Nina Simone — Black Gold [Vinyl LP]

Nina Simone — Black Gold [Vinyl LP]

Details

• Format: Vinyl LP, Album, Live, Reissue, 180 Gram, Stereo
• Catalogue Number: MOVLP195
• Barcode: 8713748980580
• Genre: Jazz / Soul / Blues
• Label: Music On Vinyl / RCA Victor
• Originally Released: 1970
• Reissue Released: 10 January 2020
• Pressing: 180 Gram Black Vinyl
• Condition: New & Sealed

Description

Black Gold is a live album by Nina Simone, recorded on 26 October 1969 at the Philharmonic Hall in New York City before a sold-out audience and released by RCA Victor in 1970. It captures Simone at the absolute peak of her artistic and political powers — a performer whose command of the stage, the piano and her audience was unlike anyone else in popular music. The performance draws on folk tradition, Broadway, original composition and Simone's own extraordinary capacity to transform any song into something deeply personal and politically resonant.

The album opens with "Black Is the Colour of My True Love's Hair" — a Scottish folk ballad she had long made her own — and moves through a programme that includes the Hair medley "Ain't Got No / I Got Life", Miriam Makeba's "West Wind" and a spellbinding reading of Sandy Denny's "Who Knows Where the Time Goes?". The defining moment comes at the close: "To Be Young, Gifted and Black", co-written by Simone and organist Weldon Irvine and inspired by Lorraine Hansberry's play, received its first live performance at this concert and immediately became a civil rights anthem. Simone described it as addressed not to white audiences but to her own people: a song of pride, aspiration and love.

This Music On Vinyl reissue presents the album on 180-gram black vinyl, preserving the warmth and immediacy of a performance that remains one of the most powerful documents in Simone's catalogue.

Tracklist

Side A

1. Introduction
2. Black Is the Colour of My True Love's Hair
3. Ain't Got No / I Got Life
4. West Wind

Side B

1. Who Knows Where the Time Goes?
2. The Assignment Sequence
3. To Be Young, Gifted and Black

Credits

• Nina Simone – Vocals, Piano, Arrangements
• Emile Latimer – Guitar
• Weldon Irvine – Organ
• Don Alias – Drums, Percussion
• Jumma Santos – Congas, Percussion
• Andy Stroud – Producer
• Recorded live at Philharmonic Hall, New York City, 26 October 1969
• Label – Music On Vinyl / RCA Victor