Broadway Blues Ballads

There's a lot more Broadway and a lot more ballads than blues on this, which ranks as one of Simone's weaker mid-'60s albums. Almost half the record features Broadway tunes on the order of Cole Porter and Rodgers & Hammerstein; most of the rest was composed by Bennie Benjamin, author of her first-rate "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood," which the Animals covered for a hit shortly afterwards (and which leads off this record). The other Benjamin tunes are modified uptown soul with string arrangements and backup vocals in the vein of "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood," but aren't in the same league, although "How Can I?" is an engaging cha-cha. Besides "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood," the album is most notable for the great "SeeLine Woman," a percolating call-and-response number that ranks as one of her best tracks.

Nina Simone - Four Women: The Nina Simone Philips Recordings (1964-1966) {2003 Verve Deluxe 4-CD Set}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 1.46 Gb | MP3 @320 -> 602 Mb
Full Artwork @ 300 dpi (png) -> 218 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 1964-66, 2003 Philips / Verve / Universal | 440 065 021-2
Jazz / Vocal Jazz / Torch Songs / Soul / Blues / American Popular Song / Standards

Nina Simone recorded seven albums for the Philips label between 1964 and 1966. It was the period in her career in which her reputation was cemented as a world-class artist, and one in which she gained fame for her contributions to the civil rights movement as well. Despite the fact that she recorded great albums both before and after her years with Philips (most notably with RCA), her Philips period is easily her most enigmatic. Among her Philips recordings are her live label debut and six studio recordings featuring wildly varying instrumentation, arrangements, and contents. The box contains all seven LPs on four CDs, and includes one bonus track.

After springing for three double-LP songbook albums in three years devoted to Cole Porter, Noël Coward, and George Gershwin, Atlantic Records tracked Bobby Short to his lair for a fourth two-disc collection in December 1973, setting up recording equipment in the tiny confines of the Cafe Carlyle where Short had maintained a permanent residency since 1968. There, over two nights, the tapes picked up a typical selection of standards by Porter, Harold Arlen, Vernon Duke, and other interwar songwriting masters, plus some more recent material, played by Short's piano trio, which also featured Beverly Peer on bass and Richard Sheridan on drums…

Josh White's signing to Elektra Records in 1955 was the beginning of a third career phase for the South Carolina-born folk-blues singer and a big break for the label. At age 14 Josh recorded with the blind gospel singer Joe Taggart, which led to a contract with the American Record Corporation (later Columbia). In the mid-1930s, following a hand injury that left him unable to play guitar for several years, White appeared on Broadway and found success as a cabaret performer. During this time he emerged as a protest singer and released his biggest-selling record, "One Meat Ball," one of the defining hits of the post war, early folk revival. Then his career was nearly destroyed by the McCarthy hearings of the early 1950s.