The Best of the Columbia Years: 1943–1952

The Best Of The Columbia Years: 1943-1952
Box set by Frank Sinatra
Released October 31, 1995
Recorded 1943-1952
Genre Classic pop
Length 297:29
Label Legacy
Frank Sinatra chronology

The Very Best of Frank Sinatra
(1997)		 The Best Of The Columbia Years: 1943-1952
(1998)		 Frank Sinatra & the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra
(1998)
Professional ratings
Review scores
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Allmusic [1]

The Best Of The Columbia Years: 1943-1952 is a four-disc box set by the American singer Frank Sinatra, released on Legacy Records, in Book-Style Edition in 1995, catalogue C4K-64681 and later released in a Jewel Case Edition in 1998, catalogue C4K-65620. All but nine tracks were originally released on 78 rpm records, and as an overview of Sinatra's recordings on Columbia this set replaces the previous catalogue item The Voice: The Columbia Years (1943-1952), released in 1986 on vinyl and later also on compact disc. The box set contains the highlights of his career with Columbia Records; the complete recordings from these years were released in 1993 on The Columbia Years 1943-1952: The Complete Recordings. The album was the first one released after Sinatra's death.

Content

These recordings comprise the first phase of Sinatra's solo career, after his apprenticeship in the swing bands of Harry James and Tommy Dorsey, Sinatra having signed with Columbia on June 1, 1943. At that time, the Petrillo recording ban was on, and the first two tracks of the box reflect this situation, a cappella recordings of Frank with a backing vocal group. A second recording ban took place in 1948, and Sinatra again recorded with vocals only on the track "Nature Boy." The rest of the recordings featured instrumental backing with few exceptions arranged by Axel Stordahl, Sinatra's mainstay during the Columbia period. The bulk of the selections on this package date from the 1940s, with only the disc four covering the declining years of his career while on the label in the 1950s.

Beginning with disc four track five, Columbia simultaneously released these records as 45 rpm singles, the new format having been introduced by its rival RCA Records in 1949. Disc one tracks 19 through 21, and disc two tracks four through six, were issued as part of Sinatra's very first album, a package of four records entitled The Voice of Frank Sinatra, which peaked at #1 on the fledgling album chart. Disc four tracks six through nine were also included on the Columbia ten-inch album Sing and Dance with Frank Sinatra, catalogue CL-6143.

Disc two track 22, "Sweet Lorraine," features Sinatra with the 1946 Metronome All-Stars: Charlie Shavers, Lawrence Brown, Johnny Hodges, Coleman Hawkins, Harry Carney, Nat King Cole, Bob Ahern, Eddie Safranski, and Buddy Rich. Disc three track 2, "My Romance," is a duet with Dinah Shore, and disc three track 23, "Let's Take An Old-Fashioned Walk," is a duet with Doris Day.

