Customer Reviews

Sinatra - A Man Alone: The Words and Music of McKuen

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This is one of my favorite Sinatra records. The Only time Frank does an entire album of one composer songs and he pick Rod McKuen. To quote Mckuen from his "Frank Sinatra An Appreciation" "Running Jumping Standing Still, Frank Sinatra is the tallest man I know. The story goes, Rod ask Frank to do one of his songs. Frank took a look at the stuff and said "Rod I'll cut an entire album of your stuff". A Man Alone was made during March of 1969 and we find Frank in great voice, singing about being alone with a honesty that only Frank can express I believe this may be as close to the real Frank as we'll find again for the rest of his recording career. This is one of the last times that Frank goes out a limb and does something different and his hits a home run

This album was not a great commercial success but the songs, arranging and the overall theme are superb.

If you are down and alone and think life has done u in, you MUST have this one.

For a long time, I admit, I was a little afraid of this album; its bad reviews and general lack of prestige do not quite suggest greatness. But here's a case just like ''Moonlight Sinatra,'' ''All Alone,'' ''She Shot Me Down,''and a number of other Sinatra records - overlooked brilliance.This is a flawed album, certainly, but I'm sure that somewhere there's an akward brush stroke on ''The Mona Lisa.'' Since I first heard the title track I've listened to it over and over and over again. There was an article by music critic,ect. Gene Lees, written around this time for Sinatra's album ''Cycles''- and in it was the perfect definition for ''A Man Alone.'' He wrote that this remarkable performer sounded like he was becoming a remarkable man. Where ''Only the Lonely'' and ''All Alone'' ached with a suicidal desperateness, this album is sadly wistful. The pain is still there, but with it is wisdom, and the near-tears depression of the earlier albums has evolved into a sad smile. It's obvious that Sinatra, along with Billie Holliday, was THE autobiographical singer; for me, that's the source of his brilliance. Where Sinatra ends and acting begins is impossible to measure. Ingrid Bergman said flatly of her luminous role in ''Casablanca,'' ''There was nothing in my eyes.'' But this is without a doubt - Sinatra. He supposedly told the composer Rod McKuen,''Man, you really got inside me.'' Listening to ''Love's Been Good to Me,'' and ''A Man Alone'' is more than listening to a singer sing a song - it's listening to Sinatra sing Sinatra. Frank Sinatra the man does not appeal to all tastes. But if you take the time to dig through all the trash and filth it's very likely you'll change your mind. The Sinatra in ''A Man Alone'' does justice to Lees' comment. He sounds like a remarkable man, all right. (Incidentally, I am fourteen years old and have read over two hundred books on Sinatra, watched thirty of the movies, and heard every record I could lay my hands on. I've been at it since I was eleven. You don't have to have been a bobby-soxer at the Paramount to appreciate Sinatra. He was the only entertainer who transcends all boundaries.)

I have had this album since 1970, and I think it needs replacing.This is perhaps the finest Sinatra album I have listened to. The spoken word is a true gem, if you listen to it for the first time, do so in a dimly lit room with a bottle of your favorite wine, it will blow your mind. Fantastic

Working my way through the cottage record collection I happened upon this Sinatra gem. Having only known Frank's standards, this album floored me with its melancholy and loser appeal. It's definitely a man's album and now is the sole CD representing Sinatra in my collection. I don't need another.

With lots of garbage being re-issued everyday, it's a pity and a shame we cannot find this beautiful bunch of songs in CD. Frank reached a level of interpretation, so intimate, so deep and emotional, rarely surpassed by any singer of the genre. It remains as a masterpiece, maybe depressive sometimes, but full of hope.

I'm not sure why this Album is often overlooked when Sinatra's Reprise period is discussed. Frank's interpretation of Rod McKuen's poetry is "Haunting" if I can use that word. Not only was Frank in excellent voice for this album, but his poetry readings were amazing. Given his acting ability he delivers palpable sentiment and captures the essence of Rod McKuens theme of being alone and being lonely; something Sinatra conveys like no other. This is very much a "Mood piece" which deftly alternates song and poetry. Don Costa's orchestra provides a delicate balance of soaring strings and bluesy saxophones. Frank says in the liner notes that McKuens work "got inside me". It definitely gets inside me every time I listen to it.

