Thank you for buying this record. What follows is its documentation: the pressing identified, the matrix / runout transcribed by hand from the dead wax, and the condition as assessed before it was listed. It is yours to keep with the record.

— Paul, Vinyl Curator

Nina Simone

Broadway-Blues-Ballads

1964 · Philips PHS 600-148 · Stereo · US · LP · 33 1/3 RPM

Pressing details

Label	Philips
Catalogue number	PHS 600-148
Year	1964
Mono / Stereo	Stereo
Country	US
Format	LP
Speed	33 1/3 RPM
Genre	Jazz/Soul - Vocal
Producer	Hal Mooney
Conductor	Hal Mooney, Horace Ott
Musicians	Nina Simone (vocals, piano), Rudy Stevenson (guitar, flute), Lisle Atkinson (bass, percussion), Bobby Hamilton (drums), Horace Ott (arranger, conductor), Hal Mooney (arranger, conductor, producer)

Matrix / Runout

Side A:  PHS 600148A-M1 RR
Side B:  PHS 600148B-M1 RR

Condition

Cover: NM
Vinyl: EX+

Variant chronology

1964 - US Philips grey/rainbow-band stereo label, deep groove, PHS 600-148, "Vendor: Mercury Record Corporation" back cover text  <- this copy
1964 - US Philips mono, black commercial label, PHM 200-148, Vendor: Mercury Record Corp
1964 - US Philips mono, pink promo label, PHM 200-148
c. 1966-70 - UK Philips mono 1st pressing (BL prefix)
c. 1970 - Australian Philips pressing
2010s-2020s - 180-gram reissue (repress, w/ download code)

This Pressing

1st press (stereo, 1964) - US Philips PHS 600-148 rainbow-band label, deep groove, "Vendor: Mercury" back cover.

The Album

Recorded in New York in 1964 for Philips, Broadway-Blues-Ballads arrived as Nina Simone was pushing against the narrow "jazz singer" tag the industry kept fastening on her, and the record's deliberate mix of Broadway show tunes, blues-inflected material, art song and her own compositions was itself an argument for her refusal to be confined to one idiom. Produced and largely arranged by Hal Mooney, with additional charts by Horace Ott, the album ranges from a blazing take on "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood" (a song the Animals would soon turn into a hit, though Simone had introduced it first) to Rodgers and Hammerstein's "Something Wonderful" and Cole Porter's "The Laziest Gal in Town," alongside her own stark, African-inflected "See-Line Woman." By this point Simone was several albums into her Philips contract and increasingly using her records as a platform for artistic and social statement rather than pure entertainment, a trajectory that would flower fully in the explicitly political recordings of the mid-1960s that followed. The album is emblematic of her genre-defiant catalog and is frequently cited by critics and biographers as a key document of her restless stylistic range during this period. It has endured less as a single unified concept than as a showcase for the breadth of her interpretive gifts, and songs from it - especially "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood" and "See-Line Woman" - have had a long afterlife well beyond the original LP, cemented in her reputation as one of American music's most singular and uncompromising vocalists.

Tracklist

Side 1

1. Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood - 2:42
2. Night Song From The Musical "Golden Boy" - 3:00
3. The Laziest Gal In Town - 2:15
4. Something Wonderful From "The King And I" - 2:37
5. Don't Take All Night - 2:45
6. Nobody - 4:10

Side 2

1. I Am Blessed - 2:52
2. Of This I'm Sure - 2:30
3. See-Line Woman - 2:20
4. Our Love (Will See Us Through) - 2:55
5. How Can I - 2:00
6. The Last Rose Of Summer - 3:00

The Label

The side labels are a grey/silver field with a white-on-grey "PHILIPS" shield crest (wave-and-stars logo) and a broad multicolour rainbow band (violet through orange) running horizontally through the spindle area - the standard US Philips "rainbow" stereo label used c.1962-67 - with STEREO printed at left and PHS-600-148 at lower left. The back cover carries "Philips Records, A Division of Mercury Record Productions, Inc. - Vendor: Mercury Record Corporation," the distribution wording used while Philips product was still handled through Mercury in the US. This is the first US stereo label variant for the title, deep groove pressed, and it stands at the head of the US stereo hierarchy for this title, ahead of any later black Philips label or reissue.

Fidelity

This is an original 1964 Philips analog cut, mastered for the domestic US stereo release with a lacquer stamped RR (pressing-plant/mastering code) rather than a later remaster; there is no Van Gelder-style engineer credit printed for this pop-label session. Collectors on the forums rate modern 180-gram repress copies as reasonably balanced but sometimes soft in the low end compared to vintage pressings; no dedicated comparison of original stereo vs. mono vs. reissue cuts for this title circulates among collectors. Within the album's fidelity hierarchy, this deep-groove US stereo first pressing sits at or near the top alongside the mono first pressing (collectors debate which channel configuration is preferable for Mooney's orchestral arrangements), clearly ahead of the Australian and UK pressings and well ahead of the 2010s-2020s 180-gram reissue, which trades vintage analog warmth for modern quiet surfaces.

Notes

1964 Philips PHS 600-148 stereo - original US first pressing. The grey/rainbow Philips label with deep groove and the "Philips Records...Vendor: Mercury Record Corporation" back-cover credit identify this as the first stereo pressing of the title. The runout carries matrix PHS 600148A-M1 RR / PHS 600148B-M1 RR, with the stamper suffix letter varying between individual copies of this pressing. No promo, club, or reissue markers are present, making this a standard retail first pressing rather than the pink-label mono promo variant also sold from this era.

Documenting collections

I do this work for other people’s collections too — documenting a collection record by record, researching individual pressings, and preparing collections for sale or for insurance. If you have a collection you would like documented, or a record you want identified properly, get in touch: email

This record’s page: https://vinylcurator.net/albums/nina-simone-broadway-blues-ballads/