Frank Sinatra “Nice ‘n’ Easy”

On the cover is a black and white photo of Frank Sinatra looking exactly like Frank Sinatra—while at the same time looking exactly like your average, young to middle-aged, middle to upper middleclass, white, clean-cut, suburban American man, reclining in an easy chair, button-up sweater, open collar, hands behind his head, comfortable smile. It occurs to me that if you didn’t know that hands behind the head pose (using the hands, fingers clasped, as a headrest) (some cultures might not know it?) —that it would be very weird indeed, as if you were holding your brains in your skull, manually. It doesn’t even say “Frank Sinatra” on the cover! You’ve got to know that face. The only words (besides the Capitol logo in the corner) is the title—in small-case, jaunty, orange and red font with an asterisk filling in for the dotted “i” dot— “nice ‘n’ easy” —a font and title that says: “this is a Doris Day romantic comedy” as clearly as if it said those words. And it very well may be, actually—wait, I have to look that up. No. No movie by that name. But it’s the look (font), for the Doris Day movies of that era. It’s also a Clairol product, same font—it’s almost by law that the phrase must be rendered in jaunty, breezy, all small-case. Someone put out an “easy listening” collection with that title. But as far as albums go, this is in some ways (if this is even possible) the most Sinatra Sinatra record—if that makes sense. Slightly over the hill, 100% confident, on the edge of doing this in his sleep. The photo on the back cover, however, shows him being busy, now at work—white shirt and loosened tie, jacket removed, standing among sheet music, sheet music in one hand—I assume he’s in the studio with the Nelson Riddle orchestra, but the background is blackened, like there are no walls—only eternity.

This record came out in 1960—the year I was born—and it may well have played me to sleep in my crib—and may be as close to defining the musical side of my brain as anything—though, I’m not entirely sure my parents had this one. But likely. Certainly, the songs, here and there, are my growing up soundtrack—including the title track, “I’ve Got a Crush on You,” “You Go to My Head,” “Fools Rush In,” “She’s Funny That Way,” and “Embraceable You”—all songs I sing in my dreams. These (as well as six others) must be among the most mellow versions of these songs that Sinatra ever recorded—slow, quiet, slightly melancholy, no fireworks, but deeply moving. Three paragraphs of uncredited liner notes sound like the writeup on one of those Jackie Gleason mood music records—and I suppose this is not so different, but with vocals—and you might put this on during a quiet dinner with cocktails—introduction to the romantic mood—that is, if you aren’t too worried about Sinatra being a disruptive presence—even at his most mellow, he kind of takes over the room. I’m not bothering to look up Sinatra’s discography to see where this fits in (because his discography takes up a half day of bandwidth) but it came just after “No One Cares” (one of my favorite barstool classics) at the end of the Fifties. Turning point? Not really—but certainly the date was—no other calendar shift seemed so epic. But it’s Sinatra’s world—and it seemed like every other record had an exclamation point in the title, interspaced with records featuring sad clown pics with tears and cocktails. Kind of weird, no exclamation point here (just that asterisk), but I heard a rumor that the zippy title track replaced “The Nearness of You” (“at the last minute”)—a song which would have fit the mood better, in my opinion. And if you think about it, Sinatra probably has released countless sets of a dozen songs that would be more aptly titled “Nice ‘n’ Easy” than this one. And this one might have been better titled “That Old Feeling” (2^nd song on the record). Oh, well, another wrinkle of the ol’ Sinatra discography—which is always fun to pore over if you’ve got half a day to kill.

Frank Sinatra “The Voice” EP

How many records start out with the words: “A cigarette…” Well, probably far too many—or maybe just this one. I have (and may have written about) the LP version of this record (both from 1955)—which probably has twelve songs, while this has four. The funny thing is, they have the exact same photo—a portrait of young Frank Sinatra, smiling, with a pool-table-green background—it’s just that this one is a “closeup” of his face—on cardboard scaled down to seven inches. The four songs here are: “These Foolish Things (Remind Me of You),” “Laura,” “She’s Funny That Way,” and “Fools Rush In.” Those are four of the best. These are older recordings… I’m not sure how many times Sinatra recorded each of these songs, but this quiet, ballad style of his older recordings—with minimal orchestra—well, it’s there, but voice in the foreground—I really like. If this was the only Sinatra record I owned—well, that’d be very sad—but I’d really have the essence of this era Sinatra. These are four seriously romantic, melancholy, mellow, sad songs. Is there anything in contemporary pop music this quiet and beautiful? Well, I’m sure there is—I just don’t know contemporary pop music. The only thing that comes to mind, for me, is Lana Del Rey.

