The Chris Moeller Archives

The concept album

Fifty years ago today, Frank Sinatra walked into a recording studio at Capital Records and recorded four songs-- "Ill Wind," "Mood Indigo," "I See Your Face Before Me," and "What Is This Thing Called Love?" The next day he knocked off four more-- "I Get Along Without You Very Well," "When Your Lover Has Gone," "This Love of Mine," and the title cut of the album that would establish Sinatra as the definitive "saloon singer" of the 20th Century, introduce the "concept album" to the world, and become one of the greatest albums of all-time. These eight songs, along with eight others recorded during that month, would form Frank Sinatra- In the Wee Small Hours.

Prior to this release, long-play records (10", then 12") had been limited to repackaged collections of three to six single recordings by an artist. Sinatra recognized that LPs could extent and sustain a uniform emotional mood.
Backed by conductor Nelson Riddle and some of the most talented musicians of the time, he mined his own romantic relationship for inspiration. The public had read about his stormy relationship with actress Ava Gardner, and was now ready to recognize the validity of the affair and the vulnerability beneath the singer's rough exterior. As Bono said in his infamous 1994 Grammy introduction, "To sing like that, you gotta have lost a couple o'fights... to know tenderness and romance, you have to have had your heart broken..." Sinatra is "the champ who would rather show you his scars than his medals."
Pete Welding, founder of the blues-based Testament Records, wrote upon the album's CD release, "The performances in the album might be said to comprise something of a personal statement, a pain-etched commentary on lost love, of love gone wrong, for while Sinatra is no songwriter himself but rather the interpreter of songs written by others, he is never merely or simply an interpreter. No, his artistry is such that he literally makes these songs and the sentiments they articulate his and his alone. In voicing them he transforms them, leaves his mark on them, personalizes them and, through this, makes them newly real to us, no matter how many times we may have heard them before.
"And that's his power as a singer; it's what has made him the single greatest interpreter of popular song we've ever been privileged to hear. It's what makes In the Wee Small Hours the single finest collection of mood songs ever recorded, as moving today as when we first heard it."
A half century later, Sinatra is still our loyal companion during the darkest hours. He lends timeless musical expression to our feelings of loss and regret, and gives dignity to our tears.

posted by CM @ 10:25 PM