All the world’s great arrangers---most of whom got to work with Frank Sinatra (the rest wish they had)---are (or were) American. With one exception: Canadian-born Robert Farnon. At last report, Bob was still alive and well, and living at “La Falaise” on the Channel Island of Guernsey (a letter with only that address can reach him). Now 85, he still makes the occasional foray into London to do what he’s always done best.Andre Previn, told the late, great lyricist Johnny Mercer that “Robert Farnon is the greatest living string arranger in the world.” The great ones who admit to Farnon’s influence have included Nelson Riddle, Don Costa, Quincy Jones, Neil Hefti, Torrie Zito and Johnny Mandel (just to name the best who worked with Frank Sinatra), plus, (among those who didn’t, but wished they had) Henry Mancini, Roger Kellaway, and John (“Star Wars”) Williams. Great popular singers who share that opinion, include Sarah Vaughn and Tony Bennett. The list of musicians who feel the same way is too long, but start with pianists Herbie Hancock, Oscar Peterson and George Shearing. Sinatra’s voice on “Great Songs from Great Britain” may be functioning at only 80 per cent (my estimate) but it’s still better than on some of his some later recordings, and no worse than on his roughest days at Capitol in the 50s. Listen again to the Billy May “Come Fly With Me” CD and the lone Nelson Riddle arranged song Cole Porter’s “I Love Paris. ”Sure, it’s “rough” (was Frank up all night?) but still, you love it, right? Same with this CD: Precisely because he’s the greatest interpreter of popular song, Sinatra makes adjustments to his delivery, transforming weaknesses into strengths before your very ears. Fascinating! So why wasn’t this album released in America prior to year 2000? Having read all speculations here and elsewhere, I think the critics are simply uninformed. Because the singer has left true fans some ‘between-the-lines’ clues to how much he loved these recordings. Let’s begin with the speculation that Sinatra had ‘second thoughts’ about what his American fans might make of the material----obscure, almost quaint, English songs, some dating to the First World War, which have Sinatra “gathering lilacs” or keeping a stiff upper lip “until we meet again” i.e. songs that might not survive a trans-Atlantic crossing, let alone achieve posterity. Well that ignores some important facts: Sinatra selected all these songs himself, in advance of his world tour (30 stops, the last in London, in aid of children’s charities). Don Costa---Farnon’s biggest booster in America (and the most heavily-influenced of his protégés) invested a lot of time, as Sinatra’s ‘middle man,’ cabling between LA and Farnon’s island home, to ensure this recording ‘happened.’ (In the end, Costa couldn’t be there; but Nelson Riddle made it to one session at London’s “CTS Bayswater” studios). The singer’s only objection was uttered as he sipped some “JD” and listened to the playback of “Roses of Picardy” (now considered by some critics to be the loveliest ‘rose’ of the bunch). Sinatra said: “Scrub ‘Roses of Picardy’---I don’t like it” (meaning, he didn’t feel he’d done it justice). So “Roses” was not included on the original LP, released only in Britain).
The suggestion that Sinatra was in any way “embarrassed” by these recordings, is belied by his personal selection of “If I Had You” for inclusion among his 19, all-time favorite recordings, preserved on the 1996 compilation “Everything Happens to Me” (please see my review for that one). The singer himself approved the inclusion of two others, “Garden in the Rain” and “A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square” for the 4-CD Reprise box set. And the latest Sinatra compilations (“Romance” and “Love Songs”) include this version of Ray Noble’s classic, “The Very Thought of You.” Enjoy great liner notes? There’s none better written for any Sinatra release: You get literate musician Benny Green’s original, 1962 notes, plus American James Isaacs’ superb, 1992 supplements, closing with thoughts about Sinatra’s achievement on “If I Had You.” “If Sinatra’s wistful, daydreamy first (take) in 1947 was truly in the subjunctive (IF I had you,) and if his cocky medium-bounce Riddle-arranged ’56 take might be dubbed “I can have you,” then this rendering, with its brandy-by-the-fireside feel and older-but-wiser protagonist, is more like “If I’d HAD you.” Notwithstanding a lyric that’s far more Tin Pan Alley than Tintern Abbey, Sinatra’s (and Farnon’s) conception is, to borrow from Wordsworth, “emotion recollected in tranquility.” |
