A Tale of Two Albums - One Good, The Other Great!

In my opinion, the "Songs For Young Lovers" portion of this double album, while good, is Frank Sinatra's weakest album at Capitol. On the other hand, the "Swing Easy" portion is superb.



Getting back to the first point: With the exception of "A Foggy Day," "I Get a Kick Out of You," "They Can't Take That Away From Me," and "My Funny Valentine" (and, possibly, "Violets for Your Furs"), the 3 remaining songs suffer from overly mawkish arrangements and singing. In particular, "Little Girl Blue" is just plain wimpy, and "The Girl Next Door" is handily beaten by Frank's Reprise-era rendition from 1962. George Siravo's arrangements are too syrupy for my taste, and Sinatra seems to be trying too hard to merely sound pretty as opposed to really grabbing you by the lapels as he normally does.



Don't get me wrong - I usually love Frank's ballad singing every bit as much as his handling of up-tempo numbers. However, this album falls short of his admittedly stellar standards. For far superior ballad singing, I would strongly recommend the following Capitol albums: "Where Are You?", "Frank Sinatra Sings For Only the Lonely," "In the Wee Small Hours," "No One Cares," and "Close to You." In other words, any of his other ballad concept albums for Capitol!

And it melted wherrrre it lay

This review concerns the one song Violets For Your Furs where Sinatra sings "and it melted where it lay." He hits a low note on the word "where" that I have enjoyed for the last 25 years. I always considered it to be vocal magic, a stroke of genius. I recently played it for a girlfriend and she said it sounded way off. While I realize that it is out of his range I always found it to be perfect. I'd have to rate it as one of my top ten Sinatra moments. I later played it for a friend and he said it sounded awakward, like a mistake that should have been redone. He can't imagine Sinatra doing it on purpose and feels that at best it was a mistake that Sinatra must have liked and chose to keep. My friend thinks it sounds awful. On the live in Seattle 1957 Sinatra does the same thing so I guess it's on purpose. I would like some input on this. What do you people think? Post a review and or email me at johnparadis@webtv.net. I'm real interested in what Jonathan Schwartz has to say about this. It's keeping me awake at night!

Where the Concept Album Got Started

The concept album owes a great debt to the Chairman of the Board, Frank Sinatra. Around 1953, Frank signed to Capitol records. He recorded a string of songs which fit well together and made what was then a complete album of them (back then, a complete album was 2 10 inch disks, later known as EP's). The result was 2 of the 1st ever concept albums- Songs for Young Lovers and Swing Easy. Without these 2 albums, there would be no Songs for Swingin' Lovers. Even Steve Hackett of Genesis acknowledged Sinatra's introduction to what's now known as the concept album. George Siravo wrote the arrangements (without credit) and Nelson Relson conducted them on both albums.



First, we'll have a look at Songs For Young Lovers. "My Funny Valentine" has to be one of the sweetest songs about unconditional love ("Your looks are laughable, unphotographable... but don't change your hair for me, not if you care for me"). "The Girl Next Door" (originally "The Boy Next Door" from Meet Me In St. Louis) is handled delicately with Nelson Riddle's warm orchestration. "A Foggy Day" recalls the classic piece "Country Gardens." "I Get a Kick out of You" (featured in Anything Goes) swings a little more ("I get a kick, you give me the boot!"). "They Can't Take That Away from Me" has to be the most autobiographical song Frank Sinatra never wrote ("the way you hold your knife, the way we dance 'till three"). After all, he was one of a kind. Closing the Lovers EP, he croons to perfection a melodious and romantic "Violets for Your Furs." This indeed would be a good album to play to impress your date.



Now for the Swing Easy disc. Get your dancing shoes ready, folks! "Just One of Those Things" opens up this album, a sentimental breakup song with things perfectly in perspective "We had been aware that our love affair was tooooo hot not to cool down." "I'm Gonna Sit Right Down and Write Myself a Letter" is a great dreamer's song, with a hot arrangement by George Siravo. Siravo's arrangement on the classic "Jeepers Creepers" is equally as exquisite as anything on Songs For Young Lovers. "Forget your troubles and just get happy" sings Ol' Blue Eyes on "Get Happy," with an arrangement that recalls the Big Band Era of the 1930's and 1940's. Perhaps that's what the mood of this album is all about- the titles "Wrap Your Troubles In Dreams" and "Takin' a Chance on Love" seem to sum up the theme in themselves. Closing this album is the classic "All of Me." Well, Frank Sinatra certainly gave all of himself on both Swing Easy and Songs For Young Lovers.