One odd and funny extraneous detail here: the random song review selector picked two four-song EPs in a row—this one, and previously, the Iron Oxide record. So, similar format—very different approach to sonic output—but I like them both a lot. The really weird thing is, this record is also pressed on coffee-colored vinyl! I’m just kidding. It’s black (licorice-colored vinyl)—ho hum. But I almost thought it was for a second, because the label is that that older, red Columbia label—it’s a dark red, I think it’s carmine—almost maroon—which I like much better (including the lettering and style) than that red Columbia label (I think of it as contemporary—but I guess it’s the one from the Seventies). I’m always picking on the Columbia label—I don’t know why. Ubiquitous and boring? I’m sure I’d change my tune if I was signed to Columbia—don’t things always work that way? That nightmarish four-wheeled contraption, spewing toxic clouds and green fluid—once you get the keys—goes from hideous beast to love of your life.

Frank Sinatra “Come Fly with Me”

One of those Sinatra records that make me think that if Sinatra didn’t exist in real life, he would have been a great invention by a writer and/or an artist—or a team of them. A TV show, comic, movie, comic book, etc. The album cover is perfect—a naturalistic color illustration of Frank in as sharp suit, hat, casual tie, giant cufflinks—dressed for international air travel—and he’s taking the hand of woman—we only see her hand, but I’d guess she’s attractive. They’re on the tarmac of an airport—when you used to venture outside, and up the portable steps to the airplane. In the background we see a TWA plane, the “stewardess” exiting, and further back another plane—one of those big prop planes with three tail fins (the back of the cover tells me it’s the TWA Jetstream Super Constellation). No artist credit on back. The sky shows some clouds near the horizon, but most of it is the bluest blue imaginable. Twelve songs, all pop standards that could stretch into a traveling theme. I like all of them, and they fit together well—my favorites are: the title song, “Moonlight in Vermont,” “Autumn in New York,” “Let’s Get Away from it All,” “April in Paris” (with the intro), “Brazil,” “Blue Hawaii,” and “It’s Nice to Go Trav’ling.” (I’m gonna spell it that way from now on!) The art on the back cover uses some (apparently) actual airline charts and documents, over which there’s an artist’s rendition of some pilot paraphernalia, including a logbook, on which it says: “Pilot: Frank Sinatra” and “Co-Pilot: Billy May” (the bandleader). And there’s a compass, the pointy kind for measuring distances on the charts. There’s also a clipboard with a “Flight Log” that’s got some “handwritten” air-travel related notes about six of the tunes. On the bottom it says: “(over)”—but of course, we can’t turn it over—it’s just a drawing! I suppose you’re invited to write your own.

Frank Sinatra “September of My Years”

This is one melancholy Sinatra record! It’s the work of a man looking back at his life, and ahead at the days left, and realizing there are one hell of a lot more days behind him. I wonder what the typical age of a person is when that realization hits them? For some, I suppose, it’s the big FOUR O. For me, I guess that was classic midlife crisis time—in that I was acting pretty much like an escaped clown for a few years. So… I wonder how old Sinatra actually was when this record came out? This a 1965 record—and Francis Albert was born in 1915, so that’s easy math. So, this is his turnin’ the corner at 50 record, I get it. It’s a milestone for anyone—though now that I’m 63, I maintain that 50 is decidedly not old. Though, if you drink and smoke and carry on, you might be feelin’ it. A lot of popular standards, here. The songs that make up a large part of Sinatra’s repertoire are songs about seasons, it always seems like—weather, rain, seasons, and the time of day. “It Gets Lonely Early” was always one of my favorites, as is “Last Night When We Were Young.” The record starts with “September of My Years” and ends with “September Song.” The album cover is a classic—an illustration of Sinatra in the shadows, blue suit and tie, blue background—a good likeness, serious, not sad, looking off toward the horizon. The back cover has an odd description: “Frank Sinatra sings of days and loves ago.” The orchestra is Gordon Jenkins, and there are liner notes by Stan Cornyn—this might have been one of his award-winning bits, for what it’s worth. A descriptive and poetic account of the recording session, a little funny and a little weird, and of course very loving. Here’s an excerpt: “Of the bruising day. Of the rouged lips and bourbon times. Of chill winds, of forgotten ladies who ride in limousines.” This is a good record for lonely times, and cold, dark winter evenings.

