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| Frank Sinatra, photo by William Gottlieb, 1947. |
I recently finished listening to Frank Sinatra’s Complete
Columbia Recordings, which span the years 1943 to 1952. Sinatra had first found
fame as the vocalist for Tommy Dorsey’s big band from 1940-42, and once he left
Dorsey’s band he signed with Columbia Records as a solo artist. Sinatra
recorded 285 songs for Columbia, yet his work for the label is relatively obscure
when compared to his much more famous recordings made for Capitol (1953-1962)
and his own Reprise label (1960-1988). Why is this? One reason is that even
though Sinatra made many excellent recordings for Columbia, they pale next to
the exciting perfection of what came later in his career. The image of Sinatra
that has persisted in our popular culture is that of the Las Vegas swinger of
the 1950’s and 1960’s, not the crooning balladeer who made bobby soxers swoon
in the 1940’s.
A second reason for the Columbia recordings being overlooked
is the technology of the time in which the recordings were issued. During the
1940’s, all of Frank Sinatra’s records were released as 78 RPM discs, the
standard format for the time. They were essentially singles, as the technology
of the time limited the large discs to just one song per side. Some of Sinatra’s
recordings were issued as “albums,” such as 1946’s “The Voice of Frank Sinatra,”
but the 8 songs were still issued one to each side of a disc, they were just
collected together in one package. The songs on “The Voice of Frank Sinatra”
were meant to all fit together stylistically, and thus it’s a forerunner to
Sinatra’s later “concept albums” on Capitol Records. In 1948 Columbia introduced
the first long-playing record, which spun at 33 1/3 RPMs, rather than 78 RPM.
These LP’s allowed much more music to be fit onto a disc. Now you could have
slightly more than 20 minutes of music for each side of the LP. The LP
revolutionized music, and Sinatra quickly understood that you could create a
suite of songs that shared the same mood and feeling and create a unified
album, which is exactly what he did when he recorded for Capitol Records in the
1950’s. Albums like “In the Wee Small Hours,” “Songs for Swingin’ Lovers!,” “Come
Fly With Me,” “Frank Sinatra Sings for Only the Lonely,” and “Come Dance With
Me!” cemented Sinatra’s reputation as a great singer, and they are still
integral parts of his musical legacy today. If you go to a record store today,
you’ll find many of Sinatra’s Capitol and Reprise albums, reissued on CD with
the songs in the same order as they were originally issued on LP’s 50 and 60
years ago, but you’ll only find compilations of his Columbia recordings, because
they weren’t originally issued as long-playing albums. That makes Sinatra’s
Columbia recordings much more scattershot and less unified. And while
generations of listeners have heard the acclaim for classic albums like “In the
Wee Small Hours” for decades, they’re probably not nostalgic about Columbia compilation
albums from the 1990’s and 2000’s. Columbia itself is also partly to blame for
the obscurity of Sinatra’s recordings for the label, as they were extremely
slow to re-release his recordings, thus when the complete Columbia recordings
were issued on CD in 1993, it was the first time in decades that many of the
songs were re-issued in any format. And it wasn’t until 2003 that Columbia
finally issued 1946’s album “The Voice of Frank Sinatra” on CD.
Despite their being overshadowed by Sinatra’s later
recordings, his Columbia recordings are quite excellent. For many years, I rather
snobbishly overlooked the Columbia recordings because I thought his later work
was so much better. The vast majority of Sinatra’s songs for Columbia were
slow, romantic ballads, which didn’t always interest me. I would guess that
probably about 70-80% of the songs Sinatra recorded for Columbia were ballads. There
were very few swinging songs, the one big exception being his 1950 album “Sing
and Dance with Frank Sinatra,” re-titled “Swing and Dance with Frank Sinatra”
on CD. “Sing and Dance with Frank Sinatra” featured arrangements by George
Siravo, one of the few times on Columbia where the arrangements were not
handled by Axel Stordahl. Over time I’ve come to have a better appreciation for
the Columbia recordings. I had just a couple of Columbia CD’s of Sinatra’s, but
I started listening to those more seriously, and when Amazon offered the
complete recordings on MP3 for $50, it was too good to pass up. There’s a
pureness to Sinatra’s voice in the 1940’s that I find very appealing. In fact,
his nickname during the 1940’s was “The Voice,” which is by far my favorite
Sinatra nickname, and I’m a little annoyed that it hasn’t remained as popular
as “the Chairman of the Board” or “Old Blue Eyes.”
To understand the effect that Sinatra had on his female
listeners, all you have to do is listen to his very first Columbia song, “Close
To You,” from 1943. Backed by only the Bobby Tucker Singers because of a
musician union’s strike, Sinatra’s voice is front and center on this tender
song. Sinatra’s voice is warm, intimate, and very sensual. He connects with the
audience, and he achieves the trick of making you feel like he’s singing just
to you. His voice is sexy and assured, and it’s easy to see why he was such a
heartthrob.
As I listened to the whole box set, I was amazed at the
consistently great quality of the songs, Axel Stordahl’s beautiful
arrangements, and Sinatra’s gorgeous singing. Sinatra was already a master at
phrasing, and every song sounds totally natural coming from him. Of course,
there are some clunkers amongst the 285 tunes, and we’ll get to those.
