How Many Songs Did Frank Sinatra Record ?

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by Tina_UK, Jun 23, 2010.

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  1. Tina_UK

    Tina_UK Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    England
    Hi all, I often hear songs on TV Commercials, Radio, TV shows, Movies etc, and if they're from "The Great American Songbook" I can almost guarantee I will have a copy of Frank Sinatra singing it in my collection.

    So just curious to if anyone knows exactly how many songs Frank recorded, not how many versions of the same song, that would be TOO much to ask LOL!.... UNLESS someone knows off the top of their head?

    Cheers.
     
  2. wave

    wave Forum Resident

    Location:
    Allen Park, MI
    According to this, 1200+. Obviously, many are repeats. (There are at least 4 studio recordings for "All Or Nothing At All," for instance.)

    Here's their breakdown, decade by decade:
    Personally, I'd trust Bob F's tally (I'm sure he has a more accurate one).
     
  3. erocky

    erocky Senior Member

    Heck what about Elvis? That guy must have recorded 2000 songs in 23 years!
     
  4. Tina_UK

    Tina_UK Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    England
    That's an interesting link, thanks .
     
  5. Lea St

    Lea St Forum Resident

    Location:
    London, UK
    I thought he made over 1600 recordings.
     
  6. Bob F

    Bob F Senior Member

    Location:
    Massachusetts USA
    Counting just released commercial record studio recordings: Sinatra recorded almost exactly 1000 different song TITLES (give or take a few). Of course, he recorded many songs multiple times (e.g. for different record labels), so the actual number of different TRACKS is higher, in the neighborhood of the 1200+ mentioned above.

    If you include all songs Sinatra sang (including on radio, TV, films, and in concert), many of which have not been released officially, the number of different song titles is much larger. I haven't made an exact count, but they're all listed alphabetically by title in the WHERE OR WHEN CD-ROM database. I would guess that 1600 different songs is not too far off the actual number.
     
  7. Bob F

    Bob F Senior Member

    Location:
    Massachusetts USA
    I'm no Elvis expert, but I doubt his song total could be anywhere near that high. Perhaps someone could verify?

    Remember that Sinatra's recording career ran 55 years (1939 to 1993). In addition to all the songs he recorded, Frank hosted weekly radio shows in the '40s (e.g. Your Hit Parade) which had him singing nearly every vocal hit of the day on the air. There's no way Elvis can touch that.
     
  8. Mark

    Mark I Am Gort, Hear Me Roar Staff

    Not enough.....
     
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  9. Lea St

    Lea St Forum Resident

    Location:
    London, UK
    1800 +

    According to a book I have, The Rough Guide To Frank Sinatra, he has made over 1800 recordings.
     
  10. Evan L

    Evan L Beatologist

    Location:
    Vermont
    711 recordings for Elvis.

    Evan
     
  11. Lea St

    Lea St Forum Resident

    Location:
    London, UK
    I wonder which artist has the most recordings ever, including multiple versions in different languages?

    Nana Mouskouri, perhaps?
     
  12. Tina_UK

    Tina_UK Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    England
    That's interesting chaps, I would have thought he'd recorded a lot more. And I suppose some are the same song, just a slightly different song title.

    Who wants to start counting? :winkgrin:

    And maybe a little naive of me, as I am rather bias BUT I would have thought it would be Frank Sinatra that recorded the most songs in the 20th century.
     
  13. jeighson1

    jeighson1 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Ann Arbor, MI
  14. Bob F

    Bob F Senior Member

    Location:
    Massachusetts USA
    There are many inaccuracies in that book. By "recordings" we usually mean studio recordings, and the count is only two-thirds of that.
     
  15. Bob F

    Bob F Senior Member

    Location:
    Massachusetts USA
    Okay, I counted: In his WOW database chronology, "The Frank Sinatra Legacy," researcher Giuseppe Marcucci lists 1766 different non-parody song titles.