Select personnel

Track listing

Disc One

  1. "Close to You" (Al Hoffman, Carl G. Lampl, Jerry Livingston) - 3:18
  2. "People Will Say We're in Love" (Oscar Hammerstein II, Richard Rodgers) - 3:20
  3. "If You Are But a Dream" (Moe Jaffe, Jack Fulton, Nat Bonx) - 3:04
  4. "Saturday Night (Is the Loneliest Night of the Week)" (Jule Styne, Sammy Cahn) - 2:43
  5. "White Christmas" (Irving Berlin) - 3:22
  6. "I Fall in Love Too Easily" (Styne, Cahn) - 3:13
  7. "Ol' Man River" (Hammerstein II, Jerome Kern) - 4:00
  8. "Stormy Weather" (Ted Koehler, Harold Arlen) - 4:13
  9. "Embraceable You" (George Gershwin, Ira Gershwin) - 3:16
  10. "(I Got a Woman Crazy for Me) She's Funny That Way" (Richard Whiting, Neil Moret) - 3:20
  11. "My Melancholy Baby" (Ernie Burnett, Maybelle Watson, George A. Norton) - 3:08
  12. "Where or When" (Lorenz Hart, Rodgers) - 3:13
  13. "All the Things You Are" (Hammerstein II, Kern) - 3:00
  14. "I Should Care" (Cahn, Paul Weston, Axel Stordahl) - 3:00
  15. "Dream" (Johnny Mercer) - 3:02
  16. "Put Your Dreams Away (For Another Day)" (Ruth Lowe, Paul Mann, Stephen Weiss) - 3:06
  17. "Over the Rainbow" (Yip Harburg, Arlen) - 3:16
  18. "If I Loved You" (Hammerstein II, Rodgers) - 3:04
  19. "Someone to Watch Over Me" (G. Gershwin, I. Gershwin) - 3:19
  20. "You Go to My Head" (J. Fred Coots, Haven Gillespie) - 2:59
  21. "These Foolish Things (Remind Me of You)" (Holt Marvell, Jack Strachey) - 3:07
  22. "The House I Live In" (Lewis Allan, Earl Robinson) - 3:18
  23. "Day By Day" (Cahn, Paul Weston, Stordahl) - 3:08

Disc Two

  1. "Nancy (With the Laughing Face)" (Phil Silvers, Jimmy Van Heusen) - 3:19
  2. "Full Moon and Empty Arms" (Buddy Kaye, Ted Mossman, Sergei Rachmaninoff) - 3:12
  3. "Oh, What It Seemed to Be" (Bennie Benjamin, George Weiss, Frankie Carle) - 2:59
  4. "I Don't Stand a Ghost of a Chance with You" (Bing Crosby, Ned Washington, Victor Young) - 3:11
  5. "Why Shouldn't I?" (Cole Porter) - 2:52
  6. "Try a Little Tenderness" (James Campbell, Reginald Connelly, Harry M. Woods) - 3:08
  7. "Begin the Beguine" (Porter) - 2:55
  8. "They Say It's Wonderful" (Berlin) - 3:04
  9. "That Old Black Magic" (Mercer, Arlen) - 2:32
  10. "How Deep Is the Ocean?" (Berlin) - 2:56
  11. "Home on the Range" (Brewster M. Higley, Daniel E. Kelley) - 3:11
  12. "Five Minutes More" (Styne, Cahn) - 2:35
  13. "The Things We Did Last Summer" (Styne, Cahn) - 3:15
  14. "Among My Souvenirs" (Edgar Leslie, Horatio Nicholls) - 3:15
  15. "September Song" (Maxwell Anderson, Kurt Weill) - 3:05
  16. "Blue Skies" (Berlin) - 2:28
  17. "Guess I'll Hang My Tears Out to Dry" (Styne, Cahn) - 3:23
  18. "Lost in the Stars" (Anderson, Weill) - 3:15
  19. "There's No Business Like Show Business" (Berlin) - 3:18
  20. "Time After Time" (Styne, Cahn) - 3:09
  21. "The Brooklyn Bridge" (Styne, Cahn) - 2:35
  22. "Sweet Lorraine" (Mitchell Parish, Cliff Burwell) - 3:08
  23. "Always" (Berlin) - 2:55
  24. "Mam'selle" (Mack Gordon, Edmund Goulding) - 3:19

