The *Frank Sinatra* recordings thread

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by Sean Keane, Sep 22, 2008.

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  1. stevelucille

    stevelucille Forum Resident

    Location:
    Rochester, NY USA
    I've got a question regarding vinyl but specifically regarding Capitol's Sinatra recordings. If you are searching for the best sound quality for recordings that sound better in mono or before there were EQ changes etc. (like Sinatra's Capitol records) shouldn't Eps yield better sound than LPs? I'm pretty sure every Sinatra Capitol LP was also issued in EP form (45 RPM.) Are there mastering reasons or something else I'm not aware of that I'm missing? Theoretically if I could find all 4 Eps for say Wee Small Hours shouldn't a compilation CD sound better than even a gray label LP?
     
  2. triple

    triple Senior Member

    Location:
    Zagreb, Croatia
    I do not know if it is politically correct to post about this, but I recently received the Frank Sinatra Sings The Great Love Songs Disky CD and it is wonderful. :thumbsup:

    I have been listening to it every day. :)

    BTW, I quite like the dreaded MFSL Songs For Swinging Lovers also.

    Goran
     
  3. Steve Hoffman

    Steve Hoffman Your host Your Host

    EP's usually sound terrible. For collectors only.
     
  4. stevelucille

    stevelucille Forum Resident

    Location:
    Rochester, NY USA
    Thanks for the info Steve. Would the same be true for one song per side 45s?
    LPs still better?
     
  5. bluesbro

    bluesbro Forum Hall of Shame

    Location:
    DC
    "Everything Happens to me"

    I am basically trying to figure out if I need to get this compilation or not. What makes it unique? What other albums would I need to have in my collection to make this redundant?

    Thanks guys

    [​IMG]
     
  6. ArneW

    ArneW Senior Member

    Location:
    Cologne, Germany
    IIRC, there are two or three tracks (in particular, the "title" track of this comp) which can otherwise only be found on the "Complete Reprise Studio Recordings" megabox.

    Arne
     
  7. Bob F

    Bob F Senior Member

    Location:
    Massachusetts USA
    Just the title track. All the others can be found elsewhere in addition to The Complete Reprise Studio Recordings.

    BTW, that's the 1981 version of "Everything Happens To Me." (The 1974 version is only found in the 20-CD box.)
     
  8. I think only the title track is unique to this set, every other song should be available on CD versions of the original albums (and scattered comps, like the 1990 4 CD box)

    1)She Shot Me Down (Hard to find on CD, inexpensively.)
    2)The comp in question.
    3)September Of My Years
    4)Strangers In The Night
    5)Francis Albert Sinatra & Antonio Carlos Jobim
    6)Great Songs From Great Britain
    7)Some Nice Things I've Missed
    8)Bonus track on the 1st Ring A Ding-Ding CD (Don't know about the others.)
    9)Sinatra & Strings
    10)Sinatra & Strings
    11)Trilogy
    12)My Way
    13)My Way
    14)The World We Knew
    15)My Kind Of Broadway (1965 comp LP/CD)
    16)Francis Albert Sinatra & Antonio Carlos Jobim
    17)My Way
    18)My Way
    19)Sinatra's Sinatra

    I like EHTM, it's an excellent selection of tracks for a single CD.:thumbsup:
     
  9. Bob F

    Bob F Senior Member

    Location:
    Massachusetts USA
    The 1990 4-CD set, The Reprise Collection, will pick up tracks 1, 4, 5, 8, 10, 11, 14, 15, and 16.

    Be careful with this one. It's the 1960 version of "The Second Time Around." First pressings of Ring-A-Ding Ding had the wrong (1963) bonus track. Other sources are The Reprise Collection and The Very Best of Frank Sinatra.
     
  10. Thanks for clarifying, I was just going from faulty:tsk: memory.
     
  11. nickelz24

    nickelz24 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Honolulu,Hawaii
    Here's another tech question. On "Just One of Those Things" from Swing Easy, were the drums just miked up with one RCA 77 ? I'm assuming that was the case. If so, boy do I love the snare sound on that track.

    Also...on Sinatra's Swingin Session album cover, I see an altec tube mic over the drums (I have a feeling this may have been discussed before). Was that it as well for that album?
     
  12. TimJo

    TimJo New Member

    Location:
    Ballard
    I have a question for the experts out there.

    How much of Frank's material preformed on 'Your Hit Parade' get professionally recorded during the war?

    I have 78's from '44 that were cut by my mom off the radio, but it has never been clear to me if these are rare recordings or not. I guess she and her friend would call to the studio in the morning during rehearsal to make requests and then go back to her house and record songs from the broadcasts.
     
