Styles: Vocal
Year: 2013
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 62:57
Size: 144,9 MB
Art: Front
(3:36) 1. As Time Goes By
(2:55) 2. When I Look in Your Eyes
(4:54) 3. Holly Holy
(3:16) 4. I'll Build a Stairway to Paradise
(2:21) 5. Cockeyed Optimist (Guitar Version)
(2:54) 6. I Can See Clearly Now
(3:50) 7. Killing Me Softly with His Song
(8:31) 8. Play Me
(3:11) 9. Something
(5:53) 10. MacArthur Park
(8:06) 11. The Hungry Years
(2:58) 12. Cockeyed Optimist (Orchestra Version)
(2:54) 13. Why Did I Choose You?
(4:20) 14. I Don't Know How to Love Him
(3:11) 15. We Need a Little Christmas
Shifting Gears
Year: 2013
File: MP3@320K/s
Time: 62:57
Size: 144,9 MB
Art: Front
(3:36) 1. As Time Goes By
(2:55) 2. When I Look in Your Eyes
(4:54) 3. Holly Holy
(3:16) 4. I'll Build a Stairway to Paradise
(2:21) 5. Cockeyed Optimist (Guitar Version)
(2:54) 6. I Can See Clearly Now
(3:50) 7. Killing Me Softly with His Song
(8:31) 8. Play Me
(3:11) 9. Something
(5:53) 10. MacArthur Park
(8:06) 11. The Hungry Years
(2:58) 12. Cockeyed Optimist (Orchestra Version)
(2:54) 13. Why Did I Choose You?
(4:20) 14. I Don't Know How to Love Him
(3:11) 15. We Need a Little Christmas
You naturally think of “These Boots Are Made For Walkin’” and her many other immortal 1960s rock ‘n’ roll hits when you think of the iconic Nancy Sinatra, but she also topped the charts in 1967 with her “Somethin’ Stupid” adult duet with her dad, and sang arguably the greatest James Bond theme, “You Only Live Twice,” also a 1967 hit.
And just as The Simpsons last week used the Bond song as a key episode theme (it previously ended Season 5 of Mad Men), Sinatra has returned with a new collection of mature ballads, Shifting Gears, largely made up of covers of movie/musical theater standards like "As Time Goes By" as well as more contemporary pop fare including a glorious version of Neil Diamond's "Holly Holy."
These recordings were culled from the Sinatra vaults. To be issued Dec. 3 by Sinatra herself (through her Boots Enterprises, Inc.) and via download only, the album is her first release since her 2009 set, Cherry Smiles: The Rare Singles, which was also digital.
“The music business has changed radically,” says Sinatra, who nevertheless thrilled audiences in August when Wilco brought her up to sing "Boots" and "Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down)" during their AmericanaramA set in Irvine, Calif.
“Unless you are a huge star it's difficult to get a record out today," she continues. "Once we decided on this project it took a long time to pull it together because the tracks were recorded at different times and in different places. Producer Michael Lloyd managed to smooth them all out so that they work as a collection.”
As Sinatra notes on her website, the music on Shifting Gears “was not created to sit in a vault. It is meant to be shared and heard. Songs get lonely with nobody to listen to them.”
She says she sequenced the songs on the album to illustrate the arc of a relationship. It opens with the Casablanca movie classic “As Time Goes By,” which she performed in her record-breaking Las Vegas nightclub show at Caesars Palace in the summer of 1970, which was taped for her Emmy-winning Ed Sullivan Presents Movin’ With Nancy, On Stage TV special; the album closer “We Need A Little Christmas” also came from the Vegas/TV show.
Other movie songs on Shifting Gears include the Don Costa-arranged “When I Look In Your Eyes” from Doctor Dolittle and initially released on Sinatra’s 1998 Sheet Music collection, and “A Cockeyed Optimist,” from the Rodgers & Hammerstein film and Broadway musical South Pacific. Sinatra sees the latter song as part of Shifting Gears’ “optimism trilogy,” also including the Johnny Nash hit “I Can See Clearly Now,” and “I’ll Build A Stairway To Paradise,” which appeared both in Broadway’s 1922 version of George White’s Scandals and the film classic An American In Paris.
Also from Broadway comes The Yearling’s “Why Did I Choose You?" “I Don’t Know How To Love Him” is from Jesus Christ Superstar and was in Sinatra’s show with The Muppets; it was recorded with the same big orchestra used on “Holly Holy,” which she hails as "one of the most important recordings of my career,” and was also in her Vegas/TV show.
Included in Shifting Gears, too, are Diamond’s “Play Me,” The Beatles’ “Something” (also originally in Sheet Music), Neil Sedaka’s “The Hungry Years” and Jimmy Webb’s “MacArthur Park.”
