I Put a Spell on You

Released June 1965 via Philips, I Put a Spell on You was cut in New York across 1964 and 1965, produced by Hal Mooney, arranged by Mooney and Horace Ott, with Rudy Stevenson on guitar. It is the nearest Simone came to pop: lush horns and strings framing a voice that refuses to be framed. Screamin' Jay Hawkins had recorded the title track a decade earlier with an ironic leer. Simone slows it into an incantation, absolute and unhurried, and it became one of her signature recordings. "Feeling Good," from the Broadway show The Roar of the Greasepaint, the Smell of the Crowd, opens on her voice alone before the band crashes in like a sunrise.

She sings "Ne Me Quitte Pas" in French, holding Brel's plea at arm's length until it breaks, and "Beautiful Land," "One September Day" and "Blues on Purpose" complete the twelve songs. Simone said she chose "heavy" songs with "meaningful lyrics and meaningful music," and the record demands that kind of listening. It reached No. 18 in the UK, the title track went to No. 28 there, and she later borrowed the title for her 1992 autobiography.

Vinyl LP.