Nina Simone - Pastel Blues (Acoustic Sounds Series) (2020) [24bit FLAC]

This is one of Nina Simone's more subdued mid-'60s LPs, putting the emphasis on her piano rather than band arrangements. It's rather slanted toward torch-blues ballads like Strange Fruit, Trouble In Mind, Billie Holiday's own composition Tell Me More and More and Then Some, and Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out. Simone's then-husband, Andy Stroud, wrote Be My Husband, an effective adaptation of a traditional blues chant. By far the most impressive track, and the reason for it being an RT Essential, is her frantic ten-minute rendition of the traditional Sinnerman, an explosive tour de force that dwarfs everything else on the album.

The Verve Acoustic Sounds Series version features all-analog, remastered 180-gram vinyl in deluxe gatefold packaging.