All the Way Cover Art

Jim Jonson’s Signature

Typesetting and fine print aside, the front cover has remained largely the same, but some versions show Jim Jonson’s signature in the lower right corner, while some do not (see detail at right); some versions have a cream-color background; some are more purely white.

Original release - with signature, darker, creamy background

Some reissues - no signature, nearly-white background

In Japan in the 1970s, Frank was oddly re-angled for some reason.  See animation at left.

Rear Cover Art

The dominant feature of the back cover is a black-and-white photo of Sinatra in the studio, taken the same day as the front cover photos for both Look to Your Heart and Sinatra Sings...of Love and Things, a shot taken during the recording session of September 30, 1958, with Billy May conducting.  There were at least three variations:

•Upper Left: Original stereo version, with studio background visible, and text hard to read (stereo editions included “....first time in stereo!”

•Upper Right: Microphone stickers tidied up (see far left); background grayed out, making text easier to read (but cropped to avoid the in stereo text, despite being a stereo release), from 1976 LP

•Left: Bottom text removed entirely, c. 1980 LP

All the Way missed being plagued by Capitol’s Duophonic electronic “fake stereo” by about ten weeks.  Capitol announced the new process in late May, 1961, while All the Way was issued in mid-March.  However, the stereo edition of the LP did contain two monophonic recordings at a time when mono and stereo recordings were never mixed.  Capitol’s solution was to do some simple filtering on either channel, i.e., most of the high frequencies on one side, lows on the other, a process described on the jacket as “recorded in enhanced monophonic sound,” and it did have one distinct advantage over Duophonic sound in that if your playback equipment had a mono selector, the left and right filtered tracks would blend nicely into mono, unlike later Duophonic tracks, which did not sum (or “fold down”) well at all. It appears that Capitol initially played down the mono-recorded tracks on the front cover, but quickly added a sticker indicating that two songs were not in true stereo, and finally making a customized addition to the FULL DIMENSIONAL STEREO banner to clarify shame of including two of those pesky mono tracks on a “stereo” disk.  Here are some photos of the evolution of the stereo LP’s front cover

Version three: Note the fine print about “All the Way” and “Witchcraft” as part of the stereo banner.  (Note, also, the lighter background color, nearly white.)

Version two: Note the sticker added to the front cover.

Version one: No mention of the mono/stereo situation.

It appears that, at times, Capitol got a little carried away with the application of the stickers.


Left: a “version 3” cover that also has the sticker.


Right: A mono jacket that includes the sticker.