Nina Simone — Pastel Blues [Vinyl LP]

Nina Simone — Pastel Blues [Vinyl LP]

Details

• Format: Vinyl LP, Album, Reissue, 180 Gram, Stereo
• Catalogue Number: MOVLP543
• Barcode: 600753369791
• Genre: Jazz / Soul / Blues
• Label: Music On Vinyl / Philips
• Originally Released: 1965
• Reissue Released: 16 May 2012
• Pressing: 180 Gram Black Vinyl
• Condition: New & Sealed

Description

Pastel Blues is one of Nina Simone's most celebrated studio albums, originally released on Philips Records in 1965. Recorded in New York, it is a masterclass in stripped-back blues — austere, intimate and utterly commanding. Only someone with Simone's depth of musicianship and emotional authority could make material this spare feel so overwhelming. The album draws directly from the blues and gospel traditions that shaped her earliest musical education, transformed entirely by the force of her personality and the precision of her arrangements.

The opening "Be My Husband" — performed almost a cappella with only handclaps and Simone's own vocals — is one of the most arresting moments in her entire discography, later covered by both Jeff Buckley and Antony Hegarty. "Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out", a standard associated with Bessie Smith and Billie Holiday, receives a definitive reading, while "Strange Fruit" — the Billie Holiday signature about the lynching of Black Americans — is handled with shattering restraint. The album closes with the monumental "Sinnerman": ten minutes of relentless, escalating intensity, driven by percussion and Simone's hammering piano, that became one of her most iconic recordings and was later used in the pivotal chess scene of The Thomas Crown Affair.

This Music On Vinyl reissue presents Pastel Blues on 180-gram black vinyl.

Tracklist

Side A

1. Be My Husband
2. Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out
3. End of the Line
4. Trouble in Mind
5. Tell Me More and More and Then Some
6. Chilly Winds Don't Blow

Side B

1. Ain't No Use
2. Strange Fruit
3. Sinnerman

Credits

• Nina Simone – Vocals, Piano
• Label – Music On Vinyl / Philips