Rouet," manager Clifton Henderson said.

Simone, born in 1933 in the US state of North Carolina, was best known for her interpretation of My Baby Just Cares For Me.

She is also famous for her version of the Screamin' Jay Hawkins tune I Put A Spell On You.

The singer later to become known as the "High Priestess of Soul" was born February 21, 1933, as the sixth of seven children in a poor family, according to her website biography.

She started playing piano at age four and went on to study at the prestigious Juilliard School of Music in New York to become a classical pianist.

But to help her family she did work as an accompanist and began singing while working in an Irish bar in Atlantic City.

She cut her first records in the late 1950s, going on to make a career not only as nightclub singer but pianist, arranger and composer.