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

Nina Simone In Concert - Emergency Ward!

1972 · RCA Victor LSP-4757 · Stereo · US · LP · 33 1/3 RPM

Pressing details

Label	RCA Victor
Catalogue number	LSP-4757
Year	1972
Mono / Stereo	Stereo
Country	US
Format	LP
Speed	33 1/3 RPM
Genre	Soul-Jazz / Vocal
Producer	Nina Simone, Andrew Stroud, Weldon J. Irvine, Jr.
Performer / Orchestra	Bethany Baptist Church Junior Choir of South Jamaica, New York
Musicians	Nina Simone (vocals, piano), Samuel Waymon (vocals), Lisa Stroud (polyrhythms), Bethany Baptist Church Junior Choir of South Jamaica, New York (choral group), Weldon J. Irvine, Jr. (orchestrations)

Matrix / Runout

Side A:  BPRS-5348-4S-AIR R
Side B:  BPRS-534-6S-AI6 R

Condition

Cover: EX
Vinyl: NM

Variant chronology

1972 - US RCA Victor orange 'Victor' Dynaflex label, Rockaway Pressing, BPRS-5348/5349 matrices  <- this copy
1972 - UK RCA SF 8304 pressing
c. 1972-73 - Japan RCA Victor RCA-6064 with OBI
2006 - Germany Speakers Corner 180g audiophile reissue LSPC4757/EUROS4757
c. 2010s - Remastered vinyl reissue
c. 2010s-2020s - Coloured vinyl reissue

This Pressing

1972 US first-issue window - RCA Victor orange Dynaflex label, LSP-4757, Rockaway Pressing matrices BPRS-5348-4S-A10R / BPRS-5349-6S-A16R.

The Album

Recorded live at Fort Dix and other venues in late 1971, Emergency Ward! is one of Nina Simone's most overtly topical statements, built as a song cycle responding to the Vietnam War and the era's social upheaval rather than a conventional set of standards. The album is anchored by a side-long medley that transforms George Harrison's 'My Sweet Lord' into a gospel-inflected incantation, joined to 'Today Is a Killer', a poem by David Nelson that Simone set to music, its choir and polyrhythmic backing turning devotional material into protest testimony. Simone, already established as a civil-rights-era voice through songs like 'Mississippi Goddam' and 'Four Women', used the record to extend that activism into the anti-war movement at a point when her RCA tenure was winding down. Side two closes with a cover of the Harrison-penned 'Isn't It a Pity', bookending the album's reliance on Harrison material as vehicles for meditation on suffering and redemption. Critically the record has long divided listeners - admired for its ambition and live-in-the-moment intensity, but seen by some as one of Simone's more challenging, sermon-like RCA releases compared to her more song-based albums. It remains a key document of Simone's political and spiritual turn in the early 1970s and of the era's fusion of rock covers, gospel choir, and protest song.

Tracklist

Side 1

1. Medley: My Sweet Lord (Harrison) / Today Is a Killer (Simone-Nelson)

Side 2

1. Poppies (Bleecher-Wind)
2. Isn't It a Pity (Harrison)

The Label

This copy's Side 1 and Side 2 labels are the orange RCA Victor design with the outlined white 'RCA' logo at left and 'Victor' in script at right, black/brown text, and the 'dynaflex' wordmark plus '(P) 1972 RCA Records' at the bottom - the standard early-1970s US RCA Victor stereo LP label, used from RCA's 1968 Dynaflex introduction into the mid-1970s before the black 'Victor' label replaced it around 1976-77. There is no deep groove and no earlier orange/black 'nipper' design present, so this is not a 1950s/60s-style label carryover. Matrix suffixes BPRS-5348-4S / BPRS-5349-6S with 'A10R' / 'A16R' stamper codes place this squarely as a first-issue-window 1972 US stereo pressing from the Rockaway plant, rather than the later French, Spanish, or reissue pressings that share the LSP-4757 number.

Fidelity

This is a standard early-1970s RCA Dynaflex pressing rather than an audiophile cut; Dynaflex vinyl of the era is thinner and more prone to warping than earlier RCA pressings, though sound quality on clean copies is generally considered solid for a lightly-mixed live recording. Collectors on the forums rate Simone's RCA catalog originals over the CD-era remasters for warmth, though this is a live document with inherent recording limitations rather than a studio hi-fi showcase. The 2006 Speakers Corner 180g reissue (mastered from the RCA tapes) is generally regarded by collectors as the sonic upgrade of choice over both this Dynaflex original and later remastered/coloured-vinyl reissues, though the original retains value for being closest to source lacquers and the most collectible pressing.

Notes

1972 RCA Victor LSP-4757 stereo - standard US Rockaway Pressing. Orange Dynaflex 'RCA Victor' labels with (P) 1972 RCA Records dating, together with BPRS-5348-4S / BPRS-5349-6S matrix suffixes and A10R/A16R stampers, place this as that pressing variant. No deep groove or earlier label design is present, ruling out any pre-1972 test or promotional pressing; this is the contemporaneous general-release US stereo LP.

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