Let's Dance With SINATRA!

Original released on LP Capitol W1069

(US, January 1959)

"Come Dance With Me!" is Sinatra's tour-de-force. The songs simply don't let up, attaining a hard-driving, almost rocking swing the Sinatra-Riddle collaboration only attempted in singles. Billy May's charts are more punchy than those on "Come Fly with Me", using an all-brass band instead. The result is one of the most entertaining Sinatra records around. It's no wonder this record won Album of the Year at the second Grammy Awards. Sinatra sounds like he's having more fun than possibly even the listener is, swinging along to recent tunes like "Too Close for Comfort" or "Just in Time" alongside classic standards like "Day In - Day Out" or Sinatra's own "Saturday Night," which both rock a lot harder than their Stordahl counterparts. Sinatra even employed Sammy Cahn and Jimmy Van Heusen to write up two new songs. "Come Dance with Me" remains one of most infectious tunes on the record, spirited by Sinatra's "come on, come on, come on" at the end. The other was "The Last Dance," which would get its day as a single on Reprise in a couple of years. Here however, the brassy ballad is the only slow song on the record, and rightfully so. It adds a tenderness to the finale that makes the listener want to put the record back on all over again. Few Sinatras are as pleasurable as this. (Casey Mulvaney in AllMusic)

This Is SINATRA!

Original released on LP Capitol T768

(US, January 1956)

FRANK SINATRA Sings For Only The Lonely (60th anniversary edition)

Original released on LP Capitol W 1053 (mono)

(US 1958, September 8)

Originally, Frank Sinatra had planned to record "Only the Lonely" with Gordon Jenkins, who had arranged his previous all-ballads album, "Where Are You". Jenkins was unavailable at the time of the sessions, which led Sinatra back to his original arranger at Capitol, Nelson Riddle. The result is arguably his greatest ballads album. "Only the Lonely" follows the same formula as his previous down albums, but the tone is considerably bleaker and more desperate. Riddle used a larger orchestra for the album than he had in the past, which lent the album a stately, nearly classical atmosphere. At its core, however, the album is a set of brooding saloon songs, highlighted by two of Sinatra's tour de forces - "Angel Eyes" and "One for My Baby." Sinatra never forces emotion out of the lyric, he lets everything flow naturally, with grace. It's a heartbreaking record, the ideal late-night album. (Stephen Erlewine in AllMusic)

FRANK SINATRA: The First 2 Capitol Albums + 12 Bonus Tracks

Original released on 10" LP Capitol H488

(US, November 1953)

Original released on 10" LP Capitol H528

(US, April 1954)

Go Fly With Mr. Sinatra!

Original released on LP Capitol SW 920 

(US 1958, January 6)

Constructed around a light-hearted travel theme, "Come Fly With Me", Frank Sinatra's first project with arranger Billy May, was a breezy change of pace from the somber "Where Are You". From the first swinging notes of Sammy Cahn and Jimmy Van Heusen's "Come Fly With Me" - which is written at Sinatra's request - it's clear that the music on the collection is intended to be fun. Over the course of the album, Sinatra and May travel around the world in song, performing standards like "Moonlight in Vermont" and "April in Paris," as well as humorous tunes like "Isle of Capri" and "On the Road to Mandalay." May's signature bold, brassy arrangements give these songs a playful, carefree, nearly sarcastic feel, but never is the approach less than affectionate. In fact, "Come Fly With Me" is filled with varying moods and textures, as it moves from boisterous swing numbers to romantic ballads, and hitting any number of emotions in between. There may be greater albums in Sinatra's catalog, but few are quite as fun as "Come Fly With Me". (Stephen Erlewine in AllMusic)

The Wee Small Hours of SINATRA

Original released on LP Capitol W 581 (mono)

(US 1955, April 25)

Expanding on the concept of "Songs for Young Lovers!", "In the Wee Small Hours" was a collection of ballads arranged by Nelson Riddle. The first 12" album recorded by Sinatra, "Wee Small Hours" was more focused and concentrated than his two earlier concept records. It's a blue, melancholy album, built around a spare rhythm section featuring a rhythm guitar, celesta, and Bill Miller's piano, with gently aching strings added every once and a while. Within that melancholy mood is one of Sinatra's most jazz-oriented performances - he restructures the melody and Miller's playing is bold throughout the record. Where "Songs for Young Lovers!" emphasized the romantic aspects of the songs, Sinatra sounds like a lonely, broken man on "In the Wee Small Hours". Beginning with the newly written title song, the singer goes through a series of standards that are lonely and desolate. In many ways, the album is a personal reflection of the heartbreak of his doomed love affair with actress Ava Gardner, and the standards that he sings form their own story when collected together. Sinatra's voice had deepened and worn to the point where his delivery seems ravished and heartfelt, as if he were living the songs. (Stephen Erlewine in AllMusic)

"HIGH SOCIETY" - OST

Original released on LP Capitol SW 750

(EUA, 1956)

WALLPAPER: "The Lady Is a Tramp"

"Strangers In The Night"

RATO RECORDS presents again this old collection, made in December 1998. Then it was a Xmas gift for my father, who draw the picture inside (from the movie "Anchors Aweigh"), when he was about 20 years old. Now my father isn't around anymore, but these 23 classic songs from Mr. Sinatra have passed the judgement of the time. I miss my father very much, but I think everybody miss you, Mr. Blue Eyes...!

