SKU: 47895847662

Nina Simone Sings the Blues (Vinyl)

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Nina Simone Sings the Blues (Vinyl)Nina Simone Sings the Blues, issued in 1967, was her RCA label debut, and was a brave departure from the material she had been recording for Phillips. Indeed, her final album for that label, High Priestess of Soul, featured the singer, pianist, and songwriter fronting a virtual orchestra. Here, Simone is backed by a pair of guitarists (Eric Gale and Rudy Stevenson), bassist (Bob Bushnell), drummer (Bernard "Pretty" Purdie), organist (Ernie Hayes), and

Nina Simone Sings the Blues, issued in 1967, was her RCA label debut, and was a brave departure from the material she had been recording for Phillips. Indeed, her final album for that label, High Priestess of Soul, featured the singer, pianist, and songwriter fronting a virtual orchestra.

Here, Simone is backed by a pair of guitarists (Eric Gale and Rudy Stevenson), bassist (Bob Bushnell), drummer (Bernard "Pretty" Purdie), organist (Ernie Hayes), and harmonica player who doubled on saxophone (Buddy Lucas). Simone handled the piano chores. The song selection is key here. Because for all intents and purposes this is perhaps the rawest record Simone ever cut.

It opens with the sultry, nocturnal, slow-burning original "Do I Move You," which doesn't beg the question but demands an answer: "Do I move you?/Are you willin'?/Do I groove you?/Is it thrillin'?/Do I soothe you?/Tell the truth now?/Do I move you?/Are you loose now?/The answer better be yeah...It pleases me...." As the guitarists slip and slide around her husky vocal, a harmonica wails in the space between, and Simone's piano is the authority, hard and purposely slow. The other tune in that vein, "In the Dark," is equally tense and unnerving; the band sounds as if it's literally sitting around as she plays and sings. There are a number of Simone signature tunes on this set, including "I Want a Little Sugar in My Bowl," "Backlash Blues," and her singular, hallmark, definitive reading of "My Man's Gone Now" from Porgy and Bess.

Other notable tracks are the raucous, sexual roadhouse blues of "Buck," written by Simone's then husband Andy Stroud, and the woolly gospel blues of "Real Real," with the Hammond B-3 soaring around her vocal. The cover of Buddy Johnson's "Since I Fell for You" literally drips with ache and want. Simone also reprised her earlier performance of "House of the Rising Sun" (released on a 1962 Colpix live platter called At the Village Gate). It has more authority in this setting as a barrelhouse blues; it's fast, loud, proud, and wailing with harmonica and B-3 leading the charge. The original set closes with the slow yet sassy "Blues for Mama," ending with the same sexy strut the album began with, giving it the feel of a Möbius strip.

Nina Simone Sings the Blues is a hallmark recording that endures; it deserves to be called a classic.

Thom Jurek - Allmusic (5 Stars)

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Hardy the poet
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We all know Hardy the novelist, but perhaps he is less well known as a poet. In this volume of over 900 pages, with nearly 1,000 poems, Hardy is colorful, chatty, direct, lyrical, thoughtful, deep. And perhaps his finest quality - at least so I find - is the fact that he is down-to-earth. His poems are not "difficult" for a reasonably literate, experienced reader; and the rhyming is never forced. In short, his poems are a delight.
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W. Ellison
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The other side of one of the giants of the Victorian era.
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Thomas Hardy is my favorite novelist who has ever lived. I preface the review of this poetry anthology - which includes every one of the 900+ poems he wrote throughout his life, from the 1860s to just before his death in 1928 - in this way because I’m a bit biased. Hardy’s poetry is technically satisfying and nearly as moving as his novels, and you can tell that the same precision he brought to prose is on full display in his verse. I’m working my way through every single poem in this collection, and thus far my favorites are “The Convergence of the Twain” and “After the Last Breath.” There are other poets whose works I like better (Dickinson, Yeats, Wordsworth, and Whitman come to mind), but as an amateur Hardy scholar, reading this collection is positively invaluable to understand the full depth of his genius, and as always Wordsworth Classics delivers in terms of a quality paperback that should withstand years of enjoyment. I own many of their releases and have yet to find one that even slightly disappoints.
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Reviewed in the United States on September 30, 2025

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