    A number of those are "short takes" or "short parodies," i.e. incomplete songs, but I weeded out parody titles which are duplicates or variations of other songs. Many of those listed were sung only on radio or in concert (of which most have been recorded in some form or another). I'd estimate there are no more than 1700 complete legitimate songs which Sinatra sang at some point in his career.

    As mentioned previously, the number of released commercial studio recordings was about 1200 tracks, including repetitions, of at most 1000 unique songs.
     
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  16. Greg1954

    Greg1954 New Member

    Location:
    .
    Around 1200 is also the number I've come across in the past, and accept as a good rough figure.

    The Song Is You
    Night And Day
    Fools Rush In
    I'll Never Smile Again
    Put Your Dreams Away
    The Moon Was Yellow (And The Night Was Young)
    September Song
    One For My Baby (And One More For The Road)
    I've Got A Crush On You
    Autumn In New York
    London By Night
    I Concentrate On You
    Stormy Weather
    Where Or When
    I've Got You Under My Skin
    I Get A Kick Out Of You
    Angel Eyes
    The House I Live In
    Street Of Dreams
    It All Depends On You
    White Christmas
    Come Fly With Me
    All Or Nothing At All

    Among those that saw the most visited studio recordings and appearances on official live albums during his lifetime.
     
  17. wave

    wave Forum Resident

    Location:
    Allen Park, MI
    Thank you, Bob. I've always been curious about Sinatra's unique studio song count. Not an outrageous number considering the span of his career, but I'll take quality over quantity any day.
     
  18. Bob F

    Bob F Senior Member

    Location:
    Massachusetts USA
    What is most amazing are the number of song performances by Sinatra. In the aforementioned chronology by Marcucci, he includes almost 6 MB of listings in two Microsoft Word files, with a total of 36,226 lines. There are two lines for each song title, followed by one line per recording or performance.

    That's over 32,000 documented song performances, on records, films, radio, television, and concerts!
     
  19. 3rd Uncle Bob

    3rd Uncle Bob Forum Resident

    From the fifties (50's): 334
    From the sixties (60's): 414

    That helps explain why the 50's were better.
     
  20. Bob F

    Bob F Senior Member

    Location:
    Massachusetts USA
    Although I don't generally trust Wikipedia, the article List of songs recorded by Frank Sinatra states:

    "There are currently 957 songs on this list."

    I've had only a quick glance at that list, but it appears to be accurate for titles of Sinatra's studio-recorded songs for his commercial record labels (RCA, Columbia, Capitol, Reprise). It does not include song titles which have appeared on authorized releases only from radio airchecks, V-Disc studio recordings, or live performances.
     
  21. paulmock

    paulmock Forum Resident

    Location:
    Hollywood, CA
    That just over 1,200 songs does ring a bell.:thumbsup:
     
  22. Bob F

    Bob F Senior Member

    Location:
    Massachusetts USA
    That's 1200+ studio recordings, not different songs. The studio song (titles) count is under 1000.
     
  23. Tina_UK

    Tina_UK Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    England
    Thanks everyone for your replies, it's amazing when one starts think about it, and thanks to Frank we'll never be.... "Without A Song"
     
  24. Bob F

    Bob F Senior Member

    Location:
    Massachusetts USA
    :agree: True enough...

    The number of songs which Sinatra did NOT record is large. See here for a list of songs which was compiled for Frank in 1985 as possibilities for inclusion in a new album. Of those 257 titles which he never recorded in studio, 80 songs (31%) had been sung at some point in his career (e.g. on radio), but that still left quite a few which he never performed at all.

    Here are some relevant remarks by Frank to Sid Zion before a Yale Law School audience on April 15, 1986:
    FS checked off 21 songs on that list as candidates for the album. Unfortunately, it never materialized.
     
  25. Greg1954

    Greg1954 New Member

    Location:
    .
    Ugh. Looking at the ones he checked off make one pine for the album that never was.
    What he could have done with Manhattan Serenade!

    There's some on the unchecked, like Black Coffee that I couldn't see being a good fit in an 1980's recording.
    For All We Know could have been.

    Big Nose From Winnetka :confused:

    Fascinating all the same.
     
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