Vinyl Me, Please Unboxed – Nina Simone ‘Silk & Soul’
Good things comes in 12 inch packages. Delivering limited edition vinyl pressings of new and classic albums directly to your doorstep, VMP operates under a simple philosophy: The Album Lives! With a carefully curated catalog of new and hard to find releases, the subscription service is more than just a record club, it’s a lifestyle choice for folks who wish Record Store Day could happen every month… in their living room.
Here’s how it works. You send Vinyl Me, Please some of your hard-earned money (a 3-month membership will set you back about $119) and they send you one carefully selected album they feel is Essential to any record collection. Yes, it truly is as easy as it sounds. You even get FREE SHIPPING. Each custom pressing (often on colored vinyl!) also comes with killer extras like original artwork and informative listening companion booklet.
You’ll have membership privileges in the VMP store too, which means you can grab a copy of previous VMP selections from the archives – including their already sold out reissue of Black Sabbath’s heavy metal marvel Masters of Reality – or choose from a slate of super-limited releases pressed exclusively for Vinyl Me, Please. The store is open, and Team VMP are dropping fresh new selections to their stock every single week. Do not miss out.
Word to the wise, while the store is open to the public, subscribers are privy to reduced “Members Pricing” as well, so joining the club definitely has its rewards. If you’re peckish about relinquishing control of your record collection to complete strangers, know that VMP’s Swaps Program is in full effect. That means you can flip any VMP pick you’re not interested in for a past featured album from any track (including Essentials, Country, Classics, and Rap/Hip Hop). My advice? Don’t overthink it. Do your turntable a favor and sign up today.
As for March, I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to add one of Nina Simone’s best albums to my collection and swapped for VMP’s AAA press of Silk & Soul. Here’s a look.
For The Love Of Vinyl, Please DO NOT BEND
Few names in the annals of popular music conjure as much genuine adoration as that of Nina Simone. And if you count yourself a fan of her music, you know Simone’s icon status resulted from her assembling a singularly thrilling body of work spanning between her 1959 debut, Little Girl Blue and her 1993 swan song, A Single Woman. Over that span, Simone eared a reputation as one of the most gifted singers, songwriters, pianists, and composers of the 20th Century and her legacy has only grown in the decades since her 2003 passing.
Simone was, of course, also one of the most vocal proponents for the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s, and never once balked at the chance to fuel the fires of change through her music. That was particulary true by the time she released 1967’s Silk & Soul, which posited politically pointed hits like “I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel To Be Free” and “Turning Point,” and morally-barbed bangers like “Go To Hell,” around a collection of miraculously re-arranged standards, brooding ballads, and jazzy blues numbers that her diehard fans had come to expect.
The effect was stunning when the album was released, and it’s arguably even moreso today as there are few popular artists in the modern musical landscape who would even consider taking such an approach, let alone ones capable of making it all so infectiously palatable. Released between other Simone masterpieces, Nina Simone Sings the Blues (1967) and ‘Nuff Said (1968), Silk & Soul is raucous middle-child on one of the great three-record stretches in the history of recorded music. It might also be the best album of the three, and it’s hard to think you’ll ever find a better pressing than this VMP Classics offering.
Oh, and by the way, for anyone keeping track, VMP’s Essentials pick for March is Willie Nelson’s legendary breakup album Phases & Stages. It’s an album I love, and album I want, and an album that I absolutly would’ve selected in any month that did not feature a Nina Simone release in the Classics track. And from what I’ve heard, if you’re a Willie Nelson fan, this is the pressing of Phases and Stages you need in your collection.
Cover Matters
Sure, I could spend go on and wax poetic about this album art. But frankly, I’d rather just sit back and admire this shot of Nina looking very Nina.
Flip the album over for some glowing words from Del Shields about Nina Simone and the making of Silk & Soul. There’s also a track list and, of course, a solid gold VMP Classics stamp forever hailing the album as a must-own fo rany collector.
Out of the plastic, you’ll find a few vital stats about this vinyl pressing of Silk & Soul on the spine-hugging OBI-strip. There’s also an excerpt from the listening nots booklet penned by Ashawnta Jackson.
If you’re curious about the listening companion booklet, Jackson does a proper deep-dive into the legacy of both Nina Simone and Silk & Soul.
As for the vinyl, it is glossy, black, and beautiful just like every Classics selection before it.
As far as vinyl colors go, one could argue nothing has ever looked as good as black. And this pressing of Silk & Soul is proof-positive.
Give Vinyl Me, Please a Spin
How’s it sound? Like Nina effing Simone singing her damn soul out for a whopping 36-minutes … and quite frankly nothing has, or ever will sound better. That is in no small part due to the care that Vinyl Me, Please put into this Silk & Soul reissue, which, in case I haven’t been crystal clear is absoultely immaculate front to back. So much so that I’d hardly hesitate to say this may be the definitive pressing of one of the best album’s in Nina Simone astonishing catalogue. Pick up a copy for yourself if you don’t believe me.
A big THANK YOU to our friends at Vinyl Me, Please for sponsoring this subscription. Don’t forget to check out the Vinyl Me, Please website and sign up to get some choice wax delivered right to your door each and every month! Be sure to check back next month to see what vinyl treasure Team VMP sends our way!