Frank Sinatra “The Voice”

I’m pretty sure my dad had this album in the form of a couple of seven-inch records in a cover that folded open, kind of like a mini EP, I guess. But am I remembering that correctly? Did that even exist? I tried to look online, for that format, and quickly gave up. Frank Sinatra released so many records, it’s kind of ridiculous. You can’t even really look at a Sinatra “discography”—well, you could, if you could find one you trust—but you might need an expert to help you interpret this and that. I’m sure they’re out there. The experts. There are experts for everything. And somewhere, an accurate and detailed Sinatra discography. But do I really care that much? At any rate, some version of this record played in the house where I was growing up—it could be among the first music I heard. This is a compilation on Columbia from 1955—so it’s all stuff that’s older, but I’m not sure when each song was recorded. Some sounds pretty early. There are a lot of really good songs, ones I’m primarily familiar with from Sinatra recordings, like: “I Don’t Know Why,” “These Foolish Things,” “She’s Funny That Way,” “Fools Rush In,” and more. There’s a nice version of “Laura.” It’s mostly slower stuff, ballads. He recorded some of these songs multiple times, in different styles, but always sounded like no one else.

The album cover, a good one, is a pretty old photo—he looks like a kid, hair a bit greasy, and his eyes look green, not blue—they match the billiard table green background. His shirt collar is all messed up and he’s wearing a really nerdy yellow sweater and the exact same jacket, I swear, as Vikki Carr, on one of her records. Well, not exactly, but it’s interesting that I thought about Vikki Carr. The uncredited liner notes are pretty good—they start out: “Next time anyone starts asking questions about what has happened to the snows of yesteryear…” The snows of yesteryear? Do people ask that question? Apparently… and this record is your answer. The previous owners have their name and address sticker on back, but I won’t publish that, or their phone number, or names. It’s one of those many suburbs north of Chicago—I looked on a map, and as is my habit, browsed the restaurants—it looks like you don’t have to go far for a decent matzo ball. Also, the price tag is still on front—$2.97—at Steinberg-Baum Co., apparently an old Illinois department store. That is about the right price for this record now, used—but that’s only because there were a lot of these out there, I’m sure. The value of the music coming through your speakers, however, is beyond any estimation, really—i.e. “priceless.”

Frank Sinatra “A Man and His Music”

My random record review picking system happened to pick a Frank Sinatra record directly after a Nancy Sinatra record, so I considered vetoing it, but seeing how it’s too hot to write record reviews with a migraine anyway, I figured I’d give it a shot—and write only as much as I can while listening to this (double) record. This is a 1965 retrospective, so it has the feel of a biography—the cover is a collage of drawings of Frank over the years, and there are some not very satisfying photos inside (it opens up). The best thing—there is extensive liner notes by Stan Cornyn, the record exec who’s known for writing great liner notes—so here we have one of the most concise—but still thorough, and not lacking in flair—Sinatra bios out there. I like the part where he’s talking about how, throughout his career, Sinatra liked to go against the grain: “To do everything wrong, and hence much righter than the rule book allows.”

If you’re a Sinatra fan, you know it’s impossible to even scratch the surface of a retrospective in a two-record set, but here it is. Maybe the best audience for this is NON-fans, I don’t know. My parents had a lot of his records, so I heard them growing up and thought I had a pretty good overview—but his career is vast. When I lived in New York in 1985, over Thanksgiving weekend, Wednesday night through Sunday, an AM radio station played a Sinatra marathon, “from A to Z”—just a staggering amount of songs. They tended to play the earlier recordings of the songs in question, so what I then realized was that he recorded a lot of songs multiple times, with different bands, arrangements, and styles. So a maniacal Sinatra fan can go quite deep. His earliest stuff sometimes doesn’t even sound like the same singer as his later stuff—yet it does, too. You never confuse him with anyone else—he’s got the most distinctive and unique approach to popular vocal music of anyone who’s ever approached a microphone. I’m not sure if that’s totally true, but even if he’s not your favorite, you have to admit, if he came to your dinner party, you wouldn’t get him mixed up with Bob from over to State Farm. (Nothin’ against Bob!)

