Frank Sinatra song "It's Sunday"

"It's Sunday"

Heard this yesterday on Jonathan Schwartz's show and was really impressed.

A quick search shows that it is on the Reprise/Greatest boxed set, but I don't see that it appeared anywhere before.

Accompanied by beautiful guitar work, it sounds like it would be from one of the later 80's albums, but a look on Amazon has proven fruitless.

Any info and background about this song would be welcomed!

 

i believe it was out as a siingle. It was not on any original album (don't forget, there weren't any later 80's albums...1984's "LA Is My Lady" was the end of it).

 

Yes. I had thought that both "Ol' Blue Eyes..." and "LA..." were 80's albums, but I'm no Sinatra expert.

Thanks.

 

It's on The Reprise Collection 4 CD set issued in 1990 and on the complete 20 cd box.

As the 4 CD set was also issued on vinyl the song exists on all 3 formats: 45, LP, and CD.

 

"It's Sunday" was written for Sinatra. Music by Jule Styne, lyrics by Susan Birkenhead. It was recorded February 28, 1983, with a solo acoustic guitar accompaniment by Tony Mottola.

It was released on a B-side single in 1983, but did not appear on any original album. On CD, it may be found in two places: The THE REPRISE COLLECTION 4-CD set (1990), and THE COMPLETE REPRISE STUDIO RECORDINGS 20-CD box set (1995 and 1998). Sorry, both are out of print.

[Overlapped with Ron's post above, I see.]
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~ Frank's Albums

 

Is this the only released studio recording of Frank and an acoustic guitar?

 

No, there is one on the Reprise Christmas collection.

 

OL' BLUE EYES IS BACK was 1973. L.A. IS MY LADY in 1984 was the only original Sinatra Reprise LP to follow this recording.
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~ Frank's Albums

 

Technically, "LA is My Lady" isn't a Reprise labeled LP, is it, Bob? ( I am in the office and can't go grab the LP at the moment).

 

Correct. It's on Quincy Jones' Qwest label. Both were under the Warner Music umbrella.

 

Which song? If there's a solo guitar backing on there, I'm drawing a blank.

Of course, in concert, Sinatra sometimes performed with just a guitar. There's a beautiful version of "Night and Day" with Al Viola, on SINATRA AND SEXTET: LIVE IN PARIS.

 

Actually I'm wrong...."A Baby Just Like You" is mostly acoustic guitar, but the orchestra enters midway through.

 

Its a hidden gem. A little known masterpiece. Its to 80's Sinatra what "I'll Only Miss Her When I think of Her" is to 60's Sinatra. Subtly stunning.

 

"It's Sunday" was one of just a few songs which Sinatra recorded between 1981 (SHE SHOT ME DOWN) and 1984 (L.A. IS MY LADY). In fact, "Here's To the Band" and "It's Sunday" were the only two songs he recorded in all of 1982-83 which were released at the time (on opposite sides of a Reprise single).

Jule Styne, who had been composing since the 1920s, wrote this for Sinatra at the age of 77. It makes a nice contrasting bookend (for both the composer and the singer) to the 1926 Styne song "Sunday," which Frank had recorded for his second Capitol album SWING EASY! in 1954, nearly thirty years earlier. The pair of similar song titles can be viewed as a "May to December" selection from Sinatra's long career.

Note that Sinatra first recorded "It's Sunday" in January 1983, with a large Don Costa string orchestration. (Another seldom-heard gem from the same session was Teddy Randazzo's "All the Way Home.") But Frank was not pleased with the result: He wanted a more intimate sound. So a month later, he returned to the studio to lay down this track with just Tony Mottola, who had been performing solo guitar numbers with him in concert. It's the only Sinatra studio recording with just a guitar.

 

Bob's right, Mike: track this one down as well!

 

One of my favorite Sinatra songs, "All the Way Home" was tough to track down until recently. It can be found on SEDUCTION: SINATRA SINGS OF LOVE (2009).

 

Another place to find a great pair of Sinatra performances backed by Tony Mottola's solo guitar is the DVD, CONCERT FOR THE AMERICAS, recently reissued in different editions by both Universal in Europe and Shout! Factory in the USA. (The Universal version is region-free and can be viewed on US TV's.)

This concert was taped for television in the Dominican Republic in 1982, just six months before the subject song was recorded. It includes two beautiful Sinatra-Mottola ballad duets of "Send In the Clowns" and "Quiet Nights of Quiet Stars." If you like "It's Sunday," you'll like those, and you get to see the master acoustic guitarist Mottola in action.