Sinatra! the Song is You: A Singer's Art

by WillFriedwald (Author)

• Used

  Paperback
  1997

  $6.48

  Frank Sinatra remains the greatest entertainer of our age, invigorating American popular song with innovative phrasing and a mastery of range and emotion. Drawing upon recent interviews with hundreds of his collaborators as well as with The Voice himself, this book is the only full-length work to chronicle, critique, and celebrate his five-decade career. Friedwald examines and evaluates all the classic and less familiar songs with the same astute, often witty, perceptions that earned him acclaim for Jazz Singing. With an authoritative discography and rare photos of recording sessions and performances, Sinatra! is an invaluable resource for enthusiasts and an unparalleled guide through his vast musical legacy.

• Used

  Hardcover
  1995

  $3.25

  Sinatra! The Song Is You is the first full-length work to document the musical life of Frank Sinatra. Drawing upon recent interviews with Sinatra collaborators, arrangers, and musicians - as well as previously unpublished conversations with The Voice himself - author Will Friedwald chronicles this five-decade career, tracing the evolution of his vocal style from such early influences as Harry James (the bandleader who in the late thirties discovered Sinatra in New Jersey's Rustic Cabin), Tommy Dorsey, and Axel Stordahl, with whom Sinatra recorded his first string of solo hits. With the orchestrations of Nelson Riddle in the fifties came a more hard-swinging, uptempo Sinatra; the creation of his own label, Reprise Records, in the sixties gave him the venue to experiment with such unexpected forms as soft rock and psychedelia. Friedwald argues that Sinatra's recordings in the two decades following his 1971 to 1973 retirement weren't as prolific or as consistent as his earlier work, despite a startling comeback that culminated in the 1990s with the platinum-selling Duets discs.