Frank Sinatra Sings For Only The Lonely
Capitol Records (1958)
- Ebb Tide
- Spring Is Here
- Gone With The Wind
- One For My Baby (And One More For The Road)
- Sleep Warm (CD bonus track)
- Where Or When (CD bonus track)
- Only The Lonely
- Angel Eyes
- What's New?
- It's A Lonesome Old Town
- Willow Weep For Me
- Good-Bye
- Blues In The Night
- Guess I'll Hang My Tears Out To Dry
Considered by both Sinatra and Riddle to be their finest album, the recording industry agreed and awarded the album a Grammy the first year the awards were given—for best album art.
That Grammy award notwithstanding, this is truly a magnificent work of
dramatic interpretation. The 12 performances on the original album comprise
a virtual graduate program on turning three minute popular songs into three
act tragedies. Almost gothic in its despair, the album paints a much darker
vision than In The Wee Small Hours that perhaps makes it more difficult
to enjoy as a whole. While Small Hours
is imbued with a wistful
sense of melancholy that allows the album to straddle a fine line between
tool of seduction and salve, Only The Lonely
comes down squarely on the
side of despair.
Individually, the songs performed by this self-proclaimed Saloon
Singer
demonstrate the manner in which he elevated the torch song
to high art. Angel Eyes,
What's New?,
Guess
I'll Hang My Tears Out To Dry,
and One For My Baby
are
all breathtaking individually even if the cumulative effect is nearly too
much to take.
Described by long-time lyricist Sammy Cahn, The Frank Sinatra that
we know and have (and hardly know) is an artist with as many forms and patterns
as can be found in a child's kaleidoscopticon. Come
Fly With Me is one Sinatra.
'All The Way' is another Sinatra. A Sinatra singing a hymn of loneliness
could very well be the real Sinatra.
Recorded on June 24, 25, and 29, 1958. The album spent 5 weeks at No. 1 starting on September 29, and eventually spent an astounding two years on the charts.