Sinatra’s last couple of years at Columbia have a bad
reputation, in part because of some notoriously bad songs that he recorded
under Mitch Miller’s production. But I was surprised at how few bad songs there
were. Sure, there are a lot of songs that are saccharine ballads, but they’re
still decent songs. However, there are some songs that are just plain bad. Like
“One Finger Melody” and “Tennessee Newsboy.” And then there’s a song that is
just beyond bad, “Mama Will Bark.” Long considered the absolute nadir of
Sinatra’s recording career, “Mama Will Bark” was recorded in May of 1951 as a
novelty duet with Dagmar, a busty blonde who was one of television’s first new
stars. (Dagmar even made the cover of Life
magazine in July, 1951, and her name lives on in the automobile world, as
the artillery shell-shaped projections on the front bumpers of Cadillacs and
Mercurys of the period are called “Dagmars,” or “Dagmar bumpers,” because, um,
well, I think you can figure it out.) Mitch Miller thought that it was worth
taking a chance at recording a novelty song with Sinatra, and Sinatra must have
agreed, because under his contract if he was dissatisfied with a song he could
stop the record from being issued. That being said, “Mama Will Bark” is a
steaming pile of poo. The song finds Sinatra imagining hearing a conversation
between two dogs, complete with dog sound effects, and Dagmar intentionally
singing “mama will bark” off-key. At least I hope she was intentionally
off-key. It’s a dopey song, far below Sinatra’s musical standards, and
thankfully it didn’t become a hit, peaking at number 21. Ironically, the flip
side of the single was the sublime and emotionally devastating “I’m a Fool to
Want You,” one of the best Sinatra songs from any era of his career. Thankfully,
“I’m a Fool to Want You” became the bigger hit, peaking at number 14.
Why was Sinatra’s career in such peril in 1951 that he was
recording a dopey novelty song like “Mama Will Bark” anyway? Well, Sinatra’s
popularity had been waning as the 1950’s began. First off, he left his wife
Nancy and his three small children to have a well-publicized rocky affair with
Ava Gardner. Frank eventually divorced Nancy in order to marry Ava. This was
not a popular choice with the record-buying public. Also, a new generation of
male singers were eclipsing him as fan favorites. By 1951, signers like Vic
Damone, Guy Mitchell, Perry Como, Johnnie Ray, Eddie Fisher, and Tony Bennett
were all selling more records than Sinatra. Johnnie Ray and Eddie Fisher in
particular were replacing Sinatra as teen heartthrobs who inspired the same
kind of fanatical female frenzy that Sinatra himself had been the object of just
a few years before. Sinatra was also having vocal problems in 1950, most likely
caused by overwork. Sinatra said, “I was doing three shows a night, five radio
shows a week, benefit performances, and recording at the same time.” (Quote
from Sinatra! The Song Is You, by
Will Friedwald, p. 184) While Sinatra did have to cancel some live performances
because of his vocal problems; a period of rest was all he needed to get his
voice back to normal. Sinatra’s vocal problems have generally been overstated,
as it’s impossible to discern any problems when listening to the Columbia box
set. His voice gets deeper as the 1950’s start, and by the final Columbia
recordings from 1952 you can hear the familiar “classic” Sinatra vocal sound
start to take shape. But by the end of 1952, Sinatra’s career was in total
free-fall. He had been dumped from his movie contract with MGM, and Columbia
also dropped his recording contract.
Just as Sinatra’s entire life and career had fallen apart in
1951-52, so it all came back together in 1953-4. In March of 1953, Sinatra
signed a recording contract with Capitol Records. Alan Livingston, head of
A&R for Capitol at the time, was the executive responsible for signing
Sinatra to the label. When Livingston announced Sinatra’s signing at the national
sales convention, there was a loud collective groan. But Livingston knew what
he was doing, and he wanted to pair Sinatra with a different arranger, Nelson
Riddle. Sinatra, however, remained loyal to his friend Axel Stordahl, and,
feeling that he owed much of his past success to Stordahl, insisted that Stordahl
be allowed to arrange his first sides for the label. When those sides failed to
produce a hit, Sinatra agreed to have Riddle arrange for him. One of the songs
cut at the very first session with Sinatra and Riddle was “I’ve Got the World On
a String,” which was far more exciting and electrifying than anything Sinatra
had ever recorded at Columbia. Riddle would go on to arrange 9 of Sinatra’s
Capitol albums, and their musical partnership produced many memorable moments. In
1953 Sinatra got his movie career back on track in a big way as he landed the
part of Maggio in “From Here to Eternity.” Sinatra did the role for practically
no money, and his terrific performance earned him the Best Supporting Actor
Oscar. Sinatra’s comeback was now complete.
The Columbia years were a transitional time for Sinatra, as
he moved from the big band of Tommy Dorsey to the golden years at Capitol, but
there are many highlights from the Columbia years. Some of my favorite Sinatra
performances from his Columbia years are:
Laura
Nancy (With the Laughing Face)
Close To You
These Foolish Things
I Fall In Love Too Easily
Put Your Dreams Away-which was his radio theme song
Soliloquy (from “Carousel”)
All of Me
It’s Only a Paper Moon
Should I?
I Could Write a Book
Time After Time
People Will Say We’re in Love
Saturday Night (Is the Loneliest Night in the Week)
I’m a Fool to Want You
The House I Live In
The Coffee Song
