Sinatra Sang Bacharach—But Only Twice

The recording career of Frank Sinatra was, of course, incredibly varied. As he supposedly said, “I’ve sung every G-d song ever written.” However, there are a few significant holes in that output. At the height of his career in the 1940s and ’50s, Sinatra can be credited with singing nearly every major song by such canonical composers of the Great American Songbook as Irving Berlin, George Gershwin, and Cole Porter. As musical fashions evolved in the 1960s, he tried to stay current and generally succeeded, although there were a few nice things that he missed. He sang only three songs by Stephen Sondheim and only two by the Beatles. Likewise, he deliberately sidestepped the successful joint song catalog of Anthony Newley and Leslie Bricusse, who supplied so many hits in the 1960s for Sammy Davis, Jr. As Newley told me, “When Frank saw that his buddy was having so much success with our songs, he didn’t want to get in the way of that.”As it happened, Sinatra recorded only two songs by Burt Bacharach. The first is quite famous, appearing on one of Sinatra’s most celebrated albums of the 1960s, his second studio album with Count Basie. Where the first Sinatra / Basie collaboration (1962) was something more like Sinatra coming over to Basie’s world, the second, “It Might as Well Be Swing” (1964), was more akin to a pop album with Sinatra and Basie meeting in a neutral middle ground. Quincy Jones, who had already worked with both Sinatra and especially the Basie organization, served as middleman and facilitator.I always thought that “It Might as Well Be Swing” could have been subtitled ‘Other People’s Money,’ since the album consisted mainly of songs that had already been hits for other male singers, such as Tony Bennett’s “I Wanna Be Around” and “The Good Life,” and Louis Armstrong’s “Hello, Dolly!” Importantly, one of the few tracks that was not associated with another marquee-name male pop star was the opener, “Fly Me to the Moon” (previously known as “In Other Words”), which subsequently became one of the most iconic of all Sinatra songs, one that thousands of singers of all sexes (from Maine to Texas) would sing in his honor.‘It Might as Well Be Swing’ by Frank Sinatra, accompanied by Count Basie, featuring’ Wives and Lovers,’ 1964.“Wives and Lovers” was a breakthrough for its composers, Bacharach and Hal David, as well as the 25-year-old baritone Jack Jones. Burt and Hal had written movie songs before, but this became a substantial hit and won Jones a Grammy for Best Vocal Performance, Male. Ironically, although “Wives and Lovers” was written as a promotional song (or an “exploitation song,” as they said at the time) for the 1963 movie comedy of that title, it wasn’t actually heard anywhere in the film. “Wives and Lovers” was perhaps the first Bacharach song to catch on widely with the established generation of jazz and jazz-adjacent popular singers, like Lena Horne, Nancy Wilson, Andy Williams, Vic Damone, Wayne Newton, Ed Ames, Julie London, and, most impressively, Ella Fitzgerald.At 58, Sinatra sounds considerably more mature in “Wives and Lovers,” and more explicit as well as specific, than Jack, who was young enough to be his son. Jones sounds like a young bridegroom; there’s a certain innocence to Jack’s performance, as salacious as it is. By contrast, Sinatra sounds like a jaded but still eager roué, someone who has known many lovers and wives (often those of other men) in his lifetime. In Sinatra’s hands, the lyrics are sexy, although admittedly the attitudes therein have not aged well. (The contemporary Cécile McLorin Salvant makes a point of singing these lyrics as written, with outdated attitudes intact.)“Wives and Lovers” was also one of the hugely successful songs written in a fast and swinging 3/4 time signature, what was already being called a jazz waltz. Famously, Sinatra and Quincy Jones set their version in 4/4, which is the way that the Count Basie Orchestra played practically everything. The story goes that when Bacharach heard the Sinatra version, he was curious enough to call Quincy Jones, who was already a close friend. Q explained that under no circumstances was the Basie band ever going to play a waltz, swinging or not. (And five years later, Tony Bennett did a concert with Basie for BBC TV, in which he sang another famous Bacharach waltz, “What the World Needs Now Is Love” in a swinging four.)“(They Long to Be) Close to You” by Bacharach and David is not to be confused with “Close to You” by Al Hoffman, Jerry Livingston & Carl Lampl, which Sinatra had recorded as a single in 1943 and then again in 1956 as the title track of one of his most under-appreciated albums, released in 1957. Bacharach and David initially gave their “Close to You” to actor Richard Chamberlain, who had a brief career as a pop star, in 1963. It finally became a hit when Herb Alpert encouraged Richard and Karen Carpenter to record it seven years later. Richard Carpenter did the arrangement himself; to me, it sounds kind of like “Bacharach lite,” a soft-rock / pop chart without the jazz or classical elements, interesting harmonies, or goofy mixed-meter rhythms of so many Bacharach creations. Still, between Richard’s astute arrangement, with a very compelling choral part, and Karen’s magical honey-tinged vocal, “(They Long to Be) Close to You” was an unexpected and massive hit for Bacharach and David in 1970.To me, it’s a mystery why Sinatra picked this particular Bacharach-David song. You might think that he would prefer something either faster and potentially more swinging, like “My Little Red Book,” or something more torchy and profoundly sad, like “A House Is Not a Home.” “(They Long to Be) Close to You” almost seems more like something Nat King Cole would have done on one of his two albums of optimistic but slow-tempo love songs with Gordon Jenkins. Don Costa, who arranged the song for Sinatra, was, like Bacharach and David, a veteran of the Brill Building experience.Composer Burt Bacharach plays the piano in 1969 while his wife actress Angie Dickinson, who starred with Sinatra in ‘Oceans Eleven,’ 1960, is in the background. Bettmann via Getty Images.The Sinatra / Costa recording, taped in October 1970, and released on the oddball pick-up album “Sinatra & Company,” is actually quite exquisite in its pleasantness. This is a lighter, more sunshine-y Sinatra, the kind of thing we might associate more with Nancy (who recorded a number of Bacharach songs) than Frank. To me, it has a kind of Willy Wonka vibe, Sinatra strolling through a world of pure imagination.Sinatra did record three additional non-Bacharach songs with lyrics by Hal David: “American Beauty Rose,” from 1950 & 1961; “Remember Me in Your Dreams,” 1950; and ‘To Love a Child,” 1981. But disappointingly, that’s all there is in terms of Sinatra and Bacharach; it’s long been rumored that Sinatra would have liked to have recorded a full-length collaboration with the composer, much as he did with Antonio Carlos Jobim and Rod McKuen. But, alas, like many of his proposed later career projects, it never happened.Burt himself set the record straight in his own memoir, “Anyone Who Had a Heart.” Sinatra approached him about such a project during rehearsals for “Promises, Promises” in 1968. Sinatra proposed that Bacharach write all the songs and arrangements for a whole new album, much as Bob Gaudio and Jake Holmes would supply the songs for “Watertown” and McKuen for “A Man Alone.” One can only imagine what classic songs would have been generated by such a collaboration. Burt was crazy about the idea, but when he explained that he was in rehearsals and would then be taking “Promises” on the road, Sinatra cut him off: “Forget it, man. Just forget it.” More’s the pity.

Sinatra Sang Bacharach—But Only Twice

Sinatra Sang Bacharach—But Only Twice

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