I’m not going to list the 30 or so songs on this record—which is a paltry number relative to even what he recorded during the acne years. One would like to think these were picked by the man himself as being most important to him over the years, but that certainly doesn’t mean they’re the best. And some of them—like the interminable “Soliloquy” and “The House I Live In”—I could very well do without. What’s funny, though, and somewhat unique, and definitely worthwhile, here, is that Frank recorded little intros and outros to many, actually most, of the songs. You can listen to the whole thing like a audio documentary or radio show. It’s all a bit corny, but he does it with his breezy but sincere hipster style, so it’s a lot of fun. By the way, I did a smart thing during that Thanksgiving A to Z marathon, and got out my cassette recorder and taped everything I could, on every blank tape space I could find. Some of the songs were obviously played from station’s scratchy old 7 and 10 inch discs, maybe even 78’s, I don’t know. Anyway, it all had a particular feeling—just the oldness, and the broadcast quality—that I’ve never heard duplicated. I sometimes still listen to those tapes.

Frank Sinatra “Softly, As I Leave You”

Interesting… I wrote a review of this record, October 2019—but never posted it—which makes me wonder what was going on October 2019. I don’t remember. Most likely I was hit by a wave of the ol’ midlife crisis, and seeing how this is a midlife crisis record, maybe it hit too close to home. Am I over my midlife crisis? I guess I am, at this point—seeing how the entire concept seems a bit silly at this point. Anyway, not one to waste effort, I’m going to reprint my earlier review here, and maybe edit a little:

I’m not sure why but this record immediately strikes me as a “midlife crisis” record—regardless of Sinatra’s age, or personal life—I mean it could all be an act. I mean, it is an act, of course!—but always with some personal truth behind it, right? Since this is a 1964 record, I guess he was pushing fifty when he recorded it—so it makes sense. More than anything, it’s the song selection, and none more so than “Here’s to the Losers”—which I think of as the classic Sinatra expression of a certain time period—I guess this one—and feeling—kind of jazzy, jaunty, breezy, romantic, ironic. Of course, it’s not an ode to losers, as in people like me, but to people who lose the battle to not be in love. Here’s some lines: “Here’s to those who love not too wisely, know not wisely, but too well.” Try singing that when you’re drunk. Here’s another good one: “Here’s to those who drink their dinners when that lady doesn’t show.” It alternates between men losers, and women losers, and then one for couples: “To the lonely summer lovers when the leaves begin to fall/ Here’s to the losers, a-bless them all.”

The album cover is pretty uninspired, as far as Sinatra covers go—there’s a grainy (really grainy) headshot of Sinatra looking like somebody’s dad. The cover also includes the names of four songs and three movies. One interesting thing is that the album title on top is punctuated in this way: SOFTLY, AS I LEAVE YOU SINATRA (it’s the rare comma in a song title). All caps, same font, and no break between the title and “Sinatra”—as if “Sinatra” is part of the song title and the album title. Weird. The back cover has a frame that says: “Frank Sinatra Sings All There Is To Know About Love/ Softly, As I Leave You”—like it’s the label on a can of sardines. Then a classic, vertical photo of Sinatra in the recording studio, standing, hands in pockets, hat on, his face hidden behind a microphone and music stand, standing ashtray nearby. The liner notes, by Stan Cornyn, are some of the best I’ve read in a while. It’s a detailed, poetic description of Sinatra coming into a recording session, going through a song, and finishing off with a Lucky Strike.

