Before he was the world famous crooner Frank Sinatra, he was just Frank Sinatra, crooner. And in this ‘55 compilation of early singles, he sounds just as naive as he looks on the cover.
frank sinatra
Record #175: Frank Sinatra – The World We Knew (1967)
Frank Sinatra’s legend is owed to two halves of his persona. First, you have the voice, and the knowhow to use it in collaboration with the greatest arrangers of his time. Few will argue that Frank is not the best at what he does (and those who will do so because of overexposure). When his voice crescendoes over the swung rock bass line in The World We Knew, or climbs up to the next mode of the melody as the string sections searches for sure footing in Born Free, it does things that no contemporary or copycat ever could achieve. His voice is smooth as velvet, and his taste in collaborators is unmatched.
Record #173: Frank Sinatra – Strangers in the Night (1966)
Once upon a time, I was a counselor at a youth camp. Having grown up staying in the same dorms I was now working in, I knew that the counselors usually had some non-traditional methods of waking up the teenaged campers. Having brought a portable record player, I decided it’d be a good idea to use Sinatra’s Strangers in the Night as an alarm clock.
I was wrong. It was the BEST IDEA.