Little Girl Blue

Little Girl Blue: Jazz as Played in an Exclusive Side Street Club is the debut studio album by Nina Simone. Recorded in late 1957, it was eventually released by Bethlehem Records in February 1959. Due to the length of time the album had taken to be released and the lack of any promotional single either immediately before or alongside the album, Simone would become disillusioned with Bethlehem and sign with Colpix Records in April 1959. She recorded the tracks for her second album - what would become The Amazing Nina Simone - the same month. However, in May Bethlehem finally released a single, "I Loves You, Porgy" and gave Simone her first hit later that year, peaking at number 18 on the pop charts, and number 2 on the R&B charts. Helped by the profile of the single, the album too went on to become a chart success. In 1987, the track "My Baby Just Cares for Me" became a massive UK and European hit. The album was reissued, now with the title of single, and with a new cover and the tracks in a different order. This release eventually became subject to a legal dispute. Later releases of the album include bonus tracks from the same recording session. Overview Recording In spring 1957, while playing gigs in Philadelphia, Simone recorded a demo (which is believed to be the basis of the unofficial Simone album Gifted & Black released in 1970). A few months later, as Alan Light tells it in What Happened, Miss Simone? - A Biography (2011), someone at Bethlehem Records in New York heard the demo recordings and became "interested in signing her to the label". Nadine Cohodas, in Princess Noire: The Tumultuous Reign of Nina Simone (2010), writes: Bethlehem "employed Lee Kraft as an occasional talent scout. He brought musical prospects to Gus Wildi, Bethlehem’s founder, and then Wildi and his associates decided if they wanted to make a record. Kraft had heard Nina at a club in Philadelphia and thought Bethlehem should record her." However, continues Cohodas, there is another version to the story. "Vivian Bailey, a Philadelphia businessman who first heard Nina at the Rittenhouse, said he had arranged for her to make a demo [...] He took the tape to New York and played it for Wildi. 'Her beautiful and unique vocal quality caused us to sign her immediately to a recording contract,' Wildi recalled."