Sinatra Sings...of Love and Things is Capitol’s fifth compilation of Sinatra singles, recorded May 20, 1957 (the same day as the first selection on the All the Way album) through March 6, 1962, the session that finally completed Sinatra’s contractual obligation to Capitol. The album was released in mono and stereo on July 2, 1962, a month prior to the Reprise album, Sinatra and Swingin’ Brass.
Frankly, this album could have been titled All the Way, Volume Two, as many of these late Capitol-era singles sessions (5/20/57, 8/13/57, 9/11/58, 12/29/58, 5/8/59, 4/13/60, and 9/1/60) split their songs’ LP releases between All the Way and this album. That being the case, we have some very clear technical similarities: Two songs were recorded “mono only” in 1957, but while All the Way converted the mono songs to “enhanced monophonic” sound (which collapses well for true mono playback), ....of Love and Things was released just after the advent of Capitol’s Duophonic process, so the two mono recordings here are in Duophonic sound, which does not collapse well to mono; additionally, one stereo-era song was recorded when Capitol was running separate mic arrays and tape formats for mono and stereo, causing a unique sonic problem that will be discussed farther down the page; nine were recorded after Capitol had switched to full-time recording on 3-track tape for both stereo and mono use. At least three of the tracks were released originally on 78 RPM disks in North America, at the tail-end of Capitol’s involvement with that format, and one track also appeared on
Disclaimer: This is clearly a way to calculate “rough” qualitative number for each releases as a whole. It’s not perfect, but serves to give some idea of how one release compares to another.
Reminder: This is a 1 to 5 scale. If a collection of these sixteen songs had the best version of each song on it, it would score a 5. Here is how each of the releases scored, on that 1 to 5 scale:
Well, good luck with that. Not much else to say, but “it’s a total mess on all fronts.” Why such inconsistency? It’s a similar situation to All the Way: Some tracks have great mono mixes; some tracks have poorly done mono mixes. Some tracks were mixed well for stereo in 1962; some had poor stereo mixes made in 1962; one song was remixed for mono from the wrong source tapes; some had great CD-era remixes that appear on other compilations; some did not; one song was recorded at UNITED; and most “stereo” releases contain fake stereo tracks, which dropped their numerical score, of course.
Looking for the “top choices” for individual tracks? See these links, which include audio clips:
May 20, 1957 - Something Wonderful Happens in Summer (mono-only session)
August 13, 1957 - Witchcraft (mono-only session)
September 11, 1958 - Mr. Success (separate mono and stereo recording setups)
December 29, 1958 - The Moon was Yellow; They Came to Cordura
May 8, 1959 - Love Looks So Well On You
March 2, 1960 - The Nearness of You
April 13, 1960 - I Love Paris
August 31, 1960 - Hidden Persuasion
September 1, 1960 - Sentimental Baby
March 6, 1962 - I Gotta Right to Sing the Blues
the highly unusual (for the time) Stereo EP format. While all of the songs on All the Way were released as 45 RPM singles prior to LP release, four songs, (The Nearness of You, I Love Paris, Hidden Persuasion, and I Gotta Right to Sing the Blues) had their debut releases on this LP.
Release History
The mono LP was generally available from 1962 to about 1968 (including a UK World Record Club edition with alternate artwork), and was reissued by EMI in Holland in 1984. The mono LP version has never had an official digital release.
The stereo LP was also generally available from about 1961-1968, then returned to print in the USA on the Capitol label from 1980 through roughly the time that CDs entered the picture, but in abridged form, deleting “Mr. Success” and “I Gotta Right to Sing the Blues,” while leaving the two Duophonic tracks in the lineup. A full-length “audiophile” (with two Duophonic tracks) reissue in the 16-LP boxed set from Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab followed in 1983, and another full-length release appeared in the UK as part of the “Alan Dell” LP series, still with two songs in artificial stereo. Ten years later, in 1998, EMI in the UK included the complete album within their 21-CD The Capitol Years boxed set, with the two mono tracks in (heavily compressed) mono -- a first for the album.
Technical Problems with “Mr. Success”
Mr. Success is one of a small number of singles recorded during Capitol’s “double system” era for recording selections in stereo, i.e, the stereo recording was made with only three (widely spaced) microphones, while the mono recording was made with about ten microphones and mixed “live to mono” during the session. In the case of Mr. Success, there is a problem that affects virtually all reissues of the song, including BOTH the mono and stereo editions of the LP at hand. There is a Harmon-muted trumpet solo on this song that is properly miked ONLY on that original, multi-mic, live-cut-at-the-session mono mix. On the 3-track stereo tapes, the solo is not miked, so is essentially absent from the recording. Erroneously, the mono LP tapes for the Of Love and Things album were newly mixed from the 3-track tapes, but for Mr. Success the producers should have used the available live-to-mono tapes. The CORRECT mono mix has only appeared one time on LP, on the 1982 Japan-only release, The Hit Maker, and it has never appeared in digital format of any kind.
What’s the Best-Sounding Full-Length Release?
Multiple masterings of each track have been compared elsewhere on this website. (See links farther down the page, with audio clips from multiple masterings at those links.) These comparisons include not only the assorted “Sinatra Sings...of Love and Things” album releases, but also (in many cases) the original single release, and instances where individual tracks from this compilation album have appeared on other compilations. As I’ve done with the previous four compilation releases, I’ve gone through and tallied the ratings for each mastering of each track as follows:
•1984 Dutch DMM Mono LP: 3.08 (5 of 12 cuts scored in the “top choice” category; also 5 “avoid” tracks)
•1984 UK LP (2 fake stereo, 10 original-mix stereo tracks): 2.83 (1 of 12 cuts scored in the “top choice” category; also 3 “avoid” tracks)
•1983 MFSL LP (2 fake stereo, 10 original-mix stereo tracks): 2.78 (3 “avoid” tracks)
•1998 UK CD (2 mono, 10 original-mix stereo tracks): 2.63 (1 of 12 cuts scored in the “top choice” category; also 3 “avoid” tracks)
•Early “Stereo” LP (2 fake stereo, 10 original-mix stereo tracks): 2.16 (3 “avoid” tracks)
•Early Mono LP: 2.00 (6 “avoid” tracks)
At right: UK 1968 World Record Club alternate cover art.
