7 The 100 Most Influential Musicians of All Time 7The Capitol Years
In 1953 Sinatra’s musical style took a dramatic turn. He
signed with Capitol Records and, throughout the next
nine years, issued a series of recordings widely regarded
as his finest body of work. He is often credited with
inventing the “concept album”—a collection of songs built
around a single theme or mood. His new approach also
demanded new arrangements. The in-house arrangers at
Capitol were among the best, and with them he produced
outstanding up-tempo albums such as Come Fly with Me
(1958) and Come Dance with Me! (1959), as well as more-
melancholy works such as Where Are You? (1957) and No
One Cares (1959).
Although Sinatra worked with many extraordinary
arrangers, it was Nelson Riddle who, in Sinatra’s words,
was “the greatest arranger in the world,” and critics
agreed. Riddle employed everything from quartets to
50-piece orchestras for ballad arrangements that were
often characterized by a dominant solo instrument (par-
ticularly a mournful trombone). For swing tunes, Riddle
developed his trademark “heartbeat rhythm,” a steady,
driving beat, meant to emulate “the pulse rate of the
human heart after a brisk walk,” in Riddle’s words. Virtually
all of the albums the Sinatra-Riddle team made for
Capitol—including In the Wee Small Hours (1955), Songs for
Swingin’ Lovers! (1956), and Only the Lonely (1958)—are
masterpieces.
Despite the importance of the Capitol arrangers in
determining Sinatra’s new sound, the resulting albums
were still very much dominated by the singer himself.
Sinatra’s voice had deepened and grown in power, and his
failed marriage to Gardner had infused his ballad singing
with a heretofore unseen emotional urgency. He attacked
swing numbers with abandon and displayed his jazz