Customer Reviews

The Capitol Years

5 star:		(43)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I strongly disagree with the reviewer below who recommended buying the individual CDs instead. This set is perfect for both the novice listener and the serious Sinatraphile. For someone who doesn't own any Sinatra, this set is a perfect overview of his best period, and includes all of his classic hits such as "I've Got You Under My Skin", "Witchcraft", etc. But for the serious Sinatra collector (which I am), this set is indispensable, because it includes tracks that are ONLY available on this compilation. I own all of the individual Capitol albums (even "Close to You" and "Tone Poems in Color", which are sadly no longer available), and I wouldn't trade this collection for any of them! In addition to numerous singles that weren't on the studio albums (but are available on the "Singles" collection, which I also own), it includes a version of "Memories of You" that was recorded during the "Songs for Swinging Lovers" sessions, but not included on the album. This version is FAR superior to the one on the later "Point of No Return" album- it's a Riddle arrangement vs. Alex Stordahl, after all! It also has a smoking Billy May arrangement of "Here Goes" that has never before been released. But the ultimate treat for Sinatra fans is the never-before-heard test tape of "One For My Baby", the justly famous tune that appeared on "Only the Lonely". Frank walked into the studio the day before the session (undoubtedly after staying out all night) and ran through the song with pianist Bill Miller, and thank God someone recorded and saved it! This is the ultimate version of a saloon song classic that will immediately give you chills when you hear it. Sinatra's voice has never been more raw and exposed, and the result is nothing short of a miracle. It is a perfect illustration of why we still listen to Sinatra, and will for generations to come.

I'll always be partial to this Capitol Years 3-CD box set which introduced me to Sinatra's greatness ten years ago. It was my first CD purchase---actually I bought the three cassettes first, and when the tapes were stolen from my car, my wife bought me the CD version for Christmas '92. Which prompted me to sit right down and write The Man a letter, telling him how I'd discovered his greatness "a little late in life." He replied immediately. (More about that in a moment.)

In reference to the "Songs for Swingin' Lovers" tracks (four) included here, I had closed my letter to him with these words:

"On a personal note: my absolute favorite song of yours, for reasons I can't really explain, is 'I Thought About You.' Maybe it's the deceptively simple, elegant tune by that genius who began life as Chester Babcock (Van Heusen). Or the brilliant lyric by the century's greatest lyricist (Mercer). Or the gem of an arrangement by my favorite American arranger (Riddle) with all those train sounds, that have you swinging down the track. Oh hell, let's face it---it's the singer! The song wouldn't be what it is without you. Merry Christmas 1992!"

Within two weeks I received a reply, on gold-embossed 'FS' stationery, with a beautiful, bright blue, fountain pen signature:

January 1993

Dear Mark,

Thank you very much for your letter of December 17. I am flattered by your kind words and greatly appreciate your interest in my music . . . It was so nice of you to take the time to write!

Here's wishing you and your family a very healthy and happy New Year! Keep listening!

All the best,
(signed)
Frank Sinatra

Understandably, I treated the advice to "Keep listening!" as a personal injunction, acquiring 36 of his best CDs, including---most recently, thanks to an Amazon.com seller---the obscure "Great Songs from Great Britain" (the only studio-recorded album Sinatra ever produced outside Hollywood/L.A).

Contrary to an opinion I once shared with many reviewers here, I'm convinced the 2-CD Reprise collection titled "The Very Best of Frank Sinatra" is superior, for many reasons. (Please see my review for that one.) I was convinced that "The Capitol Years" was the best place to start a Sinatra collection. But ten years, and 36 CDs later, I admit to a change of heart.

Still, this 3-CD collection has some unique virtues that have not been commented on: 'Only available here' for example, is the previously commercially unreleased Cahn/Van Heusen masterpiece "I Couldn't Care Less" featuring what this reviewer considers Nelson Riddle's single most beautiful ballad arrangement. Sinatra works his subtle magic with one of Sammy Cahn's very best lyrics ("Balmy breezes are blowing, the stars in the night are glowing, but I couldn't care less") while orchestra conjures up sounds of a summer night, with Riddle's strings ratcheting up through almost two octaves of semi-tones in the first eight bars of the instrumental bridge (release). Simply heavenly! And to think Sinatra and the musicians did this in one take.

By comparison the highly-touted version of "I've Got You Under My Skin" included here (I know it's sacrilege to say this, but it's not as good as the one on the 2-CD Reprise collection!) this version took 22 takes before the singer was pleased! The generally-factual liner notes still include a fair number of errors---including a really glaring one I pointed out to Sinatra in my letter: The very first cut on Disc One by one of his favorite song-writers ("I've Got the World on a String") fails to correctly identify the composer, Harold Arlen.