Movin' With Nancy

Original released on LP Reprise RS 6277

(US, December 1967)

Sundazed released a 1996 CD version of the original "Movin' With Nancy" album, adding three bonus tracks to the 1967 soundtrack from her television special, and it earns high marks for documenting more of the fun and campy escapades of Frank Sinatra's daughter. Without the opportunity to surpass her dad the way Mira Sorvino or Charlie Sheen may have moved beyond Paul Sorvino and Martin Sheen in terms of popularity, Nancy Sinatra deserves credit for a sultry, hip image and the ability to hit a few home runs. It's easy to hit a home run, of course, when your father owns a piece of the record label, Reprise, and a Rodgers & Hammerstein composition makes its way onto track four, like "Younger Than Springtime," sung by "a very close relative." The uncredited Frank Sinatra performance is great, of course, and is followed by a Dean Martin/Nancy Sinatra "duet" on the Bobby Darin song "Things." It sure sounds like dad called up Martin and asked if he wouldn't mind Nancy overdubbing her voice on a pre-existing Martin track - this was, of course, before the days of putting Natalie Cole on a Nat "King" Cole master. Despite the awkwardness of it, there is a certain charm that adds to the festivities. Make no mistake, this is a festive album. Heck, some kids go to the circus with their folks, Nancy Sinatra got to play at the record company. 

Her vocal style is on par with Claudine Longet and Jo Jo Laine, not the kind of singing to give Whitney Houston or Jackie DeShannon sleepless nights, but charming nonetheless. Where this Sinatra really shines is when she and producer Lee Hazlewood do the Sonny & Cher routine on the previous hit, "Jackson," and the real gem here, "Some Velvet Morning." When Nancy Sinatra has Hazlewood as her foil, she is outstanding. Though "Some Velvet Morning" was number nine out of her Top Ten hits as far as chart action goes, it is her strongest performance here, and proves she had more of a voice than maybe she even realized. She walks through Jimmy Webb's "Up, Up and Away," but it works, as does, surprisingly enough, the cover of Ray Charles' "What I'd Say," which closes the vinyl version of this project. Do the math: two hit singles, a duet with Dean Martin, an appearance by the Chairman of the Board (the legend, not the band), and superb production by Lee Hazlewood all make for a highly entertaining disc. Yes, she was lucky to have those doors open for her, but while other showbiz kids fell by the wayside, "Movin' With Nancy" delivered the goods. You can't help but like her. (Joe Viglione in AllMusic)

FRANK SINATRA: The World We Knew

Original released on LP Reprise FS 1022

(US, September 1967)

Between 1954 and his first retirement in 1971, Sinatra released 40 albums of original material on Capitol and Reprise. The large majority of them were "themed" albums either in terms of mood, song choice or orchestral arrangement, and these offerings generally speaking have been best received by critics and fans. This album release falls in the minority category and is therefore either a jumbled ragbag or an entertaining mixture depending on your point of view. Other than "Something Stupid", none of the songs are associated with Sinatra and few of them were ever performed live, but in many ways the album reflects a typical Sinatra concert, mixing up-tempo swingers like "This Town" and "Don't Sleep in the Subway", romantic torchers like "This is My Love" and "This is My Song", and the obligatory saloon song in "Drinking Again". But while Sinatra concerts were seamless affairs the album has a disjointed feel arising no doubt from the fact that it was recorded over many sessions, weeks or months apart, with a number of different arranger conductors.

Two of the most interesting tracks are "Born Free" and "Some Enchanted Evening". They have divided reviewers over the years, some regarded them as classics within the Sinatra oeuvre, others dismissing them as sub standard throwaways. The reviewer inclines to the former view. "Born Free", the film tune, had been performed to low key orchestral arrangement in its previous versions by other artists. Gordon Jenkins (Sinatra's stringmeister) had other ideas and came up with a heightened and dramatic treatment concluding with what my musically trained friends tell me is a broken seventh and a terminal cadence. If Sinatra is not at his absolute best vocally, this is one of Jenkin's finest hours. "Some Enchanted Evening", the love ballad from South Pacific, had been twice previously recorded by Sinatra and been given the high drama treatment traditionally associated with the song. In this version Sinatra delivers a parody of his previous efforts, beginning and ending with declamatory phrases in semi operatic fashion and then in mid tune switching into a jazzy, almost jokey, delivery. H.B. Barnum's arrangement complements the mood perfectly moving from  dramatic introductory staccato phrases into a swinging brass and string arrangement reminiscient of Quincy Jones at his best. (in RateYourMusic)