Frank Sinatra Sings for Only the Lonely is an album by Frank Sinatra. The album consists of a collection of torch songs, following a formula similar to Sinatra's previous albums In the Wee Small Hours and Where Are You?. According to John Rockwell's book, Sinatra: An American Classic, when asked at a party in the mid-1970s if he had a favorite album among his recordings, without hesitation, Sinatra chose Only the Lonely. The album's front cover was painted by Nicholas Volpe, who won a Grammy Award for the painting. The painting features Sinatra as a sullen, Pagliacci-like clown. Sketched on the album's back cover is one of Sinatra's recurrent visual motifs: a lamppost.
Background
Sinatra had planned to record the album with arranger Gordon Jenkins, with whom he had worked on Where Are You?. Since Jenkins was unavailable at the time, Sinatra chose to work with his frequent collaborator, Nelson Riddle. The three tracks conducted by Riddle at the would-be first session were not used, and the subsequent May 29 session was conducted by Felix Slatkin, uncredited, after Riddle went on a pre-arranged tour with Nat King Cole. At the time of the recording, Sinatra's divorce from Ava Gardner had been finalized, and Nelson Riddle had recently suffered the deaths of his mother and daughter. Of these events, Riddle remarked: "If I can attach events like that to music...perhaps Only the Lonely was the result."
Mono and Stereo Version Differences
Frank Sinatra Sings for Only the Lonely was recorded during the time when mass-produced stereo musical recordings were just entering the marketplace. The album was Sinatra's third full-length album to be recorded in both mono and stereo versions, after Where Are You? and Come Fly with Me. According to audio engineerSteve Hoffman, who produced a number of reissues of Capitol Records albums originally recorded in the 1950s, Capitol was during this time continuing to record sessions in mono using their by-then standard microphone placement techniques, and making separate recordings of the session on a 3-track tape recorder using two or three microphones. This method of recording soon gave way to a method where the same set of microphones was used to record sessions to a single multi-track tape, which then served as the source for both mono and stereo mixes. Capitol's 3-track session tapes were used as the source for the original stereo album release and for subsequent stereo reissues. Differences in the number of microphones and their proximity to the orchestra's instruments contributed to some of the differences in the sound of the mono and stereo versions. "or me, the mono version kills the stereo mix," Hoffman wrote of the two versions of the album. Frank Sinatra Sings for Only the Lonely was the final Sinatra Capitol album to be recorded using separate equipment for the mono and stereo versions. The original mono album had 12 tracks, while the original stereo version had only 10 tracks. The original stereo version did not include "It’s a Lonesome Old Town" and "Spring is Here", though subsequent stereo reissues of the album used all 12 original tracks.
Reception
In 2000 it was voted number 125 in Colin Larkin's All Time Top 1000 Albums. Q Magazine placed Only the Lonely at #1 on the "15 Greatest Stoner Albums of All Time". The album also peaked at #1 on Billboard′s pop album chart during a 120-week chart-run, and was certified Gold on June 21, 1962, nearly four years after its release. As noted by biographer Peter J. Levinson, "Nelson chose several instrumental soloists to communicate the essence of the music on the album. Harry Edison showed the somber side of his playing on 'Willow Weep for Me.' The late, great trombonist, Ray Sims, the unsung soloist with Les Brown and Harry James and brother of jazz tenor saxophonist stalwart 'Zoot' Sims, delivered the finest recording work of his long career with a brace of meaningful solos. Bill Miller contributed several beautifully conceived piano solos."
