Nina Simone Walked Onto Ed Sullivan and Made Television Feel Intimate
Today’s Throwback Thursday stars the one of one, pioneer Nina Simone on The Ed Sullivan Show — seated at the piano, completely in command, and already making the television stage bend around her rather than the other way around.
On September 11, 1960, Simone appeared on the CBS variety show and performed two songs: “Love Me or Leave Me” and “I Loves You, Porgy.” The surviving program listing places her on the same broadcast as Eartha Kitt, while Nina Simone’s official archive also preserves the September performance in its 1960 chronology.
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“Love Me or Leave Me” gave Simone room to show exactly why the usual genre labels never quite fit. Her piano language could pivot from jazz phrasing into classical architecture without warning, and the performance became a showcase for the Bach-influenced counterpoint that had become part of her signature approach.
Then came “I Loves You, Porgy,” the Gershwin song she had already transformed into something unmistakably her own. Where the first performance flashes technique and attack, “Porgy” pulls everything inward. The contrast is the point: two songs, two completely different temperatures, and the same Nina at the center.
And that is what still lands all these decades later. No oversized production, no need to force a television moment into existence. Just Nina, the piano, the voice and that total concentration. Strutted two tunes — and left the stage sounding like nobody else.
Nina Simone Performs on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1960
Revisit Nina Simone’s September 11, 1960 television performance of “Love Me or Leave Me” and “I Loves You, Porgy.”
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Source: Official Nina Simone archive and The Ed Sullivan Show broadcast listings.
