Happy Birthday Doug Hammond!

Celebrating the birthday of drummer Doug Hammond with two performances and a documentary. Get his music right here.

Happy Birthday Nina Simone!

Remembering the great Nina Simone on her birthday with a London performance from 1968 and a Montreux show in 1976.

Happy Birthday Doug Hammond!

Celebrating Doug's birthday with a reading, a classic 1975 album, a whumper with Nina Simone from '76 and a documentary. 

BMG reissuing Nina Simone and Her Friends LP on Dec 3

Bethlehem cobbled together the 1959 album around 4 unissued Nina Simone tracks, notably the hard swingin' "African Mailman".   

Here's the scoop...

Originally released by Bethlehem Records in 1959, Nina Simone and Her Friends was a compilation album which combined the unreleased tracks from Simone's Little Girl Blue recording session in 1957 with songs previously issued as part of 1956's Bethlehem's Girlfriends album by two other former Bethlehem artists, jazz singers Carmen McRae and  Chris Connor who had moved on to Decca and Atlantic respectively. 

The clear highlight of the set is Nina Simone's pounding original instrumental "African Mailman" in which Simone takes off on a tear leaving bassist Jimmy Bond and drummer Al 'Tootie' Heath struggling to keep up. Evidently the future floor filler was cut in a single take so we can all be thankful that the recording engineer at the time had the tape rolling. Simone never cut anything like it again.  

Check the track list for Nina Simone and Her Friends (out December 3 in stereo remastered by Michael Graves on limited emerald green 180-gram vinyl remastered by Kevin Gray) following the original studio recording of "African Mailman" below.  

NINA SIMONE AND HER FRIENDS

1.     Nina Simone – “He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands” 

2.     Chris Connor – “Someone to Watch Over Me” 

3.     Carmen McRae – “Old Devil Moon” 

4.     Nina Simone – “I Loves You, Porgy” 

5.     Chris Connor – “I Concentrate on You” 

6.     Carmen McRae – “You Made Me Care” 

7.     Nina Simone – “For All We Know” 

8.     Chris Connor – “From This Moment On” 

9.     Carmen McRae – “Too Much in Love to Care” 

10.   Nina Simone – “African Mailman” 

11.   Chris Connor – “All This and Heaven Too” 

12.   Carmen McRae – “Last Time for Love” 

Happy Birthday Nina Simone

Remembering Nina Simone with a stellar piano performance on her own composition "African Mailman" from 1960.