Everything about In The Wee Small Hours totally explained
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In the Wee Small Hours is an album by
Frank Sinatra with arrangements by
Nelson Riddle, released in 1955. It is with this album that Sinatra perfected the
concept album, fully realizing the ideas he'd been grappling with in record presentation going all the way back to
The Voice from 1946. It remains one of the most celebrated and enduring concept albums that Sinatra put out during the 1950s.
History
The album was his first full 12-inch
LP, and more importantly it contained a set of songs specifically recorded for the album, which hadn't always been true of his previous 10-inch records; further, albums at the time were generally randomly compiled collections of a performer's hits rather than deliberately sequenced and selected.
In the Wee Small Hours used only ballads, organized around a central mood of late-night isolation and aching lost love (supposedly due to his separation from
Ava Gardner). The sequence is triggered by the morose opening title track, which had just been written, and then is followed up by a selection of
pop standards. The
album cover, now considered a classic, directly reinforced the overall theme, featuring a pensive Sinatra set against the backdrop of a deserted and eerie night-time streetscape.
In 2003, the album was ranked number 100 on
Rolling Stone magazine's list of
the 500 greatest albums of all time. The album is also the first album reviewed in the book
1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die by Robert Dimery. In 2007,
Time Magazine selected it as one of
The All-TIME 100 Albums
Track listing
Side one
"In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning" (Bob Hilliard, David Mann) – 3:00
"Mood Indigo" (Barney Bigard, Duke Ellington, Irving Mills) – 3:30
"Glad to Be Unhappy" (Richard Rodgers, Lorenz Hart) – 2:35
"I Get Along Without You Very Well (Except Sometimes)" (Hoagy Carmichael, Jane Brown Thompson) – 3:42
"Deep in a Dream" (Eddie DeLange, Jimmy Van Heusen) – 2:49
"I See Your Face Before Me" (Howard Dietz, Arthur Schwartz) – 3:24
"Can't We Be Friends?" (Paul James, Kay Swift) – 2:48
"When Your Lover Has Gone" (Einar A. Swan) – 3:10
Side two
"What Is This Thing Called Love?" (Cole Porter) – 2:35
"Last Night When We Were Young" (Harold Arlen, Yip Harburg) – 3:17
"I'll Be Around" (Alec Wilder) – 2:59
"Ill Wind" (Arlen, Ted Koehler) – 3:46
"It Never Entered My Mind" (Rodgers, Hart) – 2:42
"Dancing on the Ceiling" (Rodgers, Hart) – 2:57
"I'll Never Be the Same" (Gus Kahn, Matty Malneck, Frank Signorelli) – 3:05
"This Love of Mine" (Sol Parker, Henry W. Sanicola, Jr., Frank Sinatra) – 3:33Further Information
Get more info on 'In The Wee Small Hours'.
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