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

I Put A Spell On You

1965 · Philips PHM 200-172 · Mono · US · LP · 33 1/3 RPM

Pressing details

Label	Philips
Catalogue number	PHM 200-172
Year	1965
Mono / Stereo	Mono
Country	US
Format	LP
Speed	33 1/3 RPM
Genre	Jazz/Soul - Vocal Pop-Soul
Producer	Hal Mooney
Conductor	Hal Mooney, Horace Ott
Musicians	Nina Simone (vocals, piano, arrangements), Rudy Stevenson (guitar), Horace Ott (arranger, conductor), Hal Mooney (arranger, conductor, producer)

Matrix / Runout

Side A:  PHM200172A M1 A RR 11
Side B:  PHM200172B M1 RR A 1

Condition

Cover: EX
Vinyl: NM-

Variant chronology

1965 - grey rainbow-stripe Philips label, no Mercury address, PHM200172 M1 runout suffixes  <- this copy
1966-68 - grey rainbow-stripe Philips label with Mercury Record Productions address/MR-prefix stampers - no documented sale found for this specific variant
1970s - Richmond-plant repress, explicit "Manufactured and distributed by Mercury Record Productions, Inc." text - no documented sale found for this specific variant
2020s - Verve/Acoustic Sounds Series 180g reissue

This Pressing

1965 first-issue (mono) - grey rainbow-stripe Philips label, no Mercury address, PHM 200-172 runouts.

The Album

Recorded in New York in late 1964 and January 1965, I Put A Spell On You arrived as Nina Simone's fourth studio set for Philips and pushed her further from the jazz-club piano recitals of her early Bethlehem and Colpix years into a fully orchestrated pop-soul-jazz idiom, arranged and conducted largely by Hal Mooney and Horace Ott. Its title track, a smouldering reworking of Screamin' Jay Hawkins's blues-shouter original, became one of Simone's signature performances and one of the most covered songs of the era. The album also introduced her enduring reading of "Feeling Good," drawn from the Broadway musical The Roar of the Greasepaint - The Smell of the Crowd, alongside a French-language performance of Jacques Brel's "Ne Me Quitte Pas" and songs by Charles Aznavour, reflecting Simone's restless, genre-crossing repertoire. Coming at the height of her involvement in the civil rights movement, the record captured her at a creative peak, balancing torch-song intimacy with the simmering intensity that increasingly defined her live and recorded work. Critically it is remembered as one of her most fully realized mid-1960s statements, and both the title cut and "Feeling Good" have gone on to enjoy a second life through countless samples, covers, and film/TV placements, cementing the album's status as a cornerstone of Simone's catalogue and of 1960s vocal jazz-soul more broadly.

Tracklist

Side 1

1. I Put A Spell On You - 2:33
2. Tomorrow Is My Turn - 2:43
3. Ne Me Quitte Pas - 3:27
4. Marriage Is For Old Folks - 3:22
5. July Tree - 2:40
6. Gimme Some - 2:58

Side 2

1. Feeling Good - 2:52
2. One September Day - 2:47
3. Blues On Purpose (Instrumental) - 3:18
4. Beautiful Land - 1:55
5. You've Got To Learn - 2:40
6. Take Care Of Business - 2:04

The Label

This copy carries the grey Philips label with the multi-colour rainbow stripe, the shield logo at top, "MONAURAL" printed at left of the spindle, and rim text reading "PHILIPS RECORDS - VENDOR: MERCURY RECORD CORPORATION" with no Mercury street address - the design used on the earliest US Philips mono pressings of this LP in 1965. A later label variant (c.1966 on) carries "MR"-prefix runout stampers, and by 1970 an explicit "Manufactured and distributed by Mercury Record Productions, Inc." line was added to the label - neither is present here. That places this copy in the first-issue label window for PHM 200-172, ahead of the Mercury-address repressings that followed later in the 1960s and into the 1970s.

Fidelity

This is a standard-issue 1965 Philips mono cut, not a Van Gelder or audiophile mastering; the PHM200172A/B M1 runout suggests an early stamper generation from the original metalwork. Collector consensus on mid-60s Philips/Mercury pop-jazz LPs treats these original mono Philips pressings as the most desirable vintage cut, ahead of the mid/late-1960s Mercury-address repressings and the 1970s Richmond-plant reissues, which are reported as thinner and more compressed-sounding. Modern reissues offer cleaner, quieter vinyl and improved bass extension but a more modern equalization; collectors seeking the original 1965 tonal balance still prize a clean early mono copy like this one over the reissue.

Notes

1965 Philips PHM 200-172 mono - first-issue pressing. The grey rainbow-stripe label with no Mercury street address and the plain PHM200172A/B M1 runout suffixes match the earliest documented label design for this catalogue number, ahead of later Mercury-address and MR-runout repressings. The back cover carries a contemporary rubber promo/broadcast stamp and a handwritten 3/24/65 date, consistent with an early-1965 radio-station distribution copy rather than a later reissue.

Documenting collections

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