If you want the things you love, you must have showers

Continuing my trip back through the 1963 album charts.

28/07/63 : Sinatra-Basie/Frank Sinatra & Count Basie

The writing was on the wall and it finally happened - I had to skip over not one, but two weeks because we'd already covered everything in the charts. The Beatles were, of course, #1 for both weeks and the only other fact of "interest" is that George Mitchell and his minstrels are still hanging around the lower reaches of the chart, nearly THREE YEARS after it was originally released.

And so we have to thank Frank for chucking out so many albums that we at least have something to listen to - this is our sixteenth visit with the man, bringing him to second equal in our all-time list along with The Rolling Stones. It's possible that the influence of Mr Basie will result in something new here, but somehow I doubt it...

It would be incorrect to describe this as something new, but it's certainly on the better half of the swinging side of Sinatra - its not quite as forcibly upbeat as some of his stuff can be, with "Nice Work If You Can Get It" being one of his top tracks (although we have already met it on A Swingin' Affair). Overall, he's not breaking the mould here but I'd say this is a pretty decent collection. I also have to call out the amusingly forced rhyme on "I Won't Dance" - "Heaven rest us, I'm not asbestos" (which amusingly I chose as the blog title for the A Swingin' Affair post nearly three years ago)

We're at #19 in the charts this week on a single week week back, but it had had a previous 22 week run where it peaked at #2 for three weeks. The top five this week were The Beatles, The Shadows, the Cliff best-of, Elvis Presley and a Buddy Holly posthumous compilation and the highest new entry was the Pickwick soundtrack (#20).

Wikipedia doesn't even bother trying to work out what number album this was for Frank because there had just been so many by this time (and I'm certainly not going to try working it out either). It was the first time that Frank and The Count Basie Orchestra had recorded together - they did so again on a studio album in '64 (which was orchestrated by Quincy Jones) and Frank's first live album in '66. Looking at Count's entry (because I know absolutely nothing about him) I see he was born in '04, he worked in Harlem in the '20s (which must have been quite the time to be alive) and he formed his orchestra in '36 and lead it up until his death in '85 - and during that time he worked with pretty much EVERYBODY! Back to the album, then critically, we've obviously got something special on our hands because New Record Mirror gave it FIVE stars and it got to #16 in the US.

discogs.com tells us that you can pick up an original copy for as little as £2 - for some reason all the expensive options are reissued versions, with the most expensive being a promotional copy from '80 for £77.21. I didn't need this in my life in the slightest, but it was also considerably more enjoyable than I was expecting.

18/08/63 - Enjoyable and educational