Nina Simone - Nina Simone And Her Friends

2021 CD reissue.

Simone's discography for Bethlehem is famously small - just the Little Girl Blue album and the three additional songs on this collection.  By the time of the release of Nina Simone and Her Friends, Simone had already left the label.  So had the two other artists who comprise her "friends" - jazz vocalists Chris Connor and Carmen McRae.  (Simone departed for the greener pastures of Colpix Records.)  But Bethlehem was eager to cash in on the new star.  Nina Simone and Her Friends was the result.

The 12-song sequence encompasses four cuts from each artist.  Simone's selections include the Gershwins and DuBose Heyward's "I Loves You, Porgy," a top 20 Pop/top 5 R&B entry for the artist as released off Little Girl Blue.  Her repertoire is rounded out with three outtakes from Little Girl Blue: the evocative, improvised piano-led instrumental "African Mailman" plus the spiritual "He's Got the Whole World in His Hands" and the Sam Lewis/J. Fred Coots standard "For All We Know."

Chris Connor had spent 1953-1955 on Bethlehem before being snapped up by Atlantic Records where she remained for roughly seven years. She's heard on songs by the Gershwins ("Someone to Watch Over Me"), Cole Porter ("I Concentrate on You," "From This Moment On"), and Jimmy Van Heusen and Eddie DeLange ("All This and Heaven, Too").  McRae, the third song stylist on the album was featured on Burton Lane and E.Y. Harburg's Finian's Rainbow classic "Old Devil Moon," her own "Last Time for Love," and the lesser-known tunes "Too Much in Love to Care" and "You Made Me Care."  McRae had left Bethlehem in 1956 to join the esteemed Decca roster.

    Nina Simone - "He's Got the Whole World in His Hands"
    Chris Connor - "Someone to Watch Over Me"
    Carmen McRae - "Old Devil Moon"
    Nina Simone - "I Loves You, Porgy"
    Chris Connor - "I Concentrate on You"
    Carmen McRae - "You Made Me Care"
    Nina Simone - "For All We Know"
    Chris Connor - "From This Moment On"
    Carmen McRae - "Too Much in Love to Care"
    Nina Simone - "African Mailman"
    Chris Connor - "All This and Heaven Too"
    Carmen McRae - "Last Time for Love"