Nina Simone's First Recordings To Be Released Next Month was a top story on Friday: (Conqueroo) Nina Simone's first recordings, 'Mood Indigo: The Complete Bethlehem Sessions,' are set to be released for their 60th anniversary on February 9th by BMG. We were sent the following details:
Nina Simone was only 25 years old in 1958 when she entered Beltone Studios in midtown Manhattan for a one-day recording session for her debut album, Little Girl Blue, on Bethlehem Records. The 14 songs she recorded that day reveal just how well developed Simone's sound - her powerhouse vocals, her classically-trained piano-playing, her inventive, genre-blind arrangements, and her dynamic personality - already was. Bethlehem, a small and financially faltering jazz label, picked 11 tracks for Little Girl Blue. This unheralded debut yielded Simone's biggest hit, a cover of the Gershwins' "Porgy (I Loves You, Porgy)," as well as her last one, "My Baby Just Cares for Me," which charted in 1987 after being used in a TV commercial.
By the time "Porgy (I Loves You, Porgy)" was moving up the charts, Simone had moved on to larger and financially stronger Colpix Records. Wanting to capitalize on Simone's hit, Bethlehem made the most of their Simone material. On Nina Simone and Her Friends, they placed "Porgy' and the three songs left off of Little Girl Lost ("He's Got the Whole World in His Hands," "African Mailman," and "For All We Know") with songs by her label-mates Chris Connor and Carmen McRae. Between 1959-62, Bethlehem also put out six singles utilizing all of their Simone tracks. To commemorate the 60th anniversary of these recordings, BMG/Bethlehem now has compiled these singles together as Mood Indigo: The Complete Bethlehem Sessions, due out on February 9, 2019. Read more - here.
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