You saw me standing alone there

Continuing my trip back through the 1961 album charts.

15/10/61 : Sinatra's Swingin' Sessions!!! - Frank Sinatra

I'll be amazed if this doesn't deliver exactly what it says on the tin.  But before we get there, we need to talk about an album I had to miss out - Billy Fury's Halfway To Paradise is at #5 which would totally have got a listen if I could have found it anywhere (there's not even a rubbish version on YouTube).  I can only assume there's some kind of rights dispute because everyone only has best-ofs out there - sorry Billy!  So we have to make do with yet more Frank.

Yup - Ol' Blue Eyes is doing what he does best on this.  For me, this is way better than our previous visit, possibly because of the more familiar tracks on it including "When You're Smiling", "Blue Moon", "It's Only A Paper Moon" and "You Do Something To Me".  As with the previous visit, it's all versions of old standards but there's just a bit more life to these ones and they all passed by very pleasurably.

We're at #6 in the chart this week on his fifth and final week on a run which saw the album climb most weeks - quite why it disappeared at this point is not at all clear.  The top five this week were George, The Shadows, The Sound Of Music, Oliver! and Billy Fury and there were FOUR new entries in the chart this week - George (#12), Buddy (#17), Cliff (#18) and Peggy Lee (#20), who has the honour of being the second woman to be named in the chart this year.  I also have to point out that the chart still has albums by both Frank and Elvis that we have yet to meet - so I'm sure it won't be long before we see them yet again!

Wikipedia tells us this is his nineteenth album and that it was arranged by Nelson Riddle who we've previously met on a couple of Sinatra albums.  Apparently half the tracks on the album were re-recorded from his sixth album, Sing And Dance With Frank Sinatra, which was released in 1950 (and, unsurprisingly, on a different record label) - and that's your lot for useless information!

"Customers also listened to" other Frank albums - there are a few to pick from, after all.  I think this is one of the better ones though - they're mostly perfectly listenable but this one just had a bit more zip to it than most.

08/10/61 - A surprisingly successful first
22/10/61 - A fine best-of

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