A collaborative work of Richard Cook and Steve Albin
Preface from Steve Albin
I need to make a couple of disclaimers about this work.
First of all, this Frank Sinatra discography would be more accurately be called a Frank Sinatra sessionography with some information about releases included. I do believe I have all of Frank Sinatra’s studio sessions recorded in this work. But I am not even close to having any comprehensive listing of cds, lps, and singles that were issued as a result of these sessions and I probably never will get close. That task is just more than I care to do even if it were possible.
Secondly, very little of the information included in this work is a result of my own research. My intent in doing this was two-fold – to compile all the information about Sinatra’s recorded work in a format I liked and to test my discography application, Brian. For the most part I’ve relied on the information supplied in the liner notes of cds and lps. In addition, I used Ed O’Brien’s printed discography, Sinatra: The Man and His Music as a cross reference and to fill in gaps of information not in liner notes. I’ve also picked the brains of various Sinatraphiles; in particular, Chuck Granata and Will Friedwald.
There are many errors of omission in this work because the information was not available to me. For instance, many cds and other discographies do not list full personnel. As I say, this is not a work of research, but a work of compiling existing information into one place. There are most likely errors of commission in the work as well. My first assumption on these is that they are mine as a result of incorrectly interpreting or copying the source. If you spot any mistakes, send me an email and I’d be happy to correct them.
The reason for creating this discography is to test Brian, my database application for compiling discography. All data is entered using the Brian application and pages are generated by Brian exactly as they are seen on the site. In creating the software it is imperative to test and the only way to do that, in the end, is to use the product. After entering the data for testing purposes, it seemed pointless not to share it.
Please contact me if you have any questions or comments regarding Brian. More information regarding Brian can be found on the Brian page.
I wanted to keep each label separate on its own page, but I couldn’t do this for Capitol and Reprise since FS was busy singing for both labels simultaneously. Except for I Gotta Right To Sing The Blues, which was recorded on 6 March 1962 at the end of a Reprise session, the Capitol years ended on 12 September 1961. The Reprise years started on 19 December 1960. I decided to keep the Capitol years as one entity mixing in the Reprise dates that overlapped with Capitol. The only exception is I Gotta Right To Sing The Blues which I included in with the Reprise section. I’ve divided the Columbia years so that no one section should take too long to download. Click on a line below for the section you would like to see.
My thanks to Charles Carruthers, Nigel Burlinson and Taro Kimura for their contributions to this effort.
— Steve Albin
Preface from Richard Cook
Before going into the details of this update, as well as sources, I’d like to reiterate what Steve said about the project (albeit trimmed down), that none of this information has been researched by me: I’ve gathered it from a multitude of sources will be discussed below. That being said there is bound to be errors, taken from both sources and made by me, be it by miscopying or misinterpretation.
Feel free to email me any corrections, and please check out the list of releases/sessions needing verification. These are mainly releases which feature a song with multiple recordings, and I have yet to verify what version it is. If you can confirm/deny anything in that list, please do.
I’ll start by thanking Steve for giving me access to his wonderful sessionography and BRIAN application, and once again mention his sources: linear notes, Sinatra: The Man and His Music by Ed O’Brien, as well as Chuck Granata and Will Friedwald.
As for my first update, this features heavily on Reprise releases. My source for this information comes from the Sinatra Family site’s discography and forum. I’ve also used their discography to update the previous release entries, minus the singles and v-discs, which I haven’t been able to update as I’m having trouble accessing the site. Also, information on “Syms By Sinatra” and the electronic duets came from the forums.
I have also used some other artist discographies/sessionographies. These were:
- Tony Bennett — “Theme From New York, New York” duet releases
- Bing Crosby — Various releases and radio shows
- Sammy Davis, Jr. — Various releases and live shows (including “Rat Pack” shows)
- Judy Garland — Radio/TV and releases.
- Antonio Carlos Jobim and Claus Ogerman discographies — Includes infromation on some personnel and releases.
- Peggy Lee — A wonderfully detailed site, which I have started using for “The Man I Love” sessions. Will finish adding the releases for the next update.
- Barbra Steisand — For releases, including that of the “I’ve Got A Crush On You” duet.
- U2 — For releases of the Bono/Sinatra “I’ve Got You Under My Skin”
A resource I plan to use heavily in future updates is that of the Sinatraphiles message group on YahooGroups, which for this update have primarily been used for the session details of “Finian’s Rainbow” (the cancelled animated film).
Other sources used were Blue-Eyes.com [This site was once owned by well known Sintraphile Rick Apt, but the domain appears to be taken over by someone promoting porn. SA] for radio dates on “The Song Is You”, the Dorsey Sinatra boxset.
— Richard Cook
Other Notes…
Just for fun, I created a list of songs recorded by Frank Sinatra and Peggy Lee. The songs are sorted by title and date recorded with a FS or PL preceeding the song to indicate the performer. Please take this listing with a grain of salt. For a VERY accurate listing of Peggy Lee songs, see the Peggy Lee discography by Iván Santiago. The purpose of this list is too simply get a quick idea of the songs covered by both Frank Sinatra and Peggy Lee.