Pastel Blues by Nina Simone

Pastel Blues came out on Philips on October 1, 1965, Nina Simone's plunge into the blues, cut in New York City across 1964 and 1965 with Hal Mooney producing. The High Priestess of Soul doesn't treat the form as a museum piece: that contralto of hers bends and smolders over the songs, and her piano, schooled on Bach and the classics, gives even the plainest blues a stern, stately spine.

"Sinnerman" is the one that has lasted, a whirlwind of a performance that still sounds like a storm coming in. The record climbed to number 8 on the Hot R&B LPs chart and number 139 on the Billboard 200, and in November 2020 Verve and Universal Music Enterprises brought it back as part of their audiophile Acoustic Sounds series.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.