  13. stevelucille

    stevelucille Forum Resident

    Location:
    Rochester, NY USA
    I also have a question for the Sinatra experts out there. I noticed something on my first pressing (logo at the left) of Come Dance with Me in stereo. The vocals on the right channel are drenched in echo but the left channel seems REALLY dry. Almost no echo at all. Its not like that on the cds I checked. By playing with the balence it sounds great! Like a fog lifted from the record!
    My question is does this same set up occur on the other early stereo lps too? This is the only first pressing stereo I have so I can't check myself.
    Another question would be: weren't these recorded to 3 track? How would you add reverb (or echo) to only one channel?
     
  14. Bob F

    Bob F Senior Member

    Location:
    Massachusetts USA
    Sinatra starred on Your Hit Parade on CBS radio from 1943-44, and then again on NBC radio from 1947-49. Both series are well-documented by surviving transcriptions, especially the latter one. Assuming the question pertains just to the earlier wartime appearances on CBS:

    FS performed in 99 weekly programs, from February 13, 1943 through December 30, 1944, sponsored by Lucky Strike cigarettes. These aired on Saturday nights from 9:00 to 9:30 p.m. Frank's singing co-star was Joan Edwards, and there was a regular vocal group known as The Hit Paraders. The Hit Parade Orchestra was conducted by Mark Warnow. The shows were broadcast from New York City, although when Sinatra was in Hollywood (Aug. 14 to Sep. 11, 1943 and Jan. 1 to Sep. 16, 1944), his portion came from the studios of KFWB in Los Angeles.

    Recordings are known to exist from 62 of the 99 programs, including at least 210 separate tracks containing Sinatra vocals. [Note: These numbers are just a quick accounting, and they may be even larger.] These are not all unique songs, of course, as hits were sometimes repeated for many weeks in a row. Many of these are available commercially on bootleg CDs (or unauthorized imports which take advantage of the shorter copyright limits in Europe and the UK).

    I can't say how "professional" the original transcriptions were, but most of these have been digitally processed and sound quite nice. Nancy Sinatra usually plays a few radio tracks on her weekly three-hour programs on Sirius Satellite/Internet Radio. A major attraction of these are the many popular songs which Sinatra sang on radio but never cut in a recording studio.

    If you have a list of the songs and/or dates of the programs your mom recorded, I could confirm whether other copies are known to exist.
     
  15. Ryan

    Ryan That would be telling

    Location:
    New England
    Three track, yes. The way I understand it is the reverb would be added when they did the "reduction" to two-track that was used to cut the LP.

    And I've heard stereo LP's of this title from that time have weird mixes (I don't own one). CDs are remixes, I believe.
     
  16. Ryan

    Ryan That would be telling

    Location:
    New England
    The problem with mono on this (And Come Fly With Me) is that it also has echo.
     
  17. Jack White

    Jack White Senior Member

    Location:
    Canada
    On the "Nothing But The Best" CD compilation, was the glitch at the beginning of "Bewitched" that turned "She's" into "He's" ever corrected on subsequent pressings?
     
  18. Bob F

    Bob F Senior Member

    Location:
    Massachusetts USA
    Not that I've heard. (It's not clear that the glitch can be corrected; i.e., it may stem from the restoration of the 35mm mag film masters, but that's just supposition.)

    There's a new "Christmas Edition" release of Nothing But The Best due out later this month in the UK/Europe: a 2-CD bundle with 12 Songs of Christmas. (First full CD release of the latter album.) I'll let you know when I receive that one.
     
  19. TimJo

    TimJo New Member

    Location:
    Ballard
    Thanks for the information on this. My goal is to make needle drops of the 78's and compile them onto a CD for my mom. I'll try to post a list at some point...
     
  20. shicorp

    shicorp Senior Member

    Location:
    Austria
    I really hope that this release doesn't have as much compression as "Nothing But The Best" (and the original mix, for that matter!). I know, chances are low.
     
  21. MLutthans

    MLutthans That's my spaghetti, Chewbacca! Staff

    There's also a missing note at the beginning of New York, New York. :shake:
     
  22. Bob F

    Bob F Senior Member

    Location:
    Massachusetts USA
    I hadn't noticed that before, Matt. (Another for my comparison file. :)) It's not really a "note" though—just a beat of the snare drum intro—but definitely a mistake.
     
  23. Hi-hat intro, right? that was posted here somewhere.
     
  24. MLutthans

    MLutthans That's my spaghetti, Chewbacca! Staff

    That posting blandishment was courtesy of yours truly, here.

    Matt
     
  25. LaserKen

    LaserKen Senior Member

    Location:
    Avon, Indiana
    I've been searching to no avail -- which CD version of Sinatra & Jobim is preferred: the original Reprise or the EOTC remaster? Thanks!!
     
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