Nina Simone: Sings the Blues 180g Vinyl LP

Why you'll love it

This Music On Vinyl reissue is a 180g stereo pressing made in the EU. NPR Music ranked the album No. 28 on its 150 Greatest Albums Made By Women, and Beth Orton and Marissa Nadler have named it a favourite.

This edition

180g vinyl
Stereo mix
Pressed in the EU

About the album

New label, new start. Nina Simone had made records for Colpix and Philips before she signed with RCA Victor, and for her first album there she cut straight to the blues, recording in RCA's Studio B in New York over a few sessions between December 1966 and January 1967.

The band is lean and very much in the pocket: Eric Gale and Rudy Stevenson on guitar, Ernie Hayes on organ, Bob Bushnell on bass, Bernard Purdie on drums and Buddy Lucas on harmonica and tenor sax. "Backlash Blues" sets words by her friend Langston Hughes, one of her civil rights songs. "My Man's Gone Now" comes from Gershwin's Porgy and Bess, "I Want A Little Sugar In My Bowl" reworks a Bessie Smith number, and "The House Of The Rising Sun" gets a fast, driving studio take that's a world away from her slow live version at the Village Gate. Danny Davis produced.

Tanita Tikaram is another fan on record, and the album has been reissued with bonus tracks and repackaged as The Blues over the years. This LP keeps the eleven songs she first sequenced. Purdie, never knowingly short of confidence, sounds like he'd have happily kept going all night.

Also at Kops: more Nina Simone on vinyl · browse Classic Jazz