End of earlier review. Anyway, this is a very good record. For some reason, I feel like it would be a good one to get if you owned no Sinatra records. Maybe because it’s not one of his best—not even close—yet there is something absolute about it. One interesting thing—in the credits on back, there are arranger credits on each song, and there are multiple—I count five—different arrangers. Usually, I believe, there is one arranger per record—and so there are some real different styles here. That gives it a feeling of a greatest hits, or retrospective. So there are show tunes, movie songs, ballads, and modern pop numbers. As well as a real oddball, “Come Blow Your Horn,” in which he enunciates the lyrics like he’s laying down the law to the staff of a restaurant on opening day—it’s almost like beatnik poetry set to orchestra. They’re all interesting, and some are great. I suppose it was 1964, after all, and this record feels a bit like a transition from the classic Fifties Sinatra records to the later ones, like “That’s Life.” There may be no time in history where popular music took such a severe left turn, and one of the fascinating things about Sinatra is how he tried to adapt. One of the things I’ve always liked about him is how he can be good and bad, corny and profound, old-fashioned and modern—all on the same record—and sometimes within a single song. It’s all a matter of opinion, of course, but I’m a big lifelong fan of all of it.

Frank Sinatra “Moonlight Sinatra”

Nice that my random system picked a moon-themed record on this weekend of the “Sturgeon Moon”—but you’ve got to wonder. This one is from 1966—and it’s a pretty good Sinatra, with the Nelson Riddle orchestra. The only negative is the cover—not one of his better ones (there are some really inspired Sinatra covers, so, a lot of competition). I mean, it’s an okay artist’s rendering—just his face—and it looks like they tried to replicate moonlight shining on a person, which isn’t easy. He mostly looks an odd shade of purple, and a little seasick. I get it—I slept, like, not at all, last night. Ten songs with “Moon” in the title—I’m not going to list them all—but they’re all good. It was probably hard to resist the temptation to make a double album. My favorite is “Moon Love”—a song I particularly like because some friends and I named a band after it, back in the 80s. Other favorites here are: “Moonlight Becomes You” and “I Wished On The Moon”—and there are also some that I’m a little less familiar with, which is nice. There are brief but stellar liner notes, on back—by Stan Cornyn—who was an exec with Warner Bros—who the internet tells me won some Grammys for liner notes! I didn’t even know there was such a thing, but that makes me happy. This odd sentence caught my eye: “In a world whose people seldom look for love any farther than their own palms…” Whoa. And that was decades before the “Smartphone” was invented. Good liner notes! So I’m gonna excerpt an entire paragraph—I don’t think Stan Cornyn would mind: “The Moon: who is our Earth’s constant lover, who comes alive only in darkness, who comes back to us as inevitably as nightfall. To sing of the Moon, and not of missiles, of romance and not of fudge, of love and not lollipops, is old-fashioned. Something out of Grandma’s day. Out of date, like the stars. Non-chic, like Valentines. Corny, like your own heart’s beat.” Thank you, Stan Cornyn! And thank you Frank and Nelson… and thanks for nothin’ Sturgeon Moon. Nice Sinatra record. That last bit was mine, which is why, I guess, DJ Farraginous isn’t wining any Grammys.

Nancy Sinatra “Nancy’s Greatest Hits (With a Little Help from Her Friends)”

I’ve had and lost countless Nancy Sinatra records—all of them include some really great songs, and occasionally an annoying song—but they’re all worth owning, particularly the older ones. Always excellent album covers, with Nancy wearing something that mere mortals can’t get away with—like this one, on bathroom tile pink, where she’s creatively wearing what looks like matching linen end-table covers—fashioned into a skirt and blouse. This is another record from 1970! It’s a real hodgepodge of songs, all of it listenable, especially if you’re a Nancy Sinatra fan. I personally don’t hate “Something Stupid” (duet with Frank), but I wouldn’t mind never hearing it again. I could also do without the duet with Dean Martin (“Things”) but it’s kind of cute. As usual, my favorite songs are the Lee Hazlewood numbers—he was a great collaborator for Nancy, even if her dad didn’t approve. (I still don’t know if there’s anything to that story about Frank Sinatra’s henchmen taking Lee Hazlewood out to the desert.) If your daughter sang a duet like “Some Velvet Morning” with a guy who looked and sounded like Lee Hazlewood, you might want to have the guy’s legs broken, too—that’s one twisted song. It’s also my all-time favorite Nancy and Lee song—in my opinion, the best thing either of them ever did, apart or together—some serious pop-culture art. “These Boots Are Made for Walkin’” is a bit of a novelty, but still a fine song. “Summer Wine” is also an excellent one. This record also includes “You Only Live Twice”—the title song for the James Bond movie by that name. It’s one of my favorite five Bond title songs (the only reason I don’t say number one is there’s some seriously stiff competition in Bond title songs). It’s one of those songs that never fails to take me back to when I first heard it. Oddly, there’s room on Side 2 for one more song—if I’d been “the man” at Reprise, I’d have added, maybe “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’” (one of my favorite versions of a song done by everyone), or the theme song from “Tony Rome,” or “The City Never Sleeps At Night” (a superior B-side), or “Sundown, Sundown”—just because it’s my second favorite Nancy and Lee song—kind of a companion to “Some Velvet Morning.” Also, I’d have put a different picture on the back cover (than the identical front cover)—just because… it’s a missed opportunity, when you have someone as beautiful as Nancy Sinatra—and a whole world of crazy wardrobe she would enhance.

