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The Voice of Frank Sinatra

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The Voice of Frank Sinatra is the first album ever released by Frank Sinatra, on Columbia Records, Set C-112, March 4, 1946. It was first issued as a set of four 78 rpm records totaling eight songs, and went to #1 on the fledgling Billboard chart. It stayed at the top (the album chart was just a Top Five until August 1948) for seven weeks in 1946, spending a total of eighteen weeks on the charts

It also holds the distinction of being the first pop album ever released at 33⅓ rpm, when Columbia premiered long-playing vinyl records in 1948, ten-inch and twelve-inch format for classical music, ten-inch only for pop. The Voice was reissued as a 10" LP, catalogue number CL 6001 in 1948. It was also later issued as two 45 rpm EPs in 1952, a 12" LP with a changed running order including only five of the original tracks in 1955, and a compact disc with extra tracks in 2003.

Certain critics have claimed The Voice to be the first concept album. Beginning in 1939, however, singer Lee Wiley started releasing albums of 78s dedicated to the songs of a single writer, Cole Porter for example, a precursor to the 'Songbooks' sets formulated by Norman Granz and Ella Fitzgerald in 1956 (see The Ella Fitzgerald Songbooks). These may loosely be termed concept albums, although Sinatra with The Voice inaugurated his practice of having a common mood or theme tying the songs together on a specific release.

The tracks were arranged and conducted by Axel Stordahl and his orchestra, on both dates consisting of a string quartet and four-piece rhythm section, augmented by flutist John Mayhew in July, and, ironically given the part he would play with Sinatra at Columbia in the early 1950s, oboist Mitch Miller in December. Sinatra would record most of these songs again at later stages in his career. It was probably conceived by Columbia in isolation from Frank Sinatra.

The cover depicted to the right is that of the 1948 reissue as a ten-inch long-player.

Track listing

  1. "You Go to My Head" (Haven Gillespie, J. Fred Coots) – 3:00
  2. "Someone to Watch Over Me" (George Gershwin, Ira Gershwin) – 3:18
  3. "These Foolish Things (Remind Me of You)" (Holt Marvell, Jack Strachey, Harry Link) – 3:08
  4. "Why Shouldn't I?" (Cole Porter) – 2:53
  5. "I Don't Know Why (I Just Do)" (Roy Turk, Fred E. Ahlert) – 2:46
  6. "Try a Little Tenderness" (Harry M. Woods, James Campbell, Reginald Connelly) – 3:08
  7. "I Don't Stand a Ghost of a Chance with You" (Bing Crosby, Ned Washington, Victor Young) – 3:11
  8. "Paradise" (Nacio Herb Brown, G. Clifford) – 2:37

Bonus Tracks on 2003 compact disc reissue

  1. "Mam'selle" (Mack Gordon, Edmund Goulding) – 3:26
  2. "That Old Feeling" (Lew Brown, Sammy Fain) – 3:19
  3. "If I Had You" (Ted Shapiro, Campbell, Connelly) – 3:01
  4. "The Nearness of You" (N. Washington, Hoagy Carmichael) – 2:41
  5. "Spring is Here" (Richard Rodgers, Lorenz Hart) – 2:42
  6. "Fools Rush In" (Where Angels Fear to Tread) (Johnny Mercer, Rube Bloom) – 3:01
  7. "When You Awake" (Henry Nemo) – 3:07
  8. "It Never Entered My Mind" (Rodgers, Hart) – 3:09
  9. "Always" (Irving Berlin) – 2:55
  10. "I Don't Stand a Ghost of a Chance with You" (alternate take) – 3:32

Personnel



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