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 Sings The Blues
c. 2003-2017 · RCA Victor (Speakers Corner Records reissue) LSP-3789 · Stereo · Germany · LP, Reissue, Remastered, 180g · 33 1/3 RPM
Pressing details
| Label | RCA Victor (Speakers Corner Records reissue) |
|---|
| Catalogue number | LSP-3789 |
|---|
| Year | c. 2003-2017 |
|---|
| Mono / Stereo | Stereo |
|---|
| Country | Germany |
|---|
| Format | LP, Reissue, Remastered, 180g |
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| Speed | 33 1/3 RPM |
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| Genre | Blues/Soul-Jazz |
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| Producer | Danny Davis |
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| Musicians | Nina Simone (vocals, piano), Rudy Stevenson (guitar), Eric Gale (guitar), Bernard Purdie (drums), Bob Bushnell (bass), Ernest Hayes (organ), Buddy Lucas (harmonica, tenor sax) |
|---|
Matrix / Runout
Side A: A33 UPRS 4211 S1 320
Side B: A33 UPRS 4212 S2 320
Condition
- Cover
- NM
- Vinyl
- NM
Variant chronology
1967 - US RCA Victor LPM-3789, mono, black Stereo Dynagroove-era label
1967 - US RCA Victor LSP-3789, stereo, black Stereo Dynagroove label
1967 - Germany RCA Victor LSP-3789, black label with silver RCA Victor lettering
1968 - UK RCA Victor RD-7883/LPM-3789, mono, repress
1968 - US RCA Victor LSP-3789, orange RCA Victor label (post-October 1968 design)
1969-1970 - France RCA Victor 740.502, reissue
1972 - Germany RCA International (Camden) INTS-1312, reissue
1974 - Japan RCA RCA-6205, reissue
1985 - Europe RCA International NK 89365, reissue
1993 - Japan RCA BVCJ-1006, reissue
1997 - Europe RCA Victor LSP-3789, limited numbered reissue
2002 - Japan RCA BVCJ-37232, reissue
2003-2017 - Germany, Austria & Switzerland RCA Victor (Speakers Corner Records) LSP-3789, 180g remastered reissue <- this copy
2013 - Europe Music On Vinyl MOVLP878, reissue
2016 - US RCA Victor 88985317261, club edition reissue
This Pressing
Speakers Corner 180g remastered reissue (2003, or its identical later repress) of LSP-3789 - a German pressing replicating the mid-1960s US black Stereo Dynagroove label, dated no earlier than 1976 by its LC 00316 code and tied to the reissue's own runout matrix.
The Album
Recorded across sessions at RCA's Studio B in New York in late 1966 and early 1967, this album found Nina Simone deep in her most politically engaged period, refusing easy categorisation as either jazz singer or pop vocalist. The program mixes her own compositions with a Bessie Smith-style blues, a Lil Green standard, an aria drawn from Porgy and Bess, and a reworking of the Animals' arrangement of a traditional folk song, welding blues, gospel-inflected soul and her classically trained piano into a single voice. "Backlash Blues," written with her friend the poet Langston Hughes, stands among her most direct civil-rights statements, delivered with the same command she brings to the playful double-entendre of "I Want a Little Sugar in My Bowl." A small combo of guitar, bass, drums and organ frames her piano and voice throughout rather than an orchestra, giving the record an intimacy that critics and later biographers have singled out as central to its lasting reputation. It remains one of the most personal and frequently cited albums of her RCA years, prized for showing how completely she inhabited the blues idiom while keeping it entirely her own.
Tracklist
Side 1
1. Do I Move You?
2. Day and Night
3. In the Dark
4. Real Real
5. My Man's Gone Now
6. Backlash Blues
Side 2
1. I Want a Little Sugar in My Bowl
2. Buck
3. Since I Fell for You
4. The House of the Rising Sun
5. Blues for Mama
The Label
The side labels show a black field with the RCA VICTOR wordmark arched in white across the top, the Nipper-and-gramophone image reproduced in full colour, STEREO DYNAGROOVE arced along the lower rim, and the TMK / MARCA(S) REGISTRADA(S) / RADIO CORPORATION OF AMERICA rim text, with a boxed LC 00316 rights-society code beside the catalogue number. This design replicates the black Stereo Dynagroove label RCA used on its US stereo pressings from the mid-1960s until RCA moved to an orange label in late 1968; the first German stereo pressing of this title instead carried its own black label with silver RCA Victor lettering rather than this full-colour Nipper image. The LC code did not exist before 1976, so however closely the label copies the mid-1960s US design, it dates this copy to the Speakers Corner Records remastered reissue of 2003 or its identical later repress rather than to any 1960s pressing, German or American.
Fidelity
This pressing is a dedicated audiophile remastering of the 1967 tapes cut onto 180g vinyl for the Speakers Corner series, mastered and lacquer-cut at German facilities rather than carrying over the original Dynagroove stereo cut used on the 1967 US and German pressings. Reviewers of the reissue have praised the small-group arrangement and Simone's vocal as rendered with added warmth and quiet surfaces compared with well-worn originals, and collectors on the forums generally rate this series among the stronger vinyl reissues of RCA's Simone catalogue. It sits below a clean 1967 US stereo original pressed from first-generation stampers in outright historical standing, but it is regarded as a sonic improvement over later mass-market RCA reissues and the CD remasters, and is one of the more respected alternatives to an original for everyday listening.
Notes
This is the Speakers Corner Records 180g remastered reissue of LSP-3789, pressed in Germany in 2003 or its identical later repress. The runouts read A33 UPRS 4211 S1 320 and A33 UPRS 4212 S2 320 on the two sides, a matrix belonging to this reissue's own cutting, distinct from the different matrix carried by the 1967 German pressing. The labels reproduce the black, full-colour-Nipper Stereo Dynagroove design RCA used on US stereo copies before the orange label replaced it in late 1968, while the first German stereo pressing instead carried its own black label with silver lettering. The LC 00316 code on the label did not exist before 1976, so the pressing is a later reissue rather than a 1960s original, German or American, and ranks below the 1967 US and German stereo originals.
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