Customer Reviews

Songs for Swingin Lovers

5 star:		(86)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

These recordings are now nearly fifty years old, but they contain an excitement that doesn't diminish with time. Following quickly on the heels of his success with IN THE WEE SMALL HOURS, a 40-year-old Frank Sinatra teamed up once again with arranger/conducter Nelson Riddle and created what is arguably his best album of a stellar career. Sinatra is one of those artists that each generation rediscovers for itself. As an aging Baby Boomer, I hope that audiences will continue to listen to the Beatles a hundred years from now; but I KNOW they will be listening to Sinatra--class simply never goes out of style! If you own only one Sinatra album, this is it. ESSENTIAL

This is one of the greatest albums ever made. It also sounds like snot. My Shortwave radio sounds better than this remastering job! I don't know if they were asleep at the mastering studios, or what, but it really is awful. Everything sounds like it's under a fog - Frank may as well have a gag in, it's so muffled. Besides that, there's too much bass. I kept thinking I had the treble on my reciever down or something.

Case and point : BUY THIS ALBUM, BUT BUY THE OLDER COPY. Easy way to spot it : the newer, often-bad remasters have "Voice Of the Century" printed on the clear side of the jewel case. The first issues from back in the late 80's do not. The Songs For Young Lovers/Swing Easy reissue suffers from the same problem. Sheesh, what a mess.

The consensus (which happens to be true) is that Sinatra's best period was the middle one, the years he recorded for Capitol Records, 1953-61. His best Capitol material was the recordings he made with Nelson Riddle as arranger. Finally, Songs for Swingin' Lovers, from 1956, is with good reason considered to be the finest Sinatra/Riddle Capitol album, at least of a swinging, non-ballad sort. Personally, A Swingin' Affair, recorded later the same year but released in 1957, comes so close that it depends on which I've listened to most recently. Certainly, if you want to convince someone that, despite his boorish personality and many musical compromises, Sinatra DID sometimes record worthwhile music, you'd do well to play them Songs for Swingin' Lovers. This is also the album that fans most often throw on the stereo when they don't want to pick nits about production, arrangements, vocals, or song selection. Everything came together perfectly---Sinatra was at his vocal peak, in simpatico settings, interpreting some of the best songs of Tin Pan Alley, and brimful of confidence and spotaneity. There's just the right mixture of tenderness and swagger; listen to the rendition of "I've Got you Under My Skin", which counts as one of the four or five best Sinatra performances on record. "You're Getting To Be A Habit With Me," "Too Marvelous For Words," "I Thought About You", "Swingin' Down the Lane," "Anything Goes," "How About You?"---so many of the songs here are top-drawer, both as songs and performances, that it's mind-boggling. And there are a lot of them too---15 songs in all, uncommonly generous for the early LP era. Too generous for Capitol, which released mutilated versions of this and other Sinatra albums (Swingin' Affair also initially sported 15 tracks) amputating several songs from American pressings for decades. The true, original versions of these masterpieces were only available as imports form British EMI until the CD editions came out in 1987. Now I read from some of these Amazon reviews that these albums have suffered a further indignity by being reissued in "remastered" editions that sound terrible. I thank God that I finally bought a CD copy of SFSL a year or two BEFORE the botched remaster was dumped on the market. It's a sad and frustrating development, but much as I'd like to blame Capitol, I think we have Sinatra's daughter Tina to thank for this. She has control of the estate, the business, and most importantly, the music. I'm sure that when the decision was made to dun the public with a remaster of Frank's albums, Tina left no corner uncut. What a shame.

So get the OLDER CD (with the black left border), or get a used British EMI vinyl pressing, or get a beat-up fifties copy, or get a tape of this from a friend. Accept no substitutes, for in it's original, unabbreviated, un-20-bit-botched configuration, Songs For Swingin' Lovers is nonpareil.

This was my introduction to Sinatra, thanks to the rave reviews it received from Downbeat critics and readers upon its release in the fifties. It still holds up as Sinatra's best-balanced, most polished swing album, the standard by which his later versions of the same songs can be compared. This is not to say that the interpretations he gives here are the definitive ones: some listeners may prefer later, looser versions of "I've Got You Under My Skin" or "Pennies from Heaven." But without this album it's pointless to judge the later versions--by Sinatra or anyone else. With this album Sinatra, more than any other male vocalist, showed what distinguishes a jazz singer from a pop crooner.

You'll see other postings here that discuss the details of what Capitol's engineer did on this 1998 release to reduce hiss, etc. Believe it. Compared to the 1991 version of the disc or the better Mobile Fidelity gold disc (1990) this version is awful. It's like a bucket of mud was dumped over his vocals. There are a bunch of threads on this topic on the forums of Steve Hoffman, one of the best sound engineers in the business. But the bottom line is most people who care about this music would like to see Capitol go back to the original master tapes and treat Frank right. The mastering issues apply to a lot of the 1998 Sinatra discs labeled "Entertainer of the Century" on the side.

