Little Girl Blue: Jazz as Played in an Exclusive Side Street Club is the debut studio album by Nina Simone.
[5] Nadine Cohodas, in Princess Noire: The Tumultuous Reign of Nina Simone (2010), writes: Bethlehem "employed Lee Kraft as an occasional talent scout.
"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.
[15] At the time of the recording session, Simone was in her mid-20s and still aspiring to be a classical concert pianist, so she immediately sold the rights for the album to Bethlehem for $3,000 (equal to US$31,682 in 2023).
According to Simone's later account, she didn't really enjoy the session, no more than her gigs at the time, as she 'still considered herself on a musical detour dictated by financial necessity'; upon returning to Philadelphia, she "immersed herself in Beethoven for three days straight".
Then in the 10 January 1959 issue of Cash Box, the 'Record Ramblings' column posted news out of Philadelphia: "Now that the Xmas rush is over the entire wax business in town is looking forward, with great expectancy, towards ’59 [...] King’s Al Farrio back from the vacation scene while Mario D’Aullaria goes on his after the hectic Christmas weeks.
The first copies of the album were released with Nina Simone's name on the front of record sleeve, and the title reading: Jazz as Played in an Exclusive Side Street Club.
However, "Sid Mark, a disc jockey at WHAT in Philadelphia [...] had started playing her recording of "I Loves You, Porgy" on air, sometimes multiple times in a row.
Fourteen tracks were recorded at the December 1957 session for the album, of which eleven of the songs were included in the release of Little Girl Blue in February 1959.
The British Parlophone label as part of their 'Bethlehem Series' issued in 1962 a single called "The Intimate Nina Simone", with "I Loves You, Porgy" added to the three tracks.
[26] Some later editions of the album would include them as bonus tracks, such as Little Girl Blue (1992 Extended Version) and Jazz as Played in an Exclusive Side Street Club (2002 Remaster).
Bethlehem would then go on to release a series of singles from the Little Girl Blue album and the non-album tracks from the 1957 recording session over the next couple of years.
[29][30] The extended remix would go on to be included in the 2002 remaster of Little Girl Blue, renamed Jazz as Played in an Exclusive Side Street Club.
"My Baby Just Cares for Me" – which closed the original edition of Little Girl Blue – became a top 10 hit in the United Kingdom after it was used in a 1987 perfume commercial.
In 1989, Cohodas reports, Simone hired Steven Ames Brown, a San Francisco lawyer who specialized in royalty recovery.
In a slight reversal, Nina "had been so outspoken in criticizing Charly for failing to pay her proper royalties that the label filed a defamation suit against her in a London court and added Brown to the litigation, too, after he spoke out on her behalf.
[8] In 2002 the album was remastered and reissued under the subtitle of the original title, Jazz as Played in an Exclusive Side Street Club, by Charly / Snapper Music (SNAP 216 CD).