Polyphonic Press - Classic Album Reviews · Jeremy Boyd & Jon VanDyk

Wild Is the Wind by Nina Simone: Soulful Grit & Artful Melancholy

June 17, 2025·31 min·1 clip

'Four Women' trusts listeners to fill in gaps—that restraint is what makes it powerful.

Jeremy and John discuss Nina Simone's 'Wild Is The Wind' (1966), a collection of outtakes recorded 1964-65. They explore how Simone's vocal delivery creates emotional coherence across diverse material, examine her compositional restraint in 'Four Women,' and analyze the sparse yet sophisticated jazz orchestration that serves the vocals. The paradox they highlight: it's a B-sides compilation that functions as a masterpiece.

As heard by us

A loose but thoughtful take on Nina Simone's Wild Is the Wind, framed as a set of outtakes that still hangs together.

Polyphonic Press spends more time on the ache of Nina Simone's Wild Is the Wind than on trivia, which suits the record. Jeremy Boyd and John Van Dyke frame the 1966 Philips release as a set of outtakes that somehow hangs together, and that idea gives the review its shape.

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Why you'd press play

Press play for two hosts digging into Nina Simone's Wild Is The Wind, a classic-album pick with a hauntingly cohesive feel.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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