Vinyl Record
Nina Simone - I Put a Spell on You
Nina Simone - I Put a Spell on You on LP vinyl. A 1965 record available from Kilmorna Collection in Listowel, Ireland.
LP ยท 1965
Available from Kilmorna Collection in Listowel.
Buyer notes: 1965 LP, currently available from the Kilmorna Collection vinyl shelf. Pay for pickup in Listowel or ship within Ireland for EUR 5.50.
I Put a Spell on You catches Nina Simone at the point where the usual genre borders stop being useful. Released in 1965, it is nominally a vocal jazz album, but its real terrain is wider and stranger: theatre song, blues, French chanson, pop drama, jazz phrasing and the private authority of a singer-pianist who could make any borrowed tune sound as though it had been waiting for her. The title track is the obvious spell, turning Screamin' Jay Hawkins' incantation into something cooler, more controlled and more dangerous, but the album's hold comes from the whole sequence. Tomorrow Is My Turn and You've Got to Learn bring European cabaret into Simone's orbit. Ne me quitte pas becomes an act of emotional translation rather than a novelty. Feeling Good arrives with brass and lift, already carrying the future life that would make it one of her most recognisable performances. What keeps the record alive is the tension between polish and threat. The arrangements can be elegant, even lush, yet Simone's voice rarely lets the listener relax into prettiness. She bends the room around a lyric, making desire, refusal and self-possession feel inseparable.
This album matters because it shows Simone turning the mid-1960s studio album into a vehicle for character, not just repertoire. It contains enduring performances, but its deeper value is how naturally it moves between idioms without diluting her presence. For many listeners, it is one of the clearest introductions to the force of her Philips-era work: accessible, dramatic, musically literate and impossible to reduce to background vocal jazz.
For a Nina Simone shelf, I Put a Spell on You is a core title because it holds several doors open at once. It has the recognisable songs a newcomer wants, but it also rewards close listening to her phrasing, piano intelligence and appetite for unusual material. It pairs naturally with Pastel Blues and Wild Is the Wind, forming a portrait of Simone as interpreter, arranger of mood and emotional strategist.
Voice-led vocal jazz, blues and orchestral pop with cabaret shadows, dramatic brass, piano authority and a simmering sense of control under pressure.
Recommended for: Nina Simone listeners looking for a defining Philips-era album; Collectors who want vocal jazz with theatre, blues and pop tension; Fans of interpretive singers who can transform familiar material.
What year was I Put a Spell on You released? The album was released in 1965, during Nina Simone's Philips period. Which songs are central to the album? I Put a Spell on You, Feeling Good, Ne me quitte pas, Tomorrow Is My Turn and You've Got to Learn give the clearest picture of its range. Is this a good first Nina Simone album? Yes. It is accessible without being simple, and it introduces her command of jazz, blues, chanson and theatrical pop in one concentrated record.