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

Let It All Out

1966 · Philips PHM 200-202 · Mono · US · LP · 33 1/3 RPM

Pressing details

Label	Philips
Catalogue number	PHM 200-202
Year	1966
Mono / Stereo	Mono
Country	US
Format	LP
Speed	33 1/3 RPM
Genre	Jazz/Soul - Vocal, Blues, Standards
Producer	Hal Mooney
Conductor	Horace Ott
Musicians	Nina Simone (vocals, piano), Rudy Stevenson (guitar, flute), Lisle Atkinson (bass), Bobby Hamilton (drums), Horace Ott (arranger, conductor, except 'For Myself' arranged by Ott)

Matrix / Runout

Side A:  PHM200202A M3 RR 1
Side B:  PHM 200202B M1 RR C1

Condition

Cover: EX
Vinyl: NM-

Variant chronology

1966 - US Philips black label, rainbow band, deep groove, mono (PHM 200-202)  <- this copy
1966 - US Philips black label, rainbow band, mono, no deep groove (later stamper)
1966 - US Philips stereo (PHS 600-202)
1966 - UK Philips 1st press mono
1970s-2000s Japan/reissue pressings (e.g. SFX-7306)

This Pressing

1966 US Philips mono first-issue pressing - black rainbow-band label with deep groove on both sides.

The Album

Let It All Out arrived in 1966 as Nina Simone continued her run of genre-defying Philips albums, mixing jazz standards, blues, folk-protest and gospel into a single, deeply personal statement. The centerpiece is her stark reading of Bob Dylan's 'The Ballad of Hollis Brown,' recast as a doom-laden narrative that reveals how quickly Simone could absorb outside material and make it entirely her own. Elsewhere she moves from Ellington's 'Mood Indigo' and the standard 'Love Me or Leave Me' to Billie Holiday's 'Don't Explain,' tracing a lineage of Black female song interpretation she both honored and pushed past. 'Images,' drawn from a 1964 Carnegie Hall performance, and the traditional hymn 'Nearer Blessed Lord' (adapted with husband Andy Stroud) show the spiritual and socially conscious threads that ran through her work of this period. By the mid-1960s Simone had become one of the most singular voices in American music - classically trained, steeped in gospel and blues, and increasingly outspoken about civil rights - and this album captures her restless range just before her turn toward more overtly political material. Critics of the era and since have praised the record's intensity and Simone's refusal to soften her delivery for commercial ease, cementing its place as a key transitional work in her catalogue.

Tracklist

Side 1

1. Mood Indigo
2. The Other Woman
3. Love Me or Leave Me
4. Don't Explain
5. Little Girl Blue
6. Chauffeur

Side 2

1. For Myself
2. The Ballad of Hollis Brown
3. This Year's Kisses
4. Images
5. Nearer Blessed Lord

The Label

The side labels show the standard mid-1960s US Philips design: black background, silver 'PHILIPS' shield/wave logo at 12 o'clock, a full-width rainbow band across the spindle, 'MONAURAL' at left, catalogue number and side number flanking the spindle, and rim text reading 'PHILIPS RECORDS - VENDOR: MERCURY RECORD CORPORATION.' This design and vendor credit were used on US Philips pop/jazz LPs from roughly 1964 through the late 1960s while Mercury distributed the label domestically. The presence of a deep groove on both sides is consistent with an early stamping from this 1966 pressing run, placing this copy at or near the front of the mono pressing sequence for PHM 200-202 rather than a later, non-deep-groove repress.

Fidelity

This is a mid-1960s Philips in-house mastering for the domestic Mercury-distributed mono LP; no Van Gelder or outside mastering credit applies here, and Philips US pressings of this era are generally solidly but unspectacularly manufactured. There is no widely documented audiophile reissue of this specific title (Music Matters/Analogue Productions-type treatments have not been applied to this Nina Simone LP), and the small run of modern 180g reissues (e.g. Vinyl Passion/Philips reissue lines) serve mainly as an in-print listening copy rather than a fidelity benchmark. Among vintage copies, deep-groove mono pressings like this one are generally regarded by collectors on the forums as closer to the original stampers than later, non-deep-groove repressings.

Notes

This is the 1966 US Philips mono pressing, PHM 200-202, on the standard black rainbow-band label with 'Vendor: Mercury Record Corporation' rim text used on Philips LPs of this era. Deep groove on both sides supports an early stamping within the mono pressing run. The runout carries the matrix PHM200202A M3 RR 1 / PHM 200202B M1 RR C1, with the pressing plant not otherwise identified on the label or jacket.

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-let-it-all-out/