Eunice Kathleen Waymon, known professionally as Nina Simone, was an American singer, songwriter, pianist, composer, arranger and civil rights activist. Her music spanned styles including classical, folk, gospel, blues, jazz, R&B, and pop.
Verve Records is an active American record label owned by Universal Music Group (UMG). Founded in 1956 by Norman Granz, the label is home to the world's largest jazz catalogue, which includes recordings by artists such as Jon Batiste, Diana Krall, Ella Fitzgerald, Nina Simone, Stan Getz, Bill Evans, Billie Holiday, and Oscar Peterson, among others as well as a diverse mix of other recordings that fall outside of jazz including albums from disparate artists like the Velvet Underground, Kurt Vile, Arooj Aftab, Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention and many more. It absorbed the catalogues of Granz's earlier label, Clef Records, founded in 1946; Norgran Records, founded in 1953; and material which was previously licensed to Mercury Records.
White Light/White Heat is the second studio album by American rock band the Velvet Underground. Released on January 30, 1968, on Verve Records, it was the band's last studio recording with multi-instrumentalist and founding member John Cale. Recorded after Reed fired Andy Warhol, who had produced their debut album The Velvet Underground & Nico, they hired Steve Sesnick as a manager and hired producer Tom Wilson who had worked on the band's debut. White Light/White Heat was engineered by Gary Kellgren.
The Rolling Stones, Now! is the third American studio album by English rock band the Rolling Stones, released on 13 February 1965 by their initial American distributor, London Records. Although it contains two previously unissued songs and an alternative version, the album mostly consists of songs released earlier in the United Kingdom, plus the group's recent single in the United States, "Heart of Stone" backed with "What a Shame". Mick Jagger and Keith Richards wrote four of the songs on the album, with the balance composed by American rhythm and blues and rock and roll artists.
Shirley Valerie Horn was an American jazz singer and pianist. She collaborated with many jazz musicians including Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie, Toots Thielemans, Ron Carter, Carmen McRae, Wynton Marsalis and others. She was most noted for her ability to accompany herself with nearly incomparable independence and ability on the piano while singing, something described by arranger Johnny Mandel as "like having two heads", and for her rich, lush voice, a smoky contralto, which was described by noted producer and arranger Quincy Jones as "like clothing, as she seduces you with her voice".
"I Can See for Miles" is a song by the English rock band the Who, recorded for the band's 1967 album The Who Sell Out. Written by guitarist Pete Townshend, it was the only song from the album to be released as a single.
Unit Structures is a 1966 studio album by free jazz pianist Cecil Taylor, released by Blue Note Records.
"Something Wonderful" is a show tune from the 1951 Rodgers and Hammerstein musical The King and I.
Wild Is the Wind is the sixth studio album by American singer and pianist Nina Simone released by Philips Records in 1966. The album was compiled from several recordings that were left over from sessions for previous Philips albums.
"I Put a Spell on You" is a 1956 song written and composed by Jalacy "Screamin' Jay" Hawkins, whose own recording of it was selected as one of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll. It was also included in Robert Christgau's "Basic Record Library" of 1950s and 1960s recordings—published in Christgau's Record Guide: Rock Albums of the Seventies (1981)—and ranked No. 313 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. The selection became a classic cult song covered by a variety of artists and was his greatest commercial success, reportedly surpassing a million copies in sales, even though it failed to make the Billboard pop or R&B charts.
"Sinner Man" or "Sinnerman" is an African American traditional spiritual song that has been recorded by a number of performers and has been incorporated in many other media and arts. The lyrics describe a sinner attempting to hide from divine justice on Judgment Day. It was recorded in the 1950s by Les Baxter, the Swan Silvertones, the Weavers and others, before Nina Simone recorded an extended version in 1965.
"Feeling Good" is a song written by English composers Anthony Newley and Leslie Bricusse for the musical The Roar of the Greasepaint – The Smell of the Crowd. It was first performed on stage in 1964 by Cy Grant on the UK tour.
Elizabeth LaCharla Wright professionally known as Lizz Wright, is an American jazz and gospel singer.
Silver Apples is the debut studio album by the American band Silver Apples. It was released in June 1968 by record label Kapp. It was the band's most successful original album, reaching 193 on the Billboard 200.
Fodder on My Wings is an album by singer/pianist/songwriter Nina Simone. It is part of her later works, and can be regarded alongside Baltimore (1978) as one of her better achievements of that period. It is however a rather obscure album and not widely distributed. The album is one of Simone's most introspective and personal works, with songs about her father's death and her stay in Liberia, Trinidad, and Switzerland. There is some confusion about the actual title of the album and the song with almost the same title on the album, being called "Fodder on My Wings", "Fodder in My Wings", "Fodder in Her Wings" interchangeably. In 2015, the album was reissued on CD in the US by Sunnyside. In April 2020 the album was reissued on vinyl, CD and digital format with an alternative track-listing and new album artwork.
Nina Simone in Concert is an album by the jazz singer Nina Simone. It is her first album for the record label Philips, composed of three live recordings made at Carnegie Hall, New York City, in March and April 1964. Simone recorded Nina Simone at Carnegie Hall in 1963 for Colpix. This album marked the beginning of Simone's explicitly Civil Rights oriented music and she incorporated civil rights messaging into her performances. Included on the album are unambiguous political songs such as "Mississippi Goddamn", released as a single at the time. However, songs such as "Old Jim Crow", "Go Limp", and "Pirate Jenny" contributed to the political and civil rights messaging in a more covert or metaphorical way. The album was rated as the 94th best album of the 1960s by Pitchfork.
I Put a Spell on You is a studio album by American jazz singer, songwriter, and pianist Nina Simone. Recorded in 1964 and 1965 in New York City, it was released by Philips Records in 1965. It peaked at number 99 on the Billboard 200 chart and number 9 on the UK Albums Chart. The title track "I Put a Spell on You" peaked at number 23 on the Hot Rhythm & Blues Singles chart and number 28 on the UK Singles Chart.
"Trouble in Mind" is a vaudeville blues-style song written by jazz pianist Richard M. Jones. Singer Thelma La Vizzo with Jones on piano first recorded it in 1924 and in 1926, Bertha "Chippie" Hill popularized the tune with her recording with Jones and trumpeter Louis Armstrong. The song became an early blues standard, with numerous renditions by a variety of musicians in a variety of styles.
David Nathan is an English-born biographer, journalist, authority on soul music, and singer. In the 1960s and 1970s, he was the co-founder of the Soul City record label and a contributing editor to Blues & Soul magazine. Living in the US between 1975 and 2009, he wrote several biographies of musicians as well as hundreds of articles and liner notes, and founded the website soulmusic.com. He has also recorded and performed as a jazz and blues singer, both under his own name and as his alter egoNefer Davis.
Little Walter (1930–1968) was an American blues artist who is generally regarded as the most influential blues harmonica player of his era. Most of his earliest recordings were as a sideman, when he contributed harmonica to songs by Chicago blues musicians such as Jimmy Rogers and Muddy Waters. As the featured artist, he recorded the instrumental "Juke" in 1952. The single reached number one on the Billboard Rhythm and Blues chart and launched his career as a solo artist.
