I Put A Spell On You [Remaster]

Performer: Nina Simone
Producer: Hal Mooney...
Distributor: Universal Distribution

Notes: Available with IN CONCERT on 1 CD. Personnel: Nina Simone (vocals, piano); Rudy Stevenson (guitar); Hal Mooney, Horace Ott & His Orchestra. One of her most pop-oriented albums, but also one of her best and most consistent. Most of the songs feature dramatic, swinging large-band orchestration, with the accent on the brass and strings. Simone didn't write any of the material, turning to popular European songsmiths Charles Aznavour, Jacques Brel, and Anthony Newley, as well as her husband, Andy Stroud, and her guitarist, Rudy Stevenson, for bluesier fare. Really fine tunes and interpretations, on which Simone gives an edge to the potentially fey pop songs, taking a sudden (but not uncharacteristic) break for a straight jazz instrumental with "Blues on Purpose." The title track, a jazzy string ballad version of the Screamin' Jay Hawkins classic, gave the Beatles the inspiration for the phrasing on the bridge of "Michelle." This LP has been combined with the 1964 In Concert album on a CD reissue. ~ Richie Unterberger

No Depression (p.113) - "[O]n the surface, it's her most accessible, even intimate. It includes her glowering interpretation of the Screaming Jay Hawkins title tune..."

Nina Simone was a great pianist, a riveting vocalist, and an uncompromising personality. Her sociopolitical consciousness and eclecticism set her apart from the pack. Her interpretations of soul, jazz, blues, and standards are both striking and unique; not for nothing do her fans refer to her as "the Goddess." She established her jazz credentials with an emotive interpretation of George Gershwin 's 'I Loves You Porgy' in 1959. Her influential '60s work included "Forbidden Fruit" and "I Put A Spell On You." One of her singles, "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood," later became a worldwide hit for the Animals. In later years, she recorded less frequently, but in 1987, while in self-imposed exile in France, she had a fluke hit after her '50s version of "My Baby Just Cares For Me," was resurrected in a TV commercial. Simone died in 2003 at her home in France at age 70.

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