Nina Simone at Town Hall

Nina Simone at Town Hall (aka At Town Hall) is the first live album by Nina Simone, released in December 1959. It was her third album of that year, her second album for Colpix Records, and her first live album. The basis for the record was Simone's performance at the Town Hall, New York, on 12 September 1959. All of the songs performed at the concert are on the album; however, three of the tracks are studio versions cut the following month.

Background
1959 was the year Simone became a star - and much of this has to do with the performance which forms the basis of At Town Hall. In February, earlier that year, Simone's first album Little Girl Blue had been released by Bethlehem Records, after it had been lazing in production for fourteen or so months. Somewhat put out by Bethlehem's shenanigans, she'd signed a new deal with Colpix Records in April, and during the same month recorded her second album - The Amazing Nina Simone - which had been released in July. Also, singles had been released for both these albums. The Bethlehem track was even doing well in various charts and looking like it was going to give her a hit with 'I Loves You, Porgy'. (It did). 'An even bigger milestone' for Simone, writes Alan Light, came in September 'when she made her concert debut at New York's Town Hall'. And Colpix arranged for this performance to be recorded. Nadine Cohodas, in Princess Noire: The Tumultuous Reign of Nina Simone (2010), writes: 'The August 29 issue of the New York Amsterdam News ran a long piece about the concert series “Jazz at Town Hall,” devoting much of the story to Nina [...] the article extolled Nina as “a rare commodity" [...] The story was a prelude to her biggest outing yet. The promoters for Town Hall, the venerable auditorium just off Times Square, had booked her as the headliner' on a bill with the Horace Silver and J. J. Johnson quintets.

Simone had only played clubs before this. As Cohodas continues: 'Just how different Town Hall would be struck Nina right before she went onstage, when she saw the audience sitting in orderly rows—no drinks being served, no cigarette girls selling their packs. In the middle of the stage sat a beautiful grand piano, lid off, two microphones carefully placed to capture the instrument and her voice. Kerry Acker tells of a review of the show for The New York Times, where 'critic John S. Wilson wrote that Simone “easily held her own” in the company of Silver and Johnson. She was a commanding performer, and she captivated both audience and critics. Wilson called Simone “a gifted interpreter, a singer who makes each song her own.” “By the time she has finished turning a song this way and that way,” he wrote, “poking experimentally into unexpected crannies she finds in it, or suddenly leaping on it and whaling the daylights out of it, the song has lost most of its original colorization and has become, one might say, ‘Simonized.’”'

It is unclear why three of the performances of that evening were swapped out for studio tracks. However, there are two possible reasons where either or both could have been a factor. Cohodas writes that Simone's accompanyment that night were 'most likely [Ben] Riley on drums and Wilbur Ware on bass'. However, Light goes in to a bit more detail here, stating that Simone 'had not rehearsed with, or even met, the musicians who would accompany her on the stage until the curtain rose'. Luckily both Ware and Riley were experienced musicians who had often played with Thelonious Monk. '"If I had the choice in the matter, I wouldn't have done it that way," she said' quotes Light. Cohodas further observed with many of the songs Simone would begin with long intros so her sidemen could find the groove. Accordingly, the original version of the songs swapped out for studio version - 'The Other Woman','Cotton-Eyed Joe', and 'Wild Is the Wind' - could have been felt to be too long or not good enough (or at least worth improving upon) for release.

Personnel
Live: Studio: Unknown
 * Nina Simone – vocals, piano
 * Wilbur Ware - bass
 * Ben Riley - drums

Contemporary Singles from the album
This is a list of contemporary singles with tracks from Nina Simone at Town Hall as an A Side.

Between 1959 and 1963, Colpix issued 14 Nina Simone singles. The first two were from her first Clipix album and second album overall, The Amazing Nina Simone (1959); the second two are listed above, with A Sides from Nina Simone at Town Hall. A number of subsequent singles which had A Sides taken from later albums or were non-album tracks would feature some cuts from Nina Simone at Town Hall as B Sides. These are her sixth, seventh, eighth, and tenth Colpix singles.

Songs

 * "Black Is the Color of My True Love's Hair" also features on the albums Wild Is the Wind (1966) and  Black Gold (1970).
 * "The Other Woman" is written by Jessie Mae Robinson and also features on the albums Nina Simone at Carnegie Hall (1963), Let It All Out (1966), and Live at Ronnie Scott's (1984). The song was covered by American singer-songwriter Lana Del Rey and is the eleventh track on her third studio album, Ultraviolence (2014).
 * "Wild Is the Wind" also features on the album Wild Is the Wind (1966).