Frank Sinatra “Watertown”

In an attempt to keep these reviews shorter, I’m going allow myself the option to write about a record and then return to it if I feel like I have something to say—and this is one where I’m sure that will be the case. I am currently obsessed with this record, which Frank Sinatra put out in 1970, quite possibly to a bit of head scratching. I think it’s one of those records that has been “rediscovered”—though that’s probably kind of annoying to people who were big fans of it all along. I would always group it with the later, sometimes weird and goofy Sinatra albums (like the one where he sings about Uranus), but I was wrong about how much I’d grow to love it. In fact, as of this Saturday, I have roughly 400 vinyl records (I had many more at one time but lost almost all of them) and this, right now, is my number one favorite, which also means it’s my favorite Sinatra record—and I have a lot of favorites.

The album cover looks like the menu of a vegetarian restaurant in 1979—though, I actually love the cover, and will buy an extra copy to hang one on my wall—but it sure isn’t a glossy photo of Frank in a hat with a cocktail. The lyrics are inside, and the lyrics are crucial. This is a concept record, produced by Bob Gaudio and written by him and Jake Holmes. It’s not so unusual for Sinatra, a concept record of sad love songs—except this is not standards, but late Sixties pop. It’s somewhat similar to what was previously my favorite record, Richard Harris and Jimmy Webb’s The Yard Went On Forever, in both themes and style, and seeing as that came out two years earlier, I wonder if it was an influence for this one? I also wonder (and I’m sure I can find this out someday) if Sinatra and Richard Harris were friends or rivals? Anyway, Bob Gaudio was one of the Four Seasons, which almost sounds like a Spinal Tap-ian joke when you say it that way, but look at his songwriting credits. He’s no less legendary than anyone who’s written a pop song, yet his name was not familiar to me until very recently. It seems weird to say that people like him and Jimmy Webb are underrated, but that’s our culture for you—and the Dylan and Beatles world we live in. If anyone ever wants you to explain that fuckin’ black rectangle in 2001: A Space Odyssey, tell them to think of the Beatles—not so much what they were, but how our culture creates these things that suck up all the light, rendering us blind to everything else, and create so much noise it also deafens us. Then those are those things, and there are very few of them at that—and everyone else is washing dishes at Applebee’s, if they’re lucky.

Since I’m a song person, I can love a record for one good song, or hate it because it only has one good song. A collection of great songs, especially in order, and creating a story—that doesn’t come along very often, but here it is. I’m going to have to write about this again just so I can go through song by song and really appreciate each one. I’d say half of them should have been major hits, as standalone songs—and would have been if our world wasn’t bullshit. The other thing I want to do later is read more about this record—I think there might be websites and newsgroups about it—has anyone done one of those 331/3 books yet? This would be perfect for one of those. Maybe I’ll finally do a proposal. But it would be daunting, too, because there’s got to be some people out there for whom this record is it. Maybe I’ll meet one of those cats sometime, maybe online, or we can write a good old-fashioned letter. Or maybe I can start a Watertown meeting in my town. Oh, one thing I do want to mention right now—after I bought this record and was immediately impressed by it, for about the first hundred listenings I felt that it kind of pooped out at the end—didn’t finish as strong as I’d have wished it to. That was before I paid close attention to the lyrics (as much of a lyric fanatic as I am, sometimes when the music is strong enough, I just kind of ignore the lyrics for the longest time). You’ve got to pay attention to the lyrics on this record, and especially on that last song. It’s just devastating.