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

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This Book is About the Music
Author's style irritates me no end , but worth it for the writing
Preaching to the Choir
no gossip or garbage-it's about the music!
Monumental Study of Frank's Music: As Timeless as Frank

Sinatra! the Song is You: A Singer's Art
Will Friedwald
Manufacturer: Da Capo
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0306807424

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Not surprisingly, most of Frank Sinatra's biographers have raked through the muck of the singer's marriages, divorces, mob connections, and outbursts of foul-mouthed misogyny. Will Friedwald takes a different tack. Oh, the biographical facts are there, but Friedwald is mostly interested in the Voice--that irresistible, inimitable instrument, the absence of which would punch a major hole in the soundtrack of life. This is certainly the best book ever written on Sinatra's music, which means that it sheds a great deal of light on American pop music in general. And while Friedwald gets downright rhapsodic when it comes to the career highlights, he's not afraid to tweak Ol' Blue Eyes when he comes up with a dud.

Book Description

As Frank Sinatra approaches his eightieth year, he remains the greatest entertainer of our age. However, recent biographers, emphasizing the singer's celebrity at the expense of his artistry, have obscured the truth that it was Sinatra's art -- the way he used his voice to invigorate American popular music with innovative phrasing and a mastery of range and emotion -- that won him a lasting place in popular culture.

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 Drawing upon recent interviews with Sinatra collaborators, arrangers, and musicians -- as well as previously unpublished conversations with "The Voice" himself -- author Will Friedwald chronicles this five-decade career, tracing the evolution of his vocal style from such early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.

Dubbed "the Poet Laureate of vintage pop music," Will Friedwald brings to this compelling history his astute critical analysis of all the classic and less familiar songs, presented here with the passion and wit that won him raves for Jazz Singing. Featuring an authoritative compact discography and eight pages of rare photos of recording sessions and performances, Sinatra! The Song Is You is an invaluable resource for Sinatra enthusiasts and the definitive print companion to his vast musical legacy.

Customer Reviews:

This Book is About the Music.......2006-12-17

Will Friedwald has given us the definitive text on the music of Frank Sinatra. This book deals hardly at all with Frank Sinatra as a person and concentrates instead on Sinatra the consummate musician, analyzing each period in his musical development, and weaving into this the influences of those around him, in particular Axel Stordahl, Nelson Riddle and Gordon Jenkins. Each song is carefully analyzed. And while this would appear to be somewhat tedious, it is a fascinating page-turner. With the comprehensive index in the back, a listener can read up on a song and then listen with a heightened appreciation for what went into creating it.
Frank Sinatra is the greatest male vocalist of the Twentieth Century, in my opinion, and this book is the best handbook to understanding his music that exists anywhere.

Author's style irritates me no end , but worth it for the writing.......2006-05-11

I had heard about this book , bought it and haven't read it for a little while now . It is the sort of book you dip into depending what records or career period of Frank's you want to explore .

There are a lot of little in jokes and what I presume are Yiddish words , which would be great if I understood them .
I'm not Yiddish already .

This is a book that will become an invaluable piece of material for scholars and fans . The author also did the great thing of interviewing many of these important and superb musicians before they got too old and/or died , such as Billy May .
The interviews themselves should be released one day .

I suppose it is good that the author's style is sort of entertaining , but in the end I could do with less of that , as it takes away from the achievement somehow and cheapens it .

Still , you will enjoy the music of Frank Sinatra a lot more if you have this book .

That is what is important , after all .

Preaching to the Choir.......2006-04-10

On the upside, historian Will Friedwald presents a rare treat for Sinatra fans: he writes about the singer's art -- not his life. Since Sinatra's life has been examined in hundreds of tabloids and books, it is certainly not missed here. Friedwald provides interviews with band members, producers, etc., and gives the reader a fairly comprehensive overview of Sinatra's work.

On the downside, Bobby-soxer Will Friedwald gushes over Sinatra's singing, and his arrangers (Riddle, Stordahl, et al. This is fine for diehard Sinatra fans, but 500+ pages of almost unmitigated gushing can be hard for us casual fans to digest.

But what I found to be the biggest drawback with the book is the author's taste in music. The few Sinatra songs he trashes just so happen to be the ones that I like best ("Strangers in the Night," "Melody of Love," "My Way," etc.). Friedwald prefers his sappiest string arrangements (Stordahl) and mickey mouse "swing" tunes (Riddle) which he examines in excrutiating detail.

For Sinatraphiles it's a must. For the rest of us, it can be a bit of a bore.

no gossip or garbage-it's about the music!.......2004-10-21

i bot this book as a stocking stuffer for my wife, a casual sinatra fan thinking it was just another bio. then i started reading it. it sb noted that i owned 2 sinatra discs when i bot this book, i now have about 50. this book not only helped me understand the music i had already heard, but helped me seek out & discover the 100's of lost gems in sinatra's recorded works. again-no gossip, no kitty kelly junk, a well researched bio of frank's recorded output. if theres a downside to this book, it's that it will make you want to go out & find more franks discs than you may already own, and that could be an expensive undertaking. why?...because reprise or barbara s. do not listen to fans and re-realease the same greatest hits over & over. if u want a cd copy of "she shot me down"...prepare to pay up the nose on ebay-not a real good way to handle a legacy babs. that aside, nothing better than hittin the couch on a rainy or snowy day, poor a glass of booze(neat), crank a little "only the lonely" and read this book!

Monumental Study of Frank's Music: As Timeless as Frank.......2001-12-06

Anyone with even a mild interest in Frank's legacy should buy this book. It makes well researched and amusing reading,and is to me the finest book on popular music ever written.It helps to read an obviously great book when you agree with about 95% of his own editorializing. Every era of Mr.Sinatra's recording career,even past Duets II,and going into his last ,sometimes awkward,concerts is covered.If you want gossip,go elsewhere.Mr. Friedwald covers the personalities,from Stordahl,Riddle,May,Jenkins, and all the rest,and when you finish this book you'll feel the incredible energy, fun,and friendship that made these recordings. The fact is that Frank's canon is so great that some of my favorite recordings are not even mentioned in the index. Even Mr. Friedwald can't cover everything I guess.It's true that there are some snide comments that Mr Friedwald has for other performers,and his general contempt for rock and roll is obvious.I usually chuckled reading them since it was nice to read that the author and I agreed on the obvious. The fact is that anyone who actually knows Frank's best, and has made such an effort,must in general agree with Mr. Friedwald. For no one from the the rock era has anywhere near the oeuvre that Frank has.And in truth, the general quality of popular culture,especially music,has been in an abysmal decline for about 40 years, hopefully bottoming in the "Rap" era...This work is also a great reference,and will provide cultural enlightenment for many years to come.

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