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 May 2007 Back to Table of Contents Back to Archives Main Page Section: Arts & Letters Sinatra on Shuffle By Ron Ehmke
Historically speaking, this ebb and flow is nothing new. The early days of recorded pop music in the first half of the twentieth century were exclusively driven by three-minute “sides,” given the space limitations of a 78 RPM disc. The 33 1/3 RPM long-players that followed were called “albums” because they provided the ability to compile individual compositions much like photographs. A short time later, the heyday of the 45 RPM “single” led to a wave of one-hit wonders who managed to ride a catchy melody, a good hook, and carefully crafted production to the top of the charts for a month or so before disappearing back into obscurity. The Beatles, the Beach Boys, and the Who generally receive credit for launching the “concept album” in the mid-1960s. In their hands, albums evolved from grab bags of recent radio hits padded out with filler to carefully sequenced song cycles that collectively told a story or explored a theme. In fact, one of their precursors got the ball rolling two decades earlier. Way back in 1946, Columbia Records released The Voice of Frank Sinatra, a set of Old Blue Eyes’ ballads on 78s. After he signed to Capitol in the early 1950s, Sinatra honed the idea even further, and from 1953 to 1961 he released fifteen concept albums on the label. If you’re a fan, your collection likely includes at least one of these, from the upbeat (Nice ’n’ Easy, Songs for Swingin’ Lovers) to the down-and-out (Only the Lonely, Point of No Return). The history of these releases is eloquently chronicled in James Ritz’s informative liner notes for the 2007 compilation Romance: Songs from the Heart. That’s a bit ironic, given that the main goal of Romance is to cherrypick songs from those very albums. I guess you could argue that they’re still united by a common theme — they’re all love songs — but gimme a break: how many Sinatra songs are not about love? You might think of Romance as Sinatra for the iPod generation: twenty-one selections from the Capitol era (translation for casual fans: that means no “Strangers in the Night” or “New York, New York,” and nothing from the early crooner/bobbysoxer era) with no concern for context, chronological order, tempo, or any other organizing principle. It’s hardly the first time the songs have been shuffled around like this; there’s already a three-disc boxed set culled from the same Capitol albums, and another four-disc collection of the singles from those years, to say nothing of countless smaller-scale compilations. With that in mind, this is a pretty solid anthology, thoughtfully assembled and certain to appeal to a wide range of listeners. Newcomers to Sinatra (while it’s hard to imagine many Forever Young readers in this category) will get a handsomely packaged, inexpensive sampling of standards from the most critically revered era of his career; longtime fans who have most of this material on LPs will be able to upgrade to CD without shelling out for the exact same albums they already own (don’t you hate paying for the same thing twice?), and diehard devotees will find three relative rarities. These last three — an alternate take of “Nice ’n’ Easy,” an outtake of “Where or When,” and the first appearance of “If You are But a Dream” on an American CD — aren’t exactly essential, but they’re all worth hearing. One thing Romance unintentionally allows you to do is guess which of Sinatra’s three main arranger/conductor/collaborators from this era — Nelson Riddle, Billy May, and Axel Stordahl — is wielding the baton for each song. You can hear for yourself the differences between Riddle’s subtle, lighthearted touch on something like “I’ve Got You Under My Skin” and May’s brassier, more bombastic approach to, say, “Cheek to Cheek.” (Stordahl is represented only twice, on “As Time Goes By” and “I’ll Be Seeing You,” both from the moody 1961 Point of No Return, the last of the Capitol concept albums.) Of course, you don’t have to turn this into a trivia quiz or a history lesson. You’re perfectly welcome to pop Romance into your CD player — or transfer it to MP3s, if you’re so inclined — then sip a martini and marvel once again at some of the dreamiest, most elegantly polished love songs ever recorded. Ron Ehmke is a Tonawanda-based writer and performer. For more of his writing, see www.everythingron.com. back to top back to table of contents Current Issue | About Forever Young | Where to Find | Advertise | Our Advertisers | Community Calendar | Contest | Clubs | Contact Us | Archives | Home |
