Nikki Price came to the attention of legendary producer John Hammond in an unusual way: she simply walked into the Columbia studios with her pianist, Joe Say, sang one song, and was soon invited back to make an audition tape. The result was Nikki, her first and only album, recorded in New York in 1962 with orchestras conducted by Fred Karlin and Joe Say. Already an experienced television and nightclub performer, Price brought to the studio the warmth and intimacy of a supper-club singer, together with a natural understanding of lyrics, moving effortlessly from tender ballads to witty, light-hearted songs.

The voice of Nikki Price has been heard for some years on television programs and in nightclubs from coast to coast. Nikki has been performing since age 11, when she astounded her parents by appearing in an amateur show at a local Detroit theater Her initiative convinced them that she was bent on a career in show business, and she soon began to work as a singer and model.

By the ripe age of 13, she was appearing three days a week on television. Two years later, she graduated to another show and was seen Monday through Friday. When she was 17, Nikki did some modeling in Chicago and then moved to New York, where she appeared in filmed commercials and did some group singing on the Perry Como and Arthur Godfrey programs. She was then featured daily on the John Henry Faulk program. A traveling industrial show brought Nikki to the West Coast, where she sang in Los Angeles and Las Vegas lounges. She then enrolled in college, continuing to sing in clubs to support herself. Nikki returned to Detroit and graduated from Wayne State University She then moved back to New York and sang in a number of small supper clubs, including the Left Bank. The results of all these years of entertaining can be heard in this album. Nikki is able to recapture in a recording studio the atmosphere and special intimacy of a supper club. She can give the ballads My Love Is a Wanderer and You’d Be So Nice to Come Home To the tender treatment they deserve, and she can add the right touches of humor and high spirits to Would’ja for a Big Red Apple and Peel Me a Grape. If this album is any indication, Nikki Price has a long, successful career ahead of her.

—Jordi Pujol (From the inside liner notes of FSR V149 CD)