This unforgettable album by Frank Sinatra of Rod McKuen's words and music is among his best work. Haunting, evocative, lonely, aching, it resonates in the heart and stays in the mind. Beautifully arranged and produced, its shows how Sinatra changed with the times and could sing virtually anything with greatness. He certainly gave Rod the highest compliment with this album--he obviously took McKuen's work with the greatest seriousness and sense of responsibility for interpreting it with sensitivity and depth. A great album many don't even know exists.

This just about completes my quest of collecting everything recorded by the Master Storyteller. So why did I put this one off for so long? Well for starters, as far as readers of genuine poetry are concerned, McKuen gets the same reviews as Kenny G does among musicians. And even as a lyricist (Ira Gershwin, incidentally, insisted that any resemblances between poetry and song lyrics are purely coincidental), McKuen is light-years behind Ira and Hammerstein much less Porter, Hart and Mercer. The lyrics of the songs on "A Man Alone" are basically "declamations" about an event or obvious feeling (being single, feeling lonely, feeling unrooted), repeated rather than developed, and lacking the possibilities for the dramatic, even Hamlet-like enactments, that Sinatra brings to the material of the Capitol albums with Nelson Riddle and Gordon Jenkins. Set aside "A Man Alone" in favor of the scarce Sinatra-Jenkins collaboration "All Alone" and discover some of the most soulful, stirring interpretations of songs from the unfairly maligned sub-genre of non-ironic, unashamedly sentimental material since Crosby's recordings of the early 1930s.

Costa has a Jenkins-like propensity for laying the sentiment on thick, which is unfortunate if the material hasn't "earned" it, melodically or dramatically. McKuen's verses are miniaturist, mono-thematic and mono-dimensional musings, occasionally mixed with a thin veneer of toughness and humor (though neither Sinatra nor the orchestrations seem the least interested in going there). One wonders if even McKuen had all this gravitas in mind after he'd submitted his vernacular lyrics and melodic phrases prior to the actual recording. Sung by a Johnny Cash or Merle Haggard with scaled-down accompaniment, this would be a thoroughly pleasant country-pop session. Sung by Sinatra accompanied by Costa's heavy strings, it's only partially pleasant and a little unsettling.

Certainly Sinatra by this time "knew the score": even those who would deny him the top spot among all American male vocalists, had better take a deep breath and pray before questioning his taste. But by the late 1960s the music culture was heading into lean times, and who can blame the Chairman for wanting to retain his position even as Elvis was relinquishing his to Dylan, the Beatles, Stones, 5th Dimension, Glen Campbell and Hee Haw?

If there's a consolation or two, despite the lengthy song list and the spoken inter-track commentary by Sinatra, the album clocks in at an appropriately short-attention-span 30 minutes. The other good thing about the session is that it's not "Watertown," which tellingly was produced the same year. As I said, "A Man Alone" is a pleasant album--not an unbearably dull and insipid one. "All Alone," on the other hand, is superior Sinatra and vintage Americana.

As a Sinatra student turned Sinatra defender if not evangelist, I'm compelled to caution against even considering this one without first having the desert island essentials from the "suicide song" collection of music's greatest self-described saloon singer: "Only the Lonely," "In the Wee Small Hours," "No One Cares," "Where Are You?," and "September of My Years." And if you're a sophisticate, unlikely to weep a tear or two while listening to "All Alone," look for the artfully ironic, equally rare (and sublime) "Close to You" (beware of impostors with the same title). All of the foregoing are not only worthy of Sinatra's talents but of the most serious listener's time.

This album finds Frank in excellent voice, rich velvety and feeling every word.

The three truly great songs? "A man alone", "The single man" and "I've been to town". Frank sings them like he's lived every word, When he made this album his father had just died, he was seperated from Mia and he was troubled and lonely. If you like Frank's late fifties "wrist-slashers" get this album!