I put a spell on you because you're mine

Continuing my trip back through the 1965 album charts.

25/07/65 : Nina Simone - I Put A Spell On You


Our second visit with Nina - I quite enjoyed the last one, so here's hoping for more (and I know I like the title track).

Oh yes, the title (and opening) track is a very fine track indeed - I didn't think it was originally hers, but had to check Wikipedia to see it was originally a '56 track by Screamin' Jay Hawkins (it's certainly an "original" version) and it's been covered by quite the selection of people including Alan Price (interestingly backed with an organ), Creedence Clearwater Revival (nicely spooky). Annie Lennox (pretty decent) and The Crazy World Of Arthur Brown (bonkers and one we've already met). The album also features her version of "Feeling Good" which is another song I knew was a cover but couldn't have told you it was written by Anthony Newley and Leslie Bricusse for a musical - other versions out there include Muse (which is great and we've met), Pussycat Dolls (not so good, but we've also met), George Michael (of course it's good but we've not met it - yet) and Michael Buble (ditto).

Back to Nina. considering the album as a whole, I actually really liked it - she's got a great voice and also tickles the ivories very well (I never knew she attended the Julliard School) but it had a lot more lightness of touch and mood than I was expecting. I particularly liked "Take Care Of Business" and "Marriage Is for Old Folks" and I even liked the blues instrumental break that "Blues On Purpose" gave us - it was all pretty enjoyable for me except for the childish weirdness of "Beautiful Land". 

We're at #18 in the chart this week on the second week of a three week run and this was as high as it got and that was all it had - it feels like it deserved considerably more, but often US albums didn't do as well as you might expect over here. The top five this week were TSOM, Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Mary Poppins and The Seekers (really?!?), making that our first week of the year without mentioning The Beatles - and there were no new entries in the chart.

Wikipedia tells us this is her twelfth album and that's pretty much all there is. Critically, the reviews all point out this is as close to pop as she got - it seems unclear whether they think this is a good thing or a bad thing. Commercially, I was surprised to see it only got to #199 in the US but she never really experienced much commercial success anywhere - except for "My Baby Just Cares For Me" over here, which I believe was related to an advert (Google reminds me it was a Chanel No 5 advert, backed up by a fine Aardman Animations video)

"Customers also listened to" "no similar recommendations" - which is a bit of a shame because I liked this and would have been happy to listen to something else like it.

18/07/65 - A big thing at the time
01/08/65 - Better than expected

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