Frank Sinatra’s classic 1955 Capitol Records album In the Wee Small Hours will be reissued in Blue Note’s Tone Poet Audiophile Vinyl Series on Nov. 14, marking the album’s 70th anniversary. The album, which was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1984, has been called Sinatra’s “melancholy masterpiece.” One of the first concept albums, it was an obvious inspiration for such subsequent moody collections as Linda Ronstadt’s What’s New, a surprise hit in 1983.
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Produced by Voyle Gilmore, and featuring arrangements by Nelson Riddle, In the Wee Small Hours was Sinatra’s third studio album for Capitol Records, following Songs for Young Lovers (which was inducted into the National Recording Registry in 2002), and Swing Easy!, both from 1954.
Sinatra conceived of In the Wee Small Hours as a full-length album, rather than a collection of singles. It was issued as two 10-inch LP discs, but also as one 12-inch record LP, one of the first in the pop field. The success of the album helped popularize the 12-inch LP in popular music. The 10-inch format soon fell into obsolescence.
The LP reached No. 2 on a Billboard chart that predated the arrival the following spring of the Billboard 200. The album reinforced Sinatra’s career resurgence following his signing to Capitol Records in 1953 and his Oscar win in March 1954 for his supporting role in From Here to Eternity, that year’s best picture winner.
Produced for release by Joe Harley, the new Tone Poet Vinyl Edition was mastered by Kevin Gray from the original analog master tapes, pressed on 180g vinyl at Record Technology Inc. (RTI), and comes packaged in a deluxe gatefold tip-on jacket featuring session photos by William Claxton and Ken Veeder, as well as an essay by Rita Kirwan.
Sinatra would successfully continue recording concept albums with such subsequent releases as Songs for Swingin’ Lovers! (1956), Where Are You? (1957), Frank Sinatra Sings for Only the Lonely (1958) and No One Cares (1959).
Sinatra, widely acknowledged as the GOAT of traditional pop singers, was the first artist to win the Grammy for album of the year three times. He was just the second artist (following Bing Crosby) to receive a Grammy lifetime achievement award. He received that accolade in 1965, the year he turned 50. He received the Kennedy Center Honors in 1983. He died in 1998 at age 82.
Here’s the full track listing for In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning:
Side 1
1. “In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning” (Dave Mann-Bob Hilliard)
2. “Mood Indigo” (Duke Ellington-Irving Mills-Barney Bigard)
3. “Glad to Be Unhappy” (Richard Rodgers-Lorenz Hart)
4. “I Get Along Without You Very Well” (Hoagy Carmichael)
5. “Deep in a Dream” (Jimmy Van Heusen-Eddie DeLange)
6. “I See Your Face Before Me” (Arthur Schwartz-Howard Dietz)
7. “Can’t We Be Friends?” (Kay Swift-Paul James)
8. “When Your Lover Has Gone” (E.A. Swan)
Side 2
1. “What Is This Thing Called Love?” (Cole Porter )
2. “Last Night When We Were Young” (Harold Arlen-E.Y. Harburg)
3. “I’ll Be Around” (Alec Wilder)
4. “Ill Wind” (Harold Arlen-Ted Koehler)
5. “It Never Entered My Mind” (Richard Rodgers-Lorenz Hart)
6. “Dancing on the Ceiling” (Richard Rodgers-Lorenz Hart)
7. “I’ll Never Be the Same” (Matty Malneck-Frank Signorelli- Gus Kahn)
8. “This Love of Mine” (Sol Parker-Henry Sanicola-Frank Sinatra)
