Nina Simone's Daughter Reflects on the Star's Past with Rabbi Shlomo: 'I'm Still Learning About Her'

'Soul Doctor,' the movie musical about the iconic singer's romance and love of music, hits the big screen on June 13

If the story of Nina Simone and Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach isn't widely known, the late blues icon's daughter Lisa Simone is ready to change that.

"My mother will have been dead 20 years and I'm still learning about her journey," says Simone, 60. The singer is an executive producer behind Soul Doctor, the new film version of the beloved Broadway musical of the same name, which hits select theaters across the country on June 13.

The movie musical centers on her mom's romance and artistic partnership with beloved Jewish musician Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach, who was later found to be controversial.

Years before Nina Simone would record hits like "Feeling Good" and he'd pen Hebrew classics like "Am Yisrael Chai," the two would hit it off in New York's West Village music scene. Lisa Simone knew nothing of her mom's surprising relationship until seeing writer-director Danny Wise's original musical production about the relationship in 2011.

"I was actually floored by it, myself," says Simone. "I'm still trying to find the proper words to express how wonderful it is to learn more about the relationships that my mom had prior to the civil rights movement."

The musical film, which stars Nya (Netflix's Cleopatra) as Nina Simone and Josh Young as Shlomo, helped Simone understand her mother's music even more.

"My mom's album Forbidden Fruit has one of my favorite songs and when I was young I used to sing along with it. Only to find out that there are three songs on the album that mom performed in Hebrew," she says of songs she was later told were written by Carlebach. "I didn't know. That goes to show how much they impacted each other."

Related: Who Was Legendary Singer Nina Simone – and Why Is Zoë Saldana's Movie About Her So Controversial?

The story, about two young performers with vastly different worlds, is one Simone hopes resonates.

"They were two beings who just seemed such polar opposites and in many ways they were but yet there were so many similarities," says Simone, who adds that the musical's Broadway run was well-received by many in both the Black and Jewish communities. "They were able to forge a bond. I hope it will inspire us, bring us together, and help us have a new kind of dialogue."

For Simone — whose acclaimed 2015 Netflix documentary about her mother, What Happened Miss Simone?, was nominated for an Oscar and multiple Emmys — she's excited to be shining a light on a different side of the icon who died of cancer in 2003. (Carlebach died of a heart attack in 1994 and was posthumously accused of sexual impropriety by multiple women.)

In terms of her mother, "I've spoken about the good, the bad, the loving and the not-so-loving," says Simone, also a singer, who's setting out on her Lisa Simone, Keeper of the Flame: A Daughter's Tribute to Dr. Nina Simone tour later this year.

Related: How Venus Williams Plans to Help Restore Nina Simone's Childhood Home in North Carolina

"People have a tendency to remember the negative things. I don't know any genius who had a happy life," she said. "Her manic depression and bipolar disorder didn't help. But she loved me the best way she knew how."

Simone, who has recorded three albums of her own, adds, "The legacy does indeed live on. That was my mother. I have reached a place where I'm much more clear now. My respect and love for her is even deeper than I ever thought imaginable."

Soul Doctor hits select theaters on June 13.

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