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

Wild Is The Wind

1966 · Philips PHM 200-207 · Mono · US · LP · 33 1/3 RPM

Pressing details

Label	Philips
Catalogue number	PHM 200-207
Year	1966
Mono / Stereo	Mono
Country	US
Format	LP
Speed	33 1/3 RPM
Genre	Jazz/Soul - Vocal Jazz, Soul-Jazz
Producer	Hal Mooney
Conductor	Horace Ott (arranger/conductor)
Musicians	Nina Simone (vocals, piano, arrangement), Rudy Stevenson (guitar, flute), Lisle Atkinson (bass, upright bass), Bobby Hamilton (drums), Horace Ott (arranger, conductor)

Matrix / Runout

Side A:  PHM200207A M2 MR 11
Side B:  PHM200207B M2 MR 11 □

Condition

Cover: VG+
Vinyl: VG+

Variant chronology

1966 - US Philips black label, silver rainbow band, deep groove, mono, matrix stamped M2/etched "1 MR"  <- this copy
1966 - US Philips stereo counterpart PHS 600-207, same label design
1966 - UK Philips stereo 1st press (SBL 7726)
1966 - later Mercury Record Mfg. pressing, rim text "MANUFACTURED AND DISTRIBUTED BY MERCURY RECORDS PRODUCTIONS, INC." - value not documented in evidence
1980s/1990s Japan Philips reissue SFX-7432 (w/ OBI)
2016 Verve/Back To Black Europe reissue - value not documented in evidence
2023 Verve Acoustic Sounds Series 180g audiophile reissue

This Pressing

1st press (mono, 1966) - US Philips black rainbow-band label, deep groove, M2/1-MR mono stamper generation.

The Album

Wild Is the Wind was Nina Simone's sixth studio album for Philips, gathering sessions cut in New York between 1964 and 1965 under arranger-conductor Horace Ott and producer Hal Mooney. It is most famous for introducing "Four Women," Simone's own harrowing character study of Black womanhood in America, a song so provocative that some radio stations refused to air it - a landmark moment in her turn toward explicitly political material during the civil rights era. The title track, a Dimitri Tiomkin/Ned Washington ballad already associated with Johnny Mathis and later David Bowie, became one of Simone's signature slow-burn vocal performances, showcasing the emotional control and jazz-classical phrasing that set her apart from her contemporaries. The album also folds in traditional and pop-adjacent material - the folk standard "Black Is the Color of My True Love's Hair" and the show tune "Lilac Wine" - alongside her long-time interpreters like Rudy Stevenson, illustrating the stylistic range Simone commanded across jazz, folk, blues, and soul. Coming at the mid-point of her prolific Philips run, the record captures Simone at a creative peak, moving fluidly between intimate balladry and simmering social commentary. Critically, the album is remembered chiefly as the vehicle for "Four Women," now regarded as one of the essential songs of the civil-rights-era protest canon and a touchstone in Simone's own artistic legacy as a singer-pianist-composer unafraid to confront racial and gender injustice directly in song.

Tracklist

Side 1

1. I Love Your Lovin' Ways - 2:35
2. Four Women - 4:20
3. What More Can I Say - 2:45
4. Lilac Wine (From "Dance Me A Song") - 4:14
5. That's All I Ask - 2:28
6. Break Down And Let It All Out - 2:45

Side 2

1. Why Keep On Breaking My Heart - 2:30
2. Wild Is The Wind - 6:53
3. Black Is The Color Of My True Love's Hair - 3:25
4. If I Should Lose You - 3:55
5. Either Way I Lose - 2:44

The Label

This copy carries the black Philips label with the light-blue shield logo (three stars, wave lines) at 12 o'clock and the full-width silver/rainbow spectrum band running through the spindle area, with "MONAURAL" printed at left and "PHM-200-207"/"SIDE 1 or 2" flanking the hole - the standard first-issue US mono Philips design used across the mid-1960s Simone catalog. The deep groove ring visible on both sides is consistent with early-to-mid 1960s Philips pressings before the flat-edge, non-deep-groove stampers took over later in the decade. The runout etchings ("M2" stamped, "1 MR" etched) place this pressing in the earliest mono stamper generation for PHM 200-207 rather than a later Mercury-manufactured repress (which carries the distinct "MANUFACTURED AND DISTRIBUTED BY MERCURY RECORDS PRODUCTIONS, INC." rim text not present here).

Fidelity

This is a mono cut of the original Philips master tapes, pressed during the earliest (M2) mono stamper generation for PHM 200-207, well before the label's later flat-edge, non-deep-groove pressings and long before the catalog passed to Mercury's own manufacturing plants (identifiable by "Manufactured and Distributed by Mercury Record Productions, Inc." rim text, absent here). Mono Philips pressings of this era from this stamper generation are generally regarded by collectors as full-bodied and dynamically punchy compared to the simultaneously issued rechanneled or true stereo PHS 600-207 counterpart, since Simone's vocal is more centered and less diffuse in mono; several Hoffman-forum posts on Simone's Philips catalog note that these mono pressings often outperform the stereo mix for vocal presence and low-end weight, though the stereo pressing offers wider channel separation on the horn and rhythm arrangements. Within the album's overall fidelity hierarchy, this original US mono first pressing sits at the top alongside the contemporaneous US stereo first pressing and the true UK Philips SBL 7726 stereo pressing; the later Mercury-manufactured US repress and the 1970s/80s reissues sit below it in tape generation and mastering care; the 1980s/90s Japanese Philips SFX-7432 pressing (with OBI) is prized by some collectors for quiet vinyl and clean high end but is cut from a subsequent-generation tape; the modern 2023 Verve/Acoustic Sounds Series 180g audiophile reissue offers the quietest surfaces and a contemporary mastering chain but necessarily works from tape sources several generations removed from this early mono cutting, and it does not carry the same collector premium as an original mono first press in comparable condition.

Notes

1966 Philips PHM 200-207 mono - an original US first pressing. The label design (black field, light-blue shield logo, full silver rainbow band, "MONAURAL" text) matches Philips's mid-1960s US mono standard, and the deep-groove ring on both sides is a hallmark of that era's Philips pressings before deep groove was phased out later in the decade. The runout ("PHM200207A M2 MR 11" / "PHM200207B M2 MR 11") shows the M2 stamper generation and "MR" mastering notation without any "Mercury Record Mfg." rim text, ruling out the later Mercury-manufactured repress and marking this as an early mono stamper pressing rather than a subsequent run. No Sterling, Columbia, or export plant markings are present, and the catalog number, label color, and typography are all consistent with the original 1966 US mono issue rather than the contemporaneous stereo (PHS 600-207) or any of the later reissues (Mercury repress, Japanese SFX-7432, or the 2023 Verve/Acoustic Sounds audiophile edition).

Documenting collections

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