Strangers in the Night

 

 

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By the time of the "British Invasion", the musical times had drastically changed for Frank Sinatra and a lot of major US stars. Sinatra, however, had by then long been acquainted with the vagaries of commercial taste in popular music.

Sinatra's "Strangers in the Night" became - on May 28, 1966 - his first #1 hit since "Learning the Blues" from 1955 and also his best-selling single ever. The single received a Grammy for "Best Male Pop Vocal Performance" whilst the namesake LP that followed received the "Record of the Year" award. Frank Sinatra's talent and good taste proved to still have great resilience in the midst of these changing musical times.

This deluxe edition, featuring liner notes by Ken Barnes, reissues the ten tracks featured on the original (and quite short) Reprise LP and adds three bonus, previously unreleased cuts: an alternate take of "Yes Sir, That's My Baby" from the original LP sessions (that is quite close to the released version) and live versions of "Strangers in the Night" and "All or Nothing at All" recorded at Tokyo's Budokan Hall in the '80s. These bonus live tracks are fun, but it is quite sure that the original studio cuts remain the real meat of this album.

Thanks to Dan Hersch's beautiful remastering, the sound quality is very fine indeed. Sinatra's vocals, in particular, sound rich and natural. This goes to prove that good "analog" recordings are an excellent source for digital remastering.

The title track combined a memorable Bert Kaempfert melody with lyrics by Charles Singleton and Eddie Snyder. Producer Jimmy Bowen brought the song to Sinatra's attention. Ernie Freeman provided the arrangements. The song had to be hurriedly recorded to win the race against competing versions by Bobby Darin and Jack Jones.

The single took three months to reach the top of the charts and this gave time for Sinatra to begin recording other tunes for an accompanying LP.
All the remaining, original album tracks were produced by Sonny Burke. They were arranged and conducted by Nelson Riddle (who used horns, strings and a quite noticeable organ) to come up with a likeable swinging sound that added flamboyance to Sinatra's voice. The material was recorded during two sessions that took place in May 1966.

The selected songs included covers of older songs from the '20's and '30's as well as newer material presumably aimed at a younger public.

Sinatra sings the "oldies" with a lot of understanding for the time when they were written whilst, at the same time, using swinging arrangements to make them lively. Sinatra, for instance, metamorphoses Johnny Mercer's "Summer Wind" into a sublime easy listening favorite and also excels on his version of Lerner and Lane's "On a Clear Day (You Can See Forever"). At the first go-round of the latter, Riddle gives the arrangement some breath before hitting the listener with a stirring horn-section break.

"All Or Nothing At All" and "You're Driving Me Crazy" are excellent, swinging, big band jazzy tracks well in line with his well-known work.

I am less keen on "My Baby Cares for Me" (I don't enjoy the organ sound here). The other Donaldson/Kahn tune - "Yes Sir, That's My Baby" - fares a lot better.

Finally, Sinatra perfectly handles the melody of "The Most Beautiful Girl in the World" which ends the original album on a high note.

There is also a pair of fine, easy-listening tracks penned by Britain's Tony Hatch: "Downtown" (a worldwide hit for Petula Clark in 1964) and "Call Me" (a sizable hit for Chris Montez in early 1966). They were surely chosen to appeal to a younger audience. But Sinatra sounds clearly less interested - and less convincing - on these tracks. "Downtown" is the worst offender and these attempts at covering this then current popular music sound half-baked at best.
Frank Sinatra had, by now, reached the point where he would rely on the style of his earlier successes rather than looking forward at the "new scene" which was very much at odds with his own musical vision. You can hardly blame him for that.

Although this album cannot quite live up to the achievements of the material released between 1953 and 1960, it nevertheless remains essential to the committed Sinatra fan.

There are some people who don't rate sinatra's 60's work amongst his best, i would completely disagree and say that some of Sinatra's best work was done in this period. One of the best Sinatra albums of any period is "Strangers in the night", recorded in 1966 it was to be a reunion with Nelson Riddle who provided some of the best arrangements in Sinatra's career working with him throughout the 1950's producing some of his biggest hit's like "i've got you under my skin" etc. When Sinatra left capitol records to form Reprise he recorded with many other great arrangers like Neal Hefti,Gordon jenkins,Count Basie,Don Costa and Billy May but none quite had the talent for arrangements like Riddle did. The title track was one of Sinatra's biggest hit singles but feels out of place on the album,largely coz it was recorded a month before the albums sessions to rush release it into the market to usurp rival versions by jack jones and Bobby Darin. Riddle had nothing to do with SITN so it feels completely different to the rest of the albums style.

Nearly every track on this album is amazing! From the strong title track to Riddle's reworking of Summer Wind, changing it from an up-tempo swinger to a laid back jazzy number complete with lots of hammond organ!! "All or nothing at all" is another very strong cut which is a reworking of one of Sinatra's earliest recordings. The Hammond organ would play a big part of Riddles arrangements in the 60's and Frank's SITN album is no exception. In actuality this was a very clever move by Riddle as Hammond organ was prevalent on lots of 60's pop and soul music - by overlaying the big band arrangements with organ gave the album a more contemporary (for the 60's) edge which would appeal to a broad fanbase.

Some of Sinatra's albums were peppered with some weak tracks like his albums with Count basie for instance but riddle really knows what a good tune is and even when the song isn't quite as strong as it should be, Riddle's arrangements carry the songs through. The only bad track is the version of petula clarks "Downtown" which feels shoehorned in to appeal to the kids.

This was Sinatra's biggest selling album of all time ! and it's not hard to see why,Great tunes,great voice,great arrangements by riddle.

Sadly this was the last Sinatra album that Riddle produced and arranged which is bizarre given the commercial success of the album although Riddle would come back to produce 1 track for Frank's "She shot me down" album in 1981.

Although Frank would go onto make some more very good albums in the 60's like the following years (1967 release) Francis Albert Sinatra and Antonio Carlos Jobin LP and the aforementioned "She shot me down" LP from 1981, i don't think he ever topped this particular album.

This new release comes with a 24 bit digital remaster,Liner notes and 3 bonus cuts and is by this reviewer anyway,highly recommended.

I can safely surmise that this newly re- mastered album is one of the better produced ones, though arguably still not in the top five of his Reprise album output. His first few for the label he founded might testify to this. However, the news on this one is that by Nelson Riddle having employed an electric organ and interwoven it with his unique orchestral arranging style, the album takes on some fair distinction. The original 10 song titles collectively gives an impression that anything goes. Sinatra gives "Downtown" a note of distain on this 'pop' beat entry indicating he was still going to have it his own way. "Yes Sir, Thats My Baby" gets some effective brass punctuations There are a couple of relaxed outings with "Summer Wind" and On a Clear Day.." very Sinatra and the better for it. A break neck speed version of "The Most beautiful Girl in the World" obliterates completely its waltz origins and "All or nothing at all" is an upbeat revisit by the crooner having recorded it only three years earlier for his "Sinatra & Strings album. Comparisons would be a mite superfluous. Those still on the road to discovery might well seek out another Sinatra/Riddle combo, recorded barely six months earlier, that of "The Moonlight Sinatra" an unexpected gem thats definitely should be considered amongst his top ten Reprise albums - and not an 'ugh' or 'dooby, dooby doo' to be heard anywhere.
Gerald Corper

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4.0 out of 5 stars Short on running time high on quality
Classy album from '66, swingin and such and stretching into new material like Downtown and the title track. Read more

Published on 11 May 2001

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