I single out "I Couldn't Care Less" because no other reviewer at Amazon.com (or even those who wrote the liner notes) commented on its special virtues. This 'one-take wonder' was briefly available, 30 years ago on a premium, mail-order-only album (Longines, 1973) but again, this is the only place you'll ever hear it.
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Two cuts earlier is the "unreleased alternate take" of the Arlen/Mercer classic "One for My Baby" with Sinatra alone in the studio, doing a rehearsal with pianist Bill Miller. Other reviewers here (and those who wrote the liner notes) were delighted apparently with this version, despite the singer's flubbing of the lyrics at the end of the bridge/release. I recommend you get the full, "Only the Lonely" CD and you'll know at once why Sinatra approved the take that he did---with Nelson Riddle's sublime strings rising like smoke behind singer and pianist for the final stanza of the chorus. Utter 'Perfection.'

So . . .if a new generation of fans treat his advice to "Keep Listening!" as seriously as I did, they'll agree that his best was 'yet to come' ---in the early Reprise years----and is preserved (at a more reasonable cost), in the double-CD "The Very Best of Frank Sinatra."

There is no other box set you can buy, by anyone, that will have this much quality music on it. But the best reason to own it is to hear to the many unreleased tracks that are all over this set. Frank's outtakes are better than most people's released takes! You get the first take of the classic "One For My Baby"; a beautiful "Memories of You", "Here Goes", etc. This is no mere compilation, this is the definitive Sinatra boxed set. Since he didn't do any dreck while with Capitol, each disk is chock full of nothing but high quality songs and brilliant vocals. The liner notes won a grammy, and deservedly so. My only complaint is that some of the songs selected from various albums are questionable, and many others are missing. Where's "Around The World", "There's No You", and "Brazil"? One of those classics could easily have been substituted for "French Foreign Legion", for example. A four disk set would have been better, to give people a better idea of what each album was about, rather than just the hits and a couple lesser known ones per album. Of course, getting all the albums AND this set is recommended, because a boxed set can't do justice to the brilliance conceptual themes of many of his Capitol albums. And since this set has some astounding songs you can't get elsewhere, it's essential. Definitely my favorite boxed set; incomparable to most others except the similarly fantastic four-disk Reprise Collection, if you don't include disk four.

Although the casual fan may be disappointed to find Sinatra's familiar hits from the 1960s missing from this marvelous set, this actually represents Sinatra at his very best. Although Frank had become a huge popular success in the 1940s, very little of his work from that period remains especially listenable. Although he possessed a marvelous tenor voice, the arrangements and the songs themselves frequently left more than a little to be desired. In the 1950s, however, a number of factors coalesced to bring about a string of the finest popular vocal albums in American history. First, record technology developed to where the LP became the new standard for musical distribution. This allowed the grouping of a number of songs on a single disc, and Sinatra responded with a succession of superb songs grouped loosely around a theme. Second, Sinatra signed with Capitol records where he worked with a number of superb producers, especially Nelson Riddle. Bringing Sinatra's voice fully to the front of the production, the arrangements kept the orchestra completely in the background, supporting and enhancing Sinatra's singing in spectacular fashion. Third, Sinatra finally overcame some serious vocal problems that perhaps could have threatened his singing career. After healing, he lost a bit off the top of his range, but his voice became much darker and more expressive, more of a tenor with baritone overtones instead of a pure tenor. The result was one of the great periods, if not the greatest, that any popular singer has ever known.

Anyone interested in popular music ought to own some portion of these great Capitol recordings. One way--and the best way--is simply to buy every one of the Capitol albums that Sinatra did. They are all superb, but getting them all can become a tad expensive. The other way would be to get this utterly superb excellent anthology of Sinatra's Capitol recordings. It isn't perfect. Some songs are inexplicably missing. For instance, one of my favorite Sinatra songs, his extraordinary version of Cole Porter's "Just One of Those Things" (with one of the best arrangements of the period), somehow didn't make it into this collection. But as a healthy sampling of the period, this set is really hard to beat: enough selections to give you a truly representative overview of Sinatra's greatest period, but not so much as to overwhelm someone who is only wanting to get just one Sinatra album.

The album is also fascinating for being able to track the development in studio technology in the 1950s. By the end of the fifties, sonically recording came up to a level that isn't appreciably behind where it stands today. Any good recording from 1958 sounds pretty much as good as any recording from 2003. But the same wasn't true of 1952, and the earliest songs in this collection aren't quite as sharp and vivid as the later cuts. Also, on some of Sinatra's high notes, some of the treble gets cut out on the earlier recordings. I wasn't alive at the time, but having heard my grandfather's records from the thirties and forties and my father's from the fifties reveals that it had to be an exhilarating period for the lover of recorded music. Sinatra clearly was one of the first to benefit from these dramatic improvements in technology.

In short, this is glorious music produced by the finest vocal stylist the United States has ever produced. I would especially recommend it to anyone who finds Sinatra's Rat Pack and post-Rat Pack years to be somewhat off-putting. By the end of the sixties his voice started losing more and more of its range and timbre, but here we have Sinatra at the top of his vocal prowess working with producers and arrangers perfectly attune to his skills.

