The first three are some of the better ones. But really both at Capitol and Reprise the singles are not really representative of Sinatra's work as a whole. The albums are much, much better artistically.
Ya know, I have all these on cd but it never beats holding a 45 in your hand. And it never beats watching them spin around on a turntable. Never. I'll be looking for some nice clean copies!
Please don't generalize that. There are some (contemporary) albums from the Reprise-Era which are really inferior like the bad-sounding primitive-pop-album "That's Life" or the mixed bag "The World We Knew". Five (!!!) different arrangers did the charts on "the World We Knew" and it includes songs of every kind, one great ("Drinkin' Again"), but also a bunch of crap.
Thanks! Well, I'll be... Anyhow, whenever I play this one, my wife tilts her head & says, "Is something wrong with that CD?"
True there are exceptions. Sinatra made some great singles and some crap albums, but up to September all the albums are excellent. You can't say that about the singles. But in any case, my point was that the singles had a diifferent artistic goal than the albums.
Found the Ellington CD (remaster) at Half Price Books the other day for $1. What a terrific record! I hadn't heard it before...
'Twas used, Sean, but spotless. If there's an upside to people purging their CD collections, it's the $1 bin at HPB. If there's a downside, it's that I pick up a lot of things for "what the heck" reasons and wind up liking it, which then begets other purchases of that artist's catalog. Ah, collecting!
Ken, I never took the time to compare the two, but I've read that the remaster you have is superior to the original CD. I've also never compared the first September release with the EOTC version, but have read here and on the Sinatra Forum that the old one is better. Same thing for Sinatra And Strings, although I've only a couple of copies of the old one, so the only comparison I could do would be between that and the remaster from the Complete Reprise collection. Are any EOTC remasters in that set?
Hi Sean, I'd never heard the Ellington disc before so I have nothing to compare it to, but the sound is good to my rather jaded ears. I do own a "made in Japan" US edition of September-- again have not heard the remaster -- but the Japanese pressing is a stellar disc IMO. Almost discarded it in my pre-Steve-forum days when I thought remaster=better. Whew!
I agree. I never knew there was such thing as good or bad sounding discs when I got that in 1990, but remember being struck that that Japanese disc had a beautiful sound. Sam The Record Man was liquidating them, so I went back and got another copy.
Hi Greylodge, That title hasn't shown up on CD yet except maybe on The Complete Reprise Studio Recordings box set. Expensive and good!
That's not in the box. Only FS vocal tracks are here - none of the songs he conducted as instrumentals or for others. The album originally came out on Reprise in 1962.
Strangers in the Night - album first charted 18 June 1966 There is nothing like a hit single to propel an album into the charts and when it’s a No.1 single then the eponymous album usually does very well. But even Frank must have been surprised that it went all the way to No.1, but it was the season of MOR. Frank knocked another record company owning artist from the top of the album charts - Herb Alpert and His Tijuana Brass had been there for two months with 'What Now My Love'. This was Frank’s first chart topping album for Reprise and his first No.1 since 1960’s 'Nice ‘N’ Easy'. It was also the last album he made with Nelson Riddle. In her book Nancy reckoned this album spent Seventy-three weeks at No.1 which would have driven everyone mad, possibly none more than Frank. British composer Tony Hatch had two songs on the album and it was, according to Tony, “A sort of 'if you can't beat 'em then join 'em idea. ‘Downtown’ had been a global hit for Petula Clark and was therefore an obvious choice for inclusion. Nelson Riddle's arrangement, however, is quite bizarrely 'pseudo-oriental'. Sinatra invited Petula Clark to the recording session but found he couldn't really work out how to sing the song with this ghastly and pointless arrangement. I think he found it all quite embarrassing so, lacking any better ideas, he decided to 'send it up'. The song works very well as a 'swinger' and I cannot fathom out why neither Sinatra nor Riddle could envisage it that way.” Also on the album is the quite awful ‘Yes Sir That’s My Baby’ along with the sublime artistry of ‘Summer Wind’. When Scott Walker was interviewed by the NME in July 1966 he said “Sinatra degrades himself by doing this rubbish. Listening to him doing numbers like ‘Downtown’ is like watching an old man trying to jive.” Downbeats view was “The album is a happy and free-wheeling affair.” Whatever the case it made a lot of money
Any Moonlight Sinatra is worth having!!! If for no other reason than it contains 'Moonlight Serenade.' Without a doubt one of the best ballad recordings from the Reprise years with a lush and evocative Nelson arrangement that’s as good as anything he ever did. Just before the first take Frank said to no one in particular. “Gee, this is a nice tune." With various problems on several more takes, including Frank, Sonny Burke and Nelson discussing whether it should be a little faster, he finally gets it done on take 9. It was worth the wait!
'That's Life' was found for Frank by Russ Regan “I was a recording artist at Capitol for a little while in 1959 – as a singer – but I didn’t have anything to do with Frank Sinatra. I did work at Warner/Reprise for about a year, and I worked at Loma Records, which was an R&B Warner arm with a lot of artists. While I was there, one of the writers Kelly Gordon brought the song to me, and wanted to record it himself. I said right away that it wasn’t a song for him and that it was a Frank Sinatra song, so I took it to Mo Ostin. He agreed and passed it through to Frank and within two days Frank said he wanted to do it. It went to No.25 on Billboard’s R&B chart, and No 4 on the main pop chart. Frank was delighted and I was the hero for a time!” O.C Smith had already cut it and when Frank first sang it for 'A Man And His Music' in July '66, Nelson Riddle arranged it; Ernie Freeman arranged the hit version and the rest of this album. p.s. I agree that the album as a whole is nothing to get excited about. It still made No.6 through the power of a big hit single to sell what is at best an average album cannot be underestimated. The album sold well over a million copies when it was first released and was the last Sinatra album to make the top 10 of the US album charts for a quarter of a century.
Yes - I really love the album. It seems to be one of the lesser known ones, but anyone who has interest in Frank beyond the "hits" needs to get a copy if they don't have one. I was basically making a point to not overlook the mono version of this. A lot of times the mono versions of Frank's Reprise albums are nothing special to my ear, but the mono MOONLIGHT is.
Matt, really OT (and feel free to PM me), but why did Sinatra abandon the song and album concept "Come Waltz With Me," choosing to release "All Alone" instead?
Here's where my Reprise-era lack of knowledge will shine through: I have literally never heard "All Alone." I've got it in "The Suitcase," but I've never listened to it. Sorry I can't help you out! Calling Bob....
You really should give it a spin, it's one of the best Reprise-era Sinatra albums IMHO! It's in the same mood as Only The Lonely so nighttime listening is best (on original vinyl if you have it).
