Nina Simone: Sings the Blues [MUSIC ON VINYL]

Why you'll love it

This Music On Vinyl edition is a 180g stereo pressing made in the Netherlands. NPR ranked Nina Simone Sings the Blues No. 28 among the 150 greatest albums made by women.

This edition

• 180g vinyl
• Stereo mix
• Pressed in the Netherlands

About the album

Nina Simone's first album for RCA Victor finds her at the piano in Studio B, New York, with a crack band of session players: Eric Gale and Rudy Stevenson on guitar, Ernie Hayes on organ, Bob Bushnell on bass and Bernard Purdie on drums. After years on Colpix and Philips, she leaned into the blues and found a deeper, grittier groove.

"Backlash Blues" sets a poem by her friend Langston Hughes to a hard shuffle, one of her great civil-rights songs. "I Want A Little Sugar In My Bowl" reworks a Bessie Smith number into something slow and smouldering, "My Man's Gone Now" brings Gershwin's Porgy and Bess into the juke joint, and her fast, fierce studio take on "The House Of The Rising Sun" is a world away from her slow live version of 1962. "Do I Move You?" opens the album with a sly swagger.

Beth Orton and Marissa Nadler have both named it a favourite, and it's an easy place to start with Simone. Danny Davis produced it in the year Purdie seemed to play on half the records in New York, so do check the credits on the rest of your shelf.

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

Tracklist

Listen

On RCA Victor / Music On Vinyl (cat# MOVLP878), a reissue of the 1967 album.