When I bought this three-disc collection in 1991, I was not a Frank Sinatra fan. I much preferred Bing Crosby in style and substance and just tossed off Sinatra contemptuously. Boy, was I wrong and this collection single-handedly turned me into a Sinatraphile. Now I have over 100 of his CD's. If you don't know him or haven't listened to him seriously, you must buy this record, it will change your life.

Prior to buying this CD, my only listening experience with Frank were a half dozen 45's of "New York, New York," "Strangers in the Night" and a few of his other hits from later years. This CD introduced me into the real Sinatra, not the Top 40 Frank.

No one has ever phrased a lyric like his man. No one. You feel his pain, his pathos, his happiness, his despair and his loneliness. It is a completely joyous experience to listen to this man sing.

Others had greater range or greater voices. None had the inimitable gift that Frank Sinatra possessed and that was allowing you to understand a lyric and feel it deep down in your soul. There is only one Sinatra and this collection epitomizes his glory years.

As an owner of probably a dozen Sinatra CDs, including this collection, let me offer a different perspective than the others. If you are new to Sinatra or introducing someone to it, I'd recommend getting the Best of the Capitol Years (the 1 CD best of). If you like that one, then start picking up the individual CDs from his Capitol Years-- Songs for Swingin' Lovers, In the Wee Small Hours, Nice-n-Easy, etc. The individual collections are thematic and the music is more enjoyable heard as part of the whole (as originally intended).

Picture a dapper fellow, a real charmer, smirking amusement, a twinkle in his eye... But, wait. No... now he's down on his luck, collar open, tie askew, a lonely figure at closing time with only the bartender, drinks, and a curl of cigarette smoke for company. Do you see it? You BET you do! Sinatra tells the stories created by the finest lyricists in this collection -- Porter, Gershwin, Van Heusen, Hart -- with supreme "cool" and as effortlessly as having a simple conversation. Lyricists loved him, and Sinatra always made it plain that it was a mutual admiration society. Capitol knew what they had, during this era, and must have preserved the masters in a gold lined vault! Listening today, it seems incredible that these tracks were recorded in the 1950s. Each note of the Riddle and Stordahl orchestras, no matter how delicate, rings crystal clear. The arrangements are as much a star as The Chairman, himself, and what they both lend to a Cole Porter song will leave you with goosebumps. The 68-page booklet and the packaging are a REAL class act. There isn't a single day that I don't mix some part of this collection with whatever else is spinning on my player, and these tracks are the ones that make me stop and LISTEN. I'd sing along, but I'm not worthy. *lol*

I'm a "new" fan of Frank, and not terribly interested in owning his entire discography. So I set out searching for a well crafted collection. The Capitol Years received high marks from many Sinatra devotees. I've listened to quite a few selections so far and am very pleased with this set. It's positively brimming with Sinatra classics, the audio quality is superb, and the included booklet of liner notes and essays is an enjoyable and informative read. I'd recommend this to anyone who's looking for a comprehensive compendium of Frank's work!

Since I don't want to sound like a broken record (how's that for a phrase made obsolescent by the advent of compact disks?) and repeat the superlatives stated by others, I'll keep this brief. This is by far my favorite CD I own. This music is so sensational, just too marvelous for words. If you are not a fan or all you are familiar with is either the latter-year material when his voice started to go or the early years before he developed his trademark style and sound, do yourself a favor and pick up this collection. His voice was in peak form, the arrangements are stellar and the selection is unsurpassable. The Voice recorded more than 1,500 songs, many of them multiple times, so this seventy-five song set is anything but comprehensive. However, it is an excellent choice if you don't want to spend hundreds of dollars to purchase the individual studio recordings. His recordings of standards here are not only the best versions he himself recorded, they are the best versions recorded by anyone. The sound quality is also superb, which is not surprising given the fact that, by the time of these recordings, Sinatra had already been using nothing but the best studio equipment for years. Your life is not complete without Frank Sinatra.

Few vocalists pack the drama, emotion, and swagger of Frank Sinatra and "The Capitol Collection" compiles Frankie at his best during the era many consider his artistic peak. I'm not going to enter that argument, but listening to this massive 3 CD collection you're going to hear the full range of Frankie's creativity over an astonishingly short span of 9 years (1953 to 1962). And lets be honest, you couldn't possibly pack EVERYTHING her recorded on Capitol into a box set...it would be enormous! This compilation covers the gravy of his recordings for Capitol and shows his career trajectory and growth as an artist during that decade. Anything and everything is pretty much here, so many tracks from the Great American Songbook, Tin Pan Alley, and along the way truly unforgettable tracks indelibly stamped as Sinatra's own and all delivered in the inimitable Sinatra style. Reading over the track listing is a trip down memory lane and so many of these tracks were signature songs Sinatra defined and owned. Of course there's the age-old debate about whether his Capitol or Reprise years were his best; I say who cares! Pop these CDs in and you'll see Frankie was perhaps THE consummate American vocalist of the 20th Century. "The Capitol Years" is a great starting point for someone delving into Frankie's career or for the fan who doesn't want to spring for buying everything Frankie did in that most prolific decade.