Sinatra! The Song is You by Will Freidwald

 Sinatra! The Song is You by Will Freidwald 


 

Freidwald dives into the musical life of the star and it is amazing just what he has produced here. Everything you could have possibly wanted to know about Sinatra the singer is here.


 Freidwald talks about the Sinatra style by getting interviews with musicians that have worked with Frankie. Not just one or two famous musicians who have worked with Sinatra but Mr. Freidwald has interviews or snippets of interviews from the guy who played the second oboe on one of Sinatra’s songs. That kind of thing.


The book runs through all the orchestras Sinatra has performed with. And the names of the orchestras and some of the players within those bands are legendary. Billy May, Tommy Dorsey, and Nelson Riddle are some of the more famous bands Sinatra had the fortune to work with. Maybe those bands were fortunate to have worked with Sinatra.

 Sinatra was always wanting his bands to SWING. That was his big thing, it don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got that swing … those bands could swing.


Many of the individual players, the average musician, are spoken to about Sinatra and they all seem to agree that Sinatra knew what he was doing musically and was in charge in the studio.


There might have been a producer in the studio with Sinatra but it was Sinatra who was in charge. Who knew? I would have guessed he would have prepared himself vocally and allowed others to prepare everything else. But that wasn’t the case. 


Quincy Jones, the man who worked with Michael Jackson in the 1980s and produced Thriller, worked with Sinatra as far back as 1964. That was a curious little factoid I was previously unaware of.  


There are a ton of individual stories about many of the songs folks who wrote the songs. Musicians who played behind him and the arrangers who scored his recordings. 


This is the kind of book only for the most ardent fans of both Sinatra and his era. Otherwise, most folks will get lost in the detail.

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