Come Fly with Me (Frank Sinatra album)

Come Fly with Me
Studio album by Frank Sinatra
Released 1958 (1958)
Recorded October 1, 3, 8, 1957, Capitol Studio A, Hollywood, Los Angeles, California
Genre Vocal Jazz, Traditional pop music
Length 46:08
Label Capitol
Producer Voyle Gilmore
Frank Sinatra chronology
A Jolly Christmas From Frank Sinatra
(1957)
Come Fly with Me
(1958)
This Is Sinatra Volume 2
(1958)

Come Fly with Me is an album by American singer Frank Sinatra, released in 1958.[1]

Sinatra's first collaboration with arranger/conductor Billy May, Come Fly With Me was designed as a musical trip around the world. Sammy Cahn and Jimmy Van Heusen wrote the title track at Sinatra's request.[2]

In his autobiography All You Need is Ears, famed producer George Martin writes of having visited the Capitol Tower during the recording sessions for the album. According to Martin's book, Sinatra expressed intense dislike for the album cover upon being first shown a mock-up by producer Voyle Gilmore, suggesting it looked like an advertisement for TWA.[3]

The album reached #1 on the Billboard album chart in its second week, and remained at the top for five weeks.[4] At the inaugural Grammy Awards Come Fly with Me was nominated for the Grammy Award for Album of the Year.

Though recorded in true stereo, "Come Fly With Me" was released to record stores in 1958 in monaural only; a standard practice by Capitol records at the time. The label finally released the stereo version in 1962. The differences between the 1958 monaural and subsequent 1962 stereo recording of "Come Fly With Me" are striking. Some view the 1958 mono recording as having a depth and warmth, most especially in specific string and brass sections, which is lacking in the stereo remix of the album released by Capitol as SW-920 in 1962. While all Capitol CDs reproduce only the 1962 stereo version, the newly released (November, 2009) 180 gram LP reissue from Capitol, although bearing the cover, sleeve, label, and catalog number (SW-920) of the stereo issue, is, in fact, a re-issue of the original mono mix, now available (perhaps by error on the part of Capitol Records, LLC) for the first time in over 40 years. (In December 2009, the recent LP release was officially recalled by Capitol Records, citing the fact it was a mono LP packaged in the stereo sleeve.[5])

Contents

Track listing

Professional ratings
Review scores
Source Rating
Allmusic [6]
  1. "Come Fly With Me" (Sammy Cahn, Jimmy Van Heusen) – 3:19
  2. "Around the World" (Victor Young, Harold Adamson) – 3:20
  3. "Isle of Capri" (Will Grosz, Jimmy Kennedy) – 2:29
  4. "Moonlight in Vermont" (Karl Suessdorf, John Blackburn) – 3:32
  5. "Autumn in New York" (Vernon Duke) – 4:37
  6. "On the Road to Mandalay" (Oley Speaks, Rudyard Kipling) – 3:28
  7. "Let's Get Away from It All" (Matt Dennis, Tom Adair) – 2:11
  8. "April in Paris" (Duke, E.Y. Harburg) – 2:50
  9. "London By Night" (Carroll Coates) – 3:30
  10. "Aquarela do Brasil" (Ary Barroso, Bob Russell) – 2:55
  11. "Blue Hawaii" (Leo Robin, Ralph Rainger) – 2:44
  12. "It's Nice to go Trav'ling" (Cahn, Van Heusen) – 3:52
    Cd reissue bonus tracks not included on the original 1958 release:
  13. "Chicago" (Fred Fisher) – 2:14
  14. "South of the Border" (Jimmy Kennedy, Michael Carr) – 2:50
  15. "I Love Paris" (Cole Porter) – 1:49

Personnel

On the Road to Mandalay

"On the Road to Mandalay", based on Rudyard Kipling's poem Mandalay was replaced on some versions of the album after the Kipling family objected to Sinatra's interpretation. When the album was initially released in the United Kingdom, the song "French Foreign Legion" replaced "Mandalay", while the song "Chicago" (and "It Happened in Monterey" on some pressings) were used in other parts of the British Commonwealth. Sinatra sang the song in Australia, during a concert tour in 1959, and relayed the story of the Kipling family objection to the song and how the Australian release of Come Fly with Me came to contain "Chicago".

References