Search - Frank Sinatra :: In the Wee Small Hours

Classic

Bill Your 'Free Form FM Handi Cyber | Mahwah, NJ USA | 01/16/2010

(5 out of 5 stars)

"--For my friend Mike, my mentor on Frank.--



People debate over who had the first popular music concept album: the Beatles, the Who, The Pretty Things, but actually, it was Frank's idea. Sinatra was doing albums that centered around themes before there WAS rock and roll.



1954s Wee Small Hours may be the very first example, but that is not the only first on this materpiece. This was just as 33 rpms were replacing 78s, which meant that you could string related songs together.



Here, the thread is desperate lonliness. You have destroyed your relationships. You have been a b-stard. You have cheated. You have drank far too much and popped too many pills.



So you drink more. You pop more pills. You can't sleep. You blame her, but you really know it is your fault. You stay angry, but really, all you want is forgiveness. But the phone never rings. More booze, more pills. You want to be the indignated lover, but you are a wounded baby. On one level, you can't sit in your skin. On another, you truely just don't care.



This is the string that runs through this achingly beatiful music arranged by Nelson Riddle, who keeps the lights low and the night pitch black. These are all ballads with thick strings, kept at a low but extremely deep emotional simmer.



Frank's voice in 1954 was still evolving. It has a tremelo. He is still trying to croon on Wee Small Hours, and does not have the clean, straight delivery he got after about 1960.



But for conveying, and making you experiance, overall mood, Wee Small Hours is to this day unmatched. DO NOT PLAY IF DEPRESSED already.



For a guy who hated rock, Sinatra sure made one hell of a textbook to what would, in about 1966, become the standard pacing for a classic rock album

'



*** 1/20/10 I said in my review Gordon Jankins did the arrangements on this. My mentor Mike took me to task: it was Nelson Riddle. I apologize to all Frankaphiles for the era. I obviously still have volumes to learn about this master's massive distography.***"

Still awesome after all these years (54)

Sheila Bloom | Alexandria, VA United States | 07/04/2009

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I was a 14 year old in love with Elvis when my Dad brought this lp home in 1955. Don't know why, but I played it and fell in love with Sinatra then and there. Didn't have a date? Went downstairs and put this lp on. Broke up with a boy, went downstairs and listened to this one. Got divorced, well, here comes Frank to comfort me. Been like that for 54 years. To me, this is his best, even over "Only the Lonely."



I saw Sinatra several times and he was awesome. But in lieu of seeing him (not possible now), listen to his singing. Singers studied his singing and he studied opera singers to learn how to breathe.



Henry Winkler once said in an interview that this is the best album to commit suicide by. Pretty close.



My man, now and forever.



(And my Dad wasn't a Sinatra fan, so I'm not sure why he bought the album but it became mine.)"