Friends and fellow Sinatra fans. I had the great pleasure of knowing Voyle Gilmore (deceased), the brilliant producer of this and many other landmark Capitol Sinatra albums. I also had the pleasure of meeting Nelson Riddle (deceased) briefly. I managed Voyle's son John Gilmore who coincidently won the Frank Sinatra awards (best male vocalist) at UCLA when they were given in the 1970's and a fine vocalist he remains today. (He recently put out a tasty tribute album "To my Father and Frank)) I myself sang pop for 20 years. From my vantage point this was Frank's best album. Here's why! It combined the mature crooner and life worn poet (We'll be together again, best version and the most tender goodbye song ever)with the essence of swing(Swingin down the lane)and the emerging swagger of Frank's later work (Anything goes,and I've got you under my Skin, a vocal lesson if you care to try it!) all at a time in Frank's life when he had to prove himself all over again and was somewhat held in check by Nelson Riddle and his fine arrangements and band. The production values have a "live" feel and excellent clarity and balance, thanks to Voyle. It shows how taste and great "ears" are more important than today's digital tricks. The only qibble I have is that Voyle told me that the order of the original vynil was intended by the team of Voyle, Frank and Nelson for a certain concert effect and the remaster adds songs and is out of order. Nevertheless this album was a smash and the first album played in its entirety on pop radio in Los Angeles in 1955 and rejuvenated Frank's musical career. This is Frank Sinatra's fingerprint record. No other record captures his his multifacted talent like "Songs for Swingin Lovers".

I'm sorry, but isn't this just about the most happiest, "swingin'-est" album ever?

Again, I'm sorry, but isn't Nelson Riddle at his best? And Frank is certainly at his best. Other than one song, all the songs were recorded just a scant month after Sinatra turned . . .dare I say it? 40! God, may I be 40 again!? Okay, I just turned 50.

I'm writing this because, after reading almost all of the posts regarding this album, I wanted to weigh in with my opinion. Look, BUY the album! This is NOT the Sinatra of "My Way". And if you can't get past the idea that it is Sinatra, which would be your loss then, you must listen to the Nelson Riddle arrangements. This is not "swing", you can definitely "hear" the change occurring in "big orchestras", and you'll see it mirrored in changes on Broadway at that time, too. (Yeah, check out the PBS Broadway series.)

There is not a bad song on this sucker! I've been listening to it several times today, just to review my feelings about it.

Look, the worst is . . .you gals buy it . . .you sing along . . .and, like me, you DANCE to it while you clean up the kitchen! I'm not kidding! I often feel like I'm a Rockette or a Minsky girl while it's on! Strut, boom, strut, boom, strut, boom . . .I'm tellin' ya, my house is cleaner with Frank! It has great rhythm, and great lyrics in the songs.

And while every song is ab fab, you can't not appreciate "I've Got You Under My Skin." Really, listen to Frank, and then listen to it again, paying attention to Nelson Riddle's arrangements! Jeez! What a combination!


This is one of my 5 albums on a deserted island: also "In The Wee Small Hours (Frank)," "Judy Garland Live At Carnegie Hall," "Patsy Cline's Greatest Hits," and "Killin' Time (Clint Black)". Okay, go figure . . .

Trust me, you will not go wrong with this album, and actually, you'd be surprised who you know that also likes it, and also who will be impressed when you play it!

I'm a big fan on Sinatra and other swing music. This album has a great collection of his favorites, no doubt about that.

My problem with this album is that it sounds REALLY bad. Distortion of all sounds throughout the album is the norm. There's an air of stuffiness throughout the album. Imagine taking a digital master and encoding it down to 11 khz stereo. Or think of a 24k MPG recording - it's no better.

As another reviewer commented - don't buy this album. Capitol in no way should be compensated for releasing such a poor quality disc and actually get a cent for it.

How could this record company ruin the sound of one of the greatest recordings of the 20th century in the digital remastering! You do not have to be a sound engineer to hear the fluctuating treble in the horns and Sinatra's voice. It's like some jerk keeps turning the treble up then the bass up and vice versa sporadicaly throughout the recording. Argh! What a mess! Capitol records should fix this immediatly...it's the least they could do for the greatest pop singer who ever lived. Because this is one of Sinatra's best, I still must give it five stars even though Capitol does not really deserve Sinatra.

If we are talking about essential Frank Sinatra albums for a music collection, the first one would have to be 1954's "In the Wee Small Hours," a superb collection of ballads that helped establish the former bobbysoxer heartthrob as the premier saloon singer of his generation. But the second album on that list would be 1955's "Songs for Swingin' Lovers," in which Sinatra and arranger Nelson Riddle go in the opposite direction, providing a stellar collection of pop standards reinterpreted for the crooner who was becoming a damn fine singer. Several of the songs, such as "Pennies From Heaven" and "I've Got You Under My Skin," actually predated the start of Sinatra's career, but in the case of the latter Sinatra provided what is arguably the definitive version of the Cole Potter classic and the song that in retrospect defined Frank Sinatra as the premier vocalist of the 20th century (sorry for the understatement). The zesty tone for the album is established with the opening track, "You Make Me Feel So Young," while other great tracks if you had to be picky would be "You Brought a New Kind of Love to Me" and "Too Marvelous for Words." All of these songs give you the undeniable sense that Sinatra is just having a great time singing each and every one of them. Riddle's arrangements, done with a core rhythm section and a full orchestra, are the key to unlocking the door to musical greatness and are as fine as anything he ever did for Sinatra or anyone else. Part of the problem is that nobody really remembers what most of these songs sounded like before Riddle and Sinatra reworked them into the songs we know today. I may well change my mind tomorrow, but today I would make the case that "I've Got You Under My Skin" is the greatest Frank Sinatra song.