I recall an exchange with @paulmock from two or three years back in which I confessed that I have holes in my Sinatra/Reprise knowledge that anybody could drive a large truck through. It's true, folks. Well, All Alone is an album that I have literally never heard, not even once, ever, in any mix, any format, under any circumstance. It has managed to escape my ears for all these years. (All I've ever heard, as far as I can recall, is the sampling in the 4-CD The Reprise Collection from 1990. There may have been another track on some compilation album, but nothing comes to mind.) Today I was at a place called Star Center (Antique) Mall in Snohomish, WA, and on the bottom floor there is one particular vendor there who always has a metal rack with a few (5 or 6?) LP sitting on the rack, and they are always Sinatra LPs, always in very good shape, and there are no other albums there, ever. The only records they ever sell are Sinatra records, and just a few -- but a few good ones! Today, they had a super-clean R-1007 A4/B2 mono LP of All Alone, and since this is the next album coming down the pike in our ongoing Sinatra review, I snagged it for $7.50, and plan on getting to know this album via this and the never-played "suitcase" tracks. Comparisons will be a ways off still, but if you have other versions and can share clips, please send a PM and we can start cobbling together a comparison page. How about if we just use the first track for each side, so "All Alone" and "Oh, How I Miss You Tonight?" Sound like a plan? Again, all I have is this mono LP and the suitcase CD, so I'm counting on a lot of help with this one, which will be greatly appreciated, of course. I can't do this, um.......all alone. (Groan......) Consider discussion to be officially open on this one!
A buried gem among the Sinatra catalogue. I adore this record. I just wish Mr. S hadn't pulled the plug on the "Come Waltz with Me" theme...obviously distancing himself from the Capitol catalogue. And, I will say it right now up front. This album for some reason had a big following amongst the homosexual community way long before Gay Liberation of the late 60's. Interesting,no? Winner of the LP for me is "Remember". No other earthly being could do what he did with his delivery of the tune.
One of the best from Reprise. Each track is hauntingly beautiful, my favorite is The Girl Next Door. And I'm glad the CD included Come Waltz With Me. If you need samples, I have the Reprise CD. For LP, I have the same R-1007 A4/B4.
I have the original 1992 CD with the bonus track 'Come Waltz With Me' it was mastered by Lee Herschberg so probably is not the same mastering as the suitcase version.
That doesn't follow. The suitcase was mastered by Lee Herschberg. I'll try to do a comparison of the All Alone CD with the suitcase tracks later today...
From the thread, Frank Sinatra: The Reprise Years (38-Disc Box Set from UMG) ... So does anyone know the answer to the artist question?
Many of the 1995 suitcase tracks are from the same digital masterings as the earlier individual CD issues, but there are exceptions. Most were mastered originally by Lee Herschberg.
A general online search ("painter Weber") comes up initially with Max Weber, but he died in 1961 and was a Cubist. (Of course, the painting could predate the album.) Also, the oblong composition makes me think the painting wasn't originally intended to be an album cover.
I think it's a lovely album, full of old '20s standards (mostly Berlin, but some others as well). I understand that it was a commercial failure at the time, which is probably why it has been relegated to obscurity over the years. I've got the 1992 CD with the bonus track "Come Waltz With Me." I read on one of the Sinatra forums that the song was recorded during the same sessions and originally intended for the album, but Frank was unhappy with it, and decided to leave it off. As far as the painting, if you look closely at the CD book, you can read the name "Weber" (as others have already stated). That's it though, no idea who Weber was, and Google has turned up nothing.
It's been reported that FS scrapped the tune because Cahn and Van Heusen offered it also to Steve Lawrence, who had a hit with it in 1962, before the Sinatra album was released.
This was the first Reprise album in the same vein as the great Capitol "suicide" LPs like Frank Sinatra Sings for Only the Lonely and No One Cares. I was always touched by daughter Nancy's comment:
One of my favorite early Reprise LP's. It has been said that FS wanted to do a album in Waltz time signatures to take advantage of of his emotional tentativeness.
It has also been speculated that he decided against "Come Waltz With Me" as the title song as he didn't want another lawsuit with Capitol like the one over "Swing Along With Me".
It does: I just listened and compared waveforms. They're a near-exact match. Of course, you should reorder the tracks on Disc 3 of the suitcase, for the proper effect. [Edit:] BTW, the recent (2011) UMG reissue is identical to the original (1992) Reprise CD, except that the bonus track has been removed along with the extra page of new liner notes by James Isaacs.
Regarding the painting: The sweater/collar combination, as well as the style and amount of hair, remind me of the photos from the Tone Poems of Color LP, and, in turn, one of those photos was used for the Where Are You cover painting, which also showed Sinatra donning sweater and exposed collar, not a style with which Mr. Sinatra is typically associated. (Hey, Bob....what is Frank wearing in your avatar?)
He isn't wearing a hairpiece in the "Tone Poems/Where Are You" photos. He is in the "All Alone" portrait. Still he doesn't look like Sinatra in the "All Alone" painting. He looks like Dick Cavett.
That's the 8 x 10 color portrait that came in original LP issues of Ol' Blue Eyes Is Back. See lead post in thread: —> Ol' Blue Eyes was back: 40 years ago, Frank Sinatra emerged from retirement
