Name: Pastel Blues
Brand: Nina Simone

Bonus disc

Bonus disc: No

Catalogue number

B003226601

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Colour

Black

Colour details

Discogs ID

Format multiplier

Download code

Download code: No

Rough Trade Exclusive

Rough Trade Exclusive: No

Extended format

Extended format: Yes

Format detail

Verve Acoustic Sounds Series

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Format Music US

Limited edition

Release date

2020-11-13

Signed copies

Signed copies: No

Supplier US

Unive­rsal

Tax rate US

Sales:8.875

UPC / Barcode

602507190828

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Total Cap

1 / Extended format: Yes / LP / Rough Trade Exclusive: No / Signed copies: No / black

5360571

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Extended format: No

2016-09-30

600753605714

Black LP

Artist

Nina Simone

Genre US

Jazz

Label US

Universal

Our curated collection of essential albums on vinyl, CD, and tape at Rough Trade.

Rough Trade Essential

Nina Simone was an American singer, songwriter, and pianist. Born on February 21, 1933 in Tryon, North Carolina, she began giving piano recitals at a young age after playing at her local church. Her talent impressed her mother's employer and a local fund set up by her music teacher, who funded her childhood piano lessons.

At the age of 17, Nina moved to Philadelphia where she taught piano and played to raise money for her studies at New York's renowned Juilliard School Of Music. To support her family financially, she worked in a bar in Atlantic City where she gained a devoted following through singing.

Nina's career took off when she recorded Gershwin's "I Loves You Porgy," which became a US Top 40 hit. This success led to performances at prestigious venues such as Carnegie Hall and the Newport Jazz Festival. Throughout her career, Nina embraced numerous Civil Rights anthems and was a passionate supporter of the movement.

In the 1970s, Nina left the US and lived in various places including Barbados, Africa, the Netherlands before settling in France where she passed away from cancer in 2003. Known for drawing heavily on gospel blues soul jazz R&B folk music forms within her voice; it found wider popularity late in life when "My Baby Just Cares For Me" became an unlikely UK chart hit featured in a TV ad campaign.

This is one of Nina Simone's more subdued mid-'60s LPs, putting the emphasis on her piano rather than band arrangements. It's rather slanted toward torch-blues ballads like Strange Fruit, Trouble In Mind, Billie Holiday's own composition Tell Me More and More and Then Some, and Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out. Simone's then-husband, Andy Stroud, wrote Be My Husband, an effective adaptation of a traditional blues chant. By far the most impressive track, and the reason for it being an RT Essential, is her frantic ten-minute rendition of the traditional Sinnerman, an explosive tour de force that dwarfs everything else on the album.

The Verve Acoustic Sounds Series version features all-analog, remastered 180-gram vinyl in deluxe gatefold packaging. 

Pastel Blues

Music US

Buy Nina Simone - Pastel Blues (Vinyl, CD) now from Rough Trade - independent purveyors of great music, since 1976.