Customer Reviews

Man I Love With the Nelson Riddle Orchestra Conducted By Frank Sinatra

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
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Peggy Lee's "The Man I Love" is simply one of the most beautiful albums I've ever had the pleasure to hear. Peggy's vocals are so right, so loving and oh, so sexy. Nelson Riddle's arrangements are classic, modern and jazzy. Frank's dream album of tunes, that he wanted Peggy to record, stand the test of time. Recorded in 1957, it sounds a real and as fresh as if it were recorded today. This is a highly recommended set, DRG has done an outstanding job in restoration and production of the album for CD release. This has to be one of my favorite albums by any artist out there.

"The Folks Who Live On The Hill" is one of the most heartfelt performances I've ever heard, and Ms. Lee provides an album full of other excellent renditions here, too, all backed with masterful Nelson Riddle arrangements conducted by Frank Sinatra. If you're in the mood for beautiful ballads, you can't go wrong with this great album.

Wonderful album BUT Amazon also offers a spectacular EMI import that's a 2-for-1 CD featuring this album AND the Quincey Jones arranged/conducted "If You Go." High quality transfers and twice as much music. "The Man I Love/If You Go" two-fer is not, unlike this release, "half empty." Better still, it doesn't tack on extra songs the way this 2009 DRG version does. You'd think two extra songs is a swell bonus but it ruins the original layout of the album. The original album ends very well with "The Folks Who Live on the Hill." One gripe I have with tacking on bonus and "previously unreleased" tracks is that Sinatra and company, like The Beatles, had clear ideas about how to begin and end an album; even how to end Side One and begin Side Two. For example, Sinatra's "Only the Lonely" ends with "One for My Baby." Perfect. The reissue adds two "previously unreleased" tracks that don't end the album as well and, on hearing them, you understand why they didn't make the cut. Getting back to Lee's album, "Uninvited Dream" and "It Keeps You Young" were recorded as singles, not for this album. Great as they are, "The Man I Love" is wrapped up pretty well by "The Folks Who Live on the Hill." It's supposed to be that way. Trust me; in 1957 Lee, Sinatra and Riddle had a good idea of how to put together an album. If you want good value and love this music (the two-fer is four dollars cheaper, by the way)skip this version and get the EMI release: Man I Love/If You Go

1957's THE MAN I LOVE found Peggy Lee in the recording studio with not only some beautiful arrangements from Nelson Riddle, but old blue eyes himself, Frank Sinatra, conducting the orchestra.

Certainly it's one of Peggy Lee's most romantic albums, with an overreaching theme of love found and the joys to be discovered in a new partner. Wisely, Nelson Riddle didn't try to add any kind of extra embellishments in his arrangements. All he needed was Peggy's voice and the recipe was set.

Beautiful and lush in the true "Capitol jazz" style of the period, Peggy is at her best with "That's All", "Something Wonderful", "Happiness is a Thing Called Joe", and of course "The Man I Love".

Classic Peggy Lee; and a must-own for her fans.