Frank Sinatra


Frank Sinatra was arguably the most important popular music figure of the 20th century, his only real rivals for the title being Bing Crosby, Elvis Presley, and the Beatles. In a professional career that lasted 60 years, he demonstrated a remarkable ability to maintain his appeal and pursue his musical goals despite often countervailing trends.

The son of a fireman, Sinatra dropped out of high school in his senior year to pursue a career in music. In September 1935, he appeared as part of the vocal group the Hoboken Four on Major Bowes' Original Amateur Hour. The group won the radio show contest and toured with Bowes. Sinatra then took a job as a singing waiter and MC at the Rustic Cabin in Englewood, NJ. He was still singing there in the spring of 1939, when he was heard over the radio by trumpeter Harry James, who had recently organized his own big band after leaving Benny Goodman. James hired Sinatra, and the new singer made his first recordings on July 13, 1939. At the end of the year, Sinatra accepted an offer from the far more successful bandleader Tommy Dorsey, jumping to his new berth in January 1940. Over the next two and a half years, he was featured on 16 Top Ten hits recorded by Dorsey, among them the chart-topper "I'll Never Smile Again," later inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame. During this period, he also performed on various radio shows with Dorsey and appeared with the band in the films Las Vegas Nights (1941) and Ship Ahoy (1942).

1940


I'll Never Smile Again



           Sinatra left Dorsey's band in 1942 and started his solo career. His first hit was...



Night and Day



            His big breakthrough came due to his engagement as a support act to Benny Goodman at the Paramount Theatre in New York, which began on New Year's Eve. It made him a popular phenomenon, the first real teen idol, with school girls swooning in the aisles.



            Meanwhile, the label had signed Sinatra as a solo artist, and in a temporary loophole to the recording ban, put him in the studio to record a cappella, backed only by a vocal chorus. This resulted in four Top Ten hits in 1943, among them "People Will Say We're in Love" from Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II's musical Oklahoma!, and a fifth in early 1944 ("I Couldn't Sleep a Wink Last Night") before protests from the musicians union ended a cappella recording.
1943
3

People Will Say We're In Love
1943
2

You'll Never Know
1945
5

Dream
1945
8

I Should Care
1945
7

If I Loved You
1945
10

Nancy (With the Laughing Face)
1945
2

Saturday Night is the Loneliest Night of the Week
1947
20

Almost Like Being In Love
1947
16

Time After Time
1948
7

Nature Boy
1949
6

Some Enchanted Evening





I’m A Fool To Want You (cowritten by Sinatra in 1951)
1952
27

The Most Beautiful Girl In the World
1953
14

I’ve Got The World On A String
1953
18

South of the Border



       Sinatra had begun working with arranger/conductor Nelson Riddle, a pairing that produced notable chart entries in February 1954 on both the singles and albums charts. "Young-at-Heart," which just missed hitting number one, was the singer's biggest single since 1947, and the song went on to become a standard. (The title was used for a 1955 movie in which Sinatra starred.)
1954
2

Young At Heart



    Then there was the 10" LP Songs for Young Lovers, the first of Sinatra's "concept" albums, on which he and Riddle revisited classic songs by Cole Porter, the Gershwins, and Rodgers and Hart in contemporary arrangements with vocal interpretations that conveyed the wit and grace of the lyrics. The album lodged in the Top Five. In July, Sinatra had another Top Ten single with Styne and Cahn's "Three Coins in the Fountain."



Three Coins In the Fountain



Luck Be A Lady
1955
1

Learning the Blues



    On September 15, 1955, he appeared in a television production of Our Town and sang "Love and Marriage" (specially written by Sammy Cahn and his new partner James Van Heusen), which became a Top Five hit.
1955
5

Love And Marriage



   Early in 1956, he was back in the Top Ten with Cahn and Van Heusen's "(Love Is) The Tender Trap," the theme song from his new film, The Tender Trap.
1955
7

The Tender Trap



   As part of his thematic concepts for his albums of the '50s, Sinatra alternated between records devoted to slow arrangements and those given over to dance charts.
1956


I've Got You Under My Skin (Eb, first chord Fm7)
1957
2

All the Way - from The Joker's Wild



   He was also represented in the LP charts in November by the soundtrack to his film Pal Joey (based on a Rodgers & Hart musical), which hit the Top Five.



Lady Is A Tramp



   In February 1958, Sinatra reached the Top Ten with "Witchcraft," his last single to perform that well for the next eight years.
1958
6

Witchcraft



   That month, Capitol released Come Fly with Me, a travel-themed rhythm album, which hit number one.



Come Fly With Me
1959
30

High Hopes
1960


   His next regular album was a year in coming, and when it did, Nice 'n' Easy was a mid-tempo collection, breaking his pattern of alternating fast and slow albums.



Nice 'N' Easy

Sinatra had finally had enough of working with Mitch Miller, the A/R Director for Columbia Records. Miller had a fondness for silly novelty records and Sinatra definitely didn't.  Sinatra split with Columbia to start his own label, Reprise, in 1961, yet Columbia still had unreleased material.  For that reason there was a glut of Sinatra records out in 1961. Reprise's first single, "The Second Time Around," a song written by Cahn and Van Heusen for Bing Crosby, won Sinatra the Grammy for Record of the Year.

1961
50

Second Time Around
1964
27

Softly, As I Leave You
1965
78

Forget Domani



    Sinatra mounted a commercial comeback by emphasizing his own advancing age. Nearing 50, he released September of My Years, a ballad collection keyed to the passage of time. After "It Was a Very Good Year" was drawn from the album as a single and rose into the Top 40, the LP took off for the Top Five and went gold. It was named 1965 Album of the Year at the Grammy Awards, and Sinatra also picked up a trophy for best vocal performance for "It Was a Very Good Year."
1965
28

It Was A Very Good Year



Young At Heart



You Make Me Feel So You
1966
1

Strangers In the Night



My Kind of Town (Chicago Is)



Chicago



Fly Me To The Moon
1966
25

The Summer Wind
1966
4

That’s Life



Shadow Of Your Smile
1967
1

Something Stupid
1969
27

My Way
1980
32

New York, New York
 
 



Angel Eyes



April In Paris



Autumn in New York



Bein’ Green



Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea



Blue Skies



Chicago



East of the Sun



Fools Rush In



For Once In My Life



Get Me To the Church On Time



The Girl That I Marry



How About You



I Concentrate On You



I Get A Kick Out Of You



I Won’t Dance



I’ll Never Smile Again



I’ve Got A Crush On You



I’ve Got You Under My Skin



In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning



It’s Alright With Me



Just One Of Those Things



Makin’ Whoopee



My Foolish Heart



Nice Work If You Can Get It



Night And Day



Old Devil Moon



One For My Baby



Pennies From Heaven



That Old Black Magic



The Way You Look Tonight



You Took Advantage of Me



You Will Be My Music



You're Getting To Be a Habit With Me