|
| |
Frank Sinatra
Romance: Songs from the Heart
(Capitol)
First Appeared in The Music Box, February 2007, Volume 14, #2
Written by John Metzger
Frank Sinatra rose to prominence during his stint with the Tommy Dorsey
Orchestra, and he became a star via his recordings for Columbia as well as his
films for MGM. It was with Capitol, however, that he became an icon.
Having lost nearly everything in the early 1950s, Sinatra had to rebuild his
career and his life piece by piece. So low had he sunk that his initial
agreement with Capitol was only for a 12-month duration. In addition, he not
only had to forgo his advance, but he also had to pay for his own recording
costs. As a result, his first two forays for the label (Songs for Young
Lovers and Swing Easy!) were abbreviated affairs that contained only
eight songs each, but the manner in which he reinvented himself was sufficient
for extending his stay. By the time that he returned to crafting full-fledged
albums, he sounded like a man who had everything to prove both to himself and to
the world.
Not surprisingly, Sinatra’s eight-year affiliation with Capitol, which
stretched from 1953 until 1961, has been repackaged countless times, and the
21-track Romance: Songs from the Heart is only the latest offering. Yet,
rather than rummaging through his hit singles, the set takes a dramatically
different route. Essentially, it looks beyond his best-known tunes in an attempt
to illuminate the oft-overlooked nuggets that lurk within his canon. Four songs
on the outing (Day by Day, I’ve Got a Crush on You, I’ll Be
Seeing You, and Almost Like Being in Love) are reworked renditions of
tunes he had tackled during the 1940s, while Nice ’n‘ Easy is presented
as a previously unreleased, alternate take. The only actual single on the set is
All the Way, though many of the other selections — My Funny Valentine,
As Time Goes By, and Cheek to Cheek, among them — have become an
integral part of American pop culture via other artists’ interpretations.
Nevertheless, Romance: Songs from the Heart has one major flaw: Its
sequencing isn’t terribly organic. Where Sinatra’s hits are able to stand on
their own, separate from the albums on which they initially were released, the
deeper cuts that completed his efforts falter because they were meant to
complement and enhance whatever ambience he was trying to create. On Romance:
Songs from the Heart, the individual components, good as they are, can’t
help but to feel jumbled and out of place. Although the outing covers a lot of
ground as it jumps from big band romanticism to brooding reflections upon love —
while also setting to Nelson Riddle’s stunning orchestrations material that was
penned by the likes of Cole Porter, Johnny Mercer, George Gershwin, and Irving
Berlin — its otherwise stellar moments are undermined by a lack of context. This
might seem like a minor quibble considering that most of his recordings for
Capitol are indisputable classics, but one of the reasons that they were so
powerful was that the moody atmospheres that he created were as important as the
words that he sang.  ˝
Romance: Songs from the Heart is available from
Amazon.com. To order, Click Here!
For Canadian orders, please
Click Here!
For UK orders, please
Click Here!
Ratings
1 Star: Pitiful
2 Stars: Listenable
3 Stars: Respectable
4 Stars: Excellent
5 Stars: Can't Live Without It!!
Copyright © 2007 The Music Box
|