Disc Three

  1. "Stella by Starlight" (Washington, Young) - 3:19
  2. "My Romance" (Hart, Rodgers) - 3:15
  3. "If I Had You" (Ted Shapiro, James Campbell, Reginald Connelly) - 3:06
  4. "One for My Baby (And One More for the Road)" (Mercer, Arlen) - 3:04
  5. "But Beautiful" (Johnny Burke, Van Heusen) - 3:12
  6. "You're My Girl" (Styne, Cahn) - 3:09
  7. "All of Me" (Gerald Marks, Seymour Simons) - 2:44
  8. "Night and Day" (Cole Porter) - 3:38
  9. "S'Posin" (Andy Razaf, Paul Denniker) - 2:45
  10. "The Night We Called It a Day" (Tom Adair, Matt Dennis) - 3:21
  11. "The Song Is You" (Hammerstein II, Kern) - 3:15
  12. "What'll I Do?" (Irving Berlin) - 3:05
  13. "The Music Stopped" (Jimmy McHugh, Harold Adamson) - 2:57
  14. "Fools Rush In (Where Angels Fear to Tread)" (Mercer, Rube Bloom) - 2:59
  15. "I've Got a Crush on You" (G. Gershwin, I. Gershwin) - 3:15
  16. "Body and Soul" (Johnny Green, Edward Heyman, Robert Sour, Frank Eyton) - 3:18
  17. "I'm Glad There Is You (Paul Madeira, Jimmy Dorsey) - 3:06
  18. "Autumn in New York" (Vernon Duke) - 3:15
  19. "Nature Boy" (Eden Ahbez) - 3:18
  20. "Once In Love with Amy" (Frank Loesser) - 3:00
  21. "Some Enchanted Evening" (Hammerstein II, Rodgers) - 3:07
  22. "The Hucklebuck" (Roy Alfred, Andy Gibson) - 3:00
  23. "Let's Take an Old-Fashioned Walk" (Berlin) - 2:59
  24. "It All Depends on You" (Buddy G. DeSylva, Lew Brown, Ray Henderson) - 2:43

Disc Four

  1. "Bye Bye Baby" (Styne, Leo Robin) - 2:38
  2. "Don't Cry, Joe (Let Her Go, Let Her Go, Let Her Go)" (Joe Marsala) - 3:18
  3. "That Lucky Old Sun" (Haven Gillespie, Beasley Smith) - 3:16
  4. "Chattanooga Shoe Shine Boy" (Harry Stone, Jack Stapp) - 2:37
  5. "American Beauty Rose" (Hal David, Arthur Altman, Redd Evans) - 2:34
  6. "Should I?" (Arthur Freed, Nacio Herb Brown) - 2:24
  7. "You Do Something to Me" (Porter) - 2:33
  8. "Lover" (Rodgers, Hart) - 2:39
  9. "When You're Smiling" (Mark Fisher, Joe Goodwin, Larry Shay) - 2:28
  10. "London By Night" (Carroll Coates) - 3:09
  11. "Meet Me at the Copa" (Cahn, Stordahl) - 3:11
  12. "April in Paris" (Yip Harburg, Duke) - 2:43
  13. "I Guess I'll Have to Dream the Rest" (Martin Block, Bud Green, Mickey Stoner) - 2:42
  14. "Nevertheless (I'm in Love with You)" (Bert Kalmar, Harry Ruby) - 3:08
  15. "I Am Loved" (Porter) - 2:25
  16. "Hello, Young Lovers" (Rodgers, Hammerstein II) - 3:32
  17. "We Kiss in a Shadow" (Rodgers, Hammerstein II) - 3:35
  18. "I'm a Fool to Want You" (Joel Herron, Frank Sinatra, Jack Wolf) - 2:55
  19. "Love Me" (Washington, Victor Young) - 3:09
  20. "Deep Night" (Rudy Vallee, Charlie Henderson) - 3:16
  21. "I Could Write a Book" (Rodgers, Hart) - 2:42
  22. "I Hear a Rhapsody" (George Fragos, Jack Baker, Dick Gasparre, Richard Bard) - 3:04
  23. "My Girl" (Charles Freed) - 2:24
  24. "The Birth of the Blues" (Buddy G. DeSylva, Lew Brown, Henderson) - 3:28
  25. "Azure-Te (Paris Blues)" William Davis, Donald Wolf) - 2:33
  26. "Why Try to Change Me Now" (Cy Coleman, Joseph A. McCarthy) - 2:47

References

  1. ↑ The Best of the Columbia Years: 1943–1952 at AllMusic