“There are so many wonderful composers, arrangers and musicians featured on these tracks, and it was sad to me that they were languishing,” says Sinatra. “These songs needed to reach the ether and be heard by my fans!”
She notes that some of the charts were written expressly for her stage shows and TV specials.
“I'm just glad I had the foresight to go into a studio when I had the chance to preserve them,” she relates. “We were on a real budget so we couldn't do take after take, usually only one take. So we had to accept the ‘clams’ [mistakes] in the orchestra. Michael plays several instruments so he was able to replace a bad note with a good one as he restored the tracks. The vocals were added over the last 10 years as we went along. It really was a big undertaking, but it wasn't ego-driven. I really didn't want the music to die.”
She’s particularly pleased that arrangements by her late friends Costa and Billy Strange are represented, Strange having arranged both “Somethin’ Stupid” and the non-soundtrack version of “You Only Live Twice.” Many of the musicians are well-known, she says, and include L.A.’s famed Wrecking Crew of session players, of which guitarist Strange was a member.
Sinatra is promoting Shifting Gears so far via her active Twitter account, as well as Facebook. She notes on her website: “It’s been a real struggle because when we say ‘vault’ we really mean ‘garage,’ which is where the tapes were for decades before we had the vault. Some were multi-track, some were quarter-inch and some were only cassettes!”
She also lauds the Shifting Gears artwork by Shag, which evokes the “I Gotta Get Out Of This Town” segment from the Movin’ With Nancy special. ~ Jim Bessman http://www.examiner.com/article/nancy-sinatra-shifts-gears-with-new-digital-album
And just as The Simpsons last week used the Bond song as a key episode theme (it previously ended Season 5 of Mad Men), Sinatra has returned with a new collection of mature ballads, Shifting Gears, largely made up of covers of movie/musical theater standards like "As Time Goes By" as well as more contemporary pop fare including a glorious version of Neil Diamond's "Holly Holy."
These recordings were culled from the Sinatra vaults. To be issued Dec. 3 by Sinatra herself (through her Boots Enterprises, Inc.) and via download only, the album is her first release since her 2009 set, Cherry Smiles: The Rare Singles, which was also digital.
“The music business has changed radically,” says Sinatra, who nevertheless thrilled audiences in August when Wilco brought her up to sing "Boots" and "Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down)" during their AmericanaramA set in Irvine, Calif.
“Unless you are a huge star it's difficult to get a record out today," she continues. "Once we decided on this project it took a long time to pull it together because the tracks were recorded at different times and in different places. Producer Michael Lloyd managed to smooth them all out so that they work as a collection.”
As Sinatra notes on her website, the music on Shifting Gears “was not created to sit in a vault. It is meant to be shared and heard. Songs get lonely with nobody to listen to them.”
She says she sequenced the songs on the album to illustrate the arc of a relationship. It opens with the Casablanca movie classic “As Time Goes By,” which she performed in her record-breaking Las Vegas nightclub show at Caesars Palace in the summer of 1970, which was taped for her Emmy-winning Ed Sullivan Presents Movin’ With Nancy, On Stage TV special; the album closer “We Need A Little Christmas” also came from the Vegas/TV show.
Other movie songs on Shifting Gears include the Don Costa-arranged “When I Look In Your Eyes” from Doctor Dolittle and initially released on Sinatra’s 1998 Sheet Music collection, and “A Cockeyed Optimist,” from the Rodgers & Hammerstein film and Broadway musical South Pacific. Sinatra sees the latter song as part of Shifting Gears’ “optimism trilogy,” also including the Johnny Nash hit “I Can See Clearly Now,” and “I’ll Build A Stairway To Paradise,” which appeared both in Broadway’s 1922 version of George White’s Scandals and the film classic An American In Paris.
Also from Broadway comes The Yearling’s “Why Did I Choose You?" “I Don’t Know How To Love Him” is from Jesus Christ Superstar and was in Sinatra’s show with The Muppets; it was recorded with the same big orchestra used on “Holly Holy,” which she hails as "one of the most important recordings of my career,” and was also in her Vegas/TV show.
Included in Shifting Gears, too, are Diamond’s “Play Me,” The Beatles’ “Something” (also originally in Sheet Music), Neil Sedaka’s “The Hungry Years” and Jimmy Webb’s “MacArthur Park.”
“There are so many wonderful composers, arrangers and musicians featured on these tracks, and it was sad to me that they were languishing,” says Sinatra. “These songs needed to reach the ether and be heard by my fans!”
She notes that some of the charts were written expressly for her stage shows and TV specials.
“I'm just glad I had the foresight to go into a studio when I had the chance to preserve them,” she relates. “We were on a real budget so we couldn't do take after take, usually only one take. So we had to accept the ‘clams’ [mistakes] in the orchestra. Michael plays several instruments so he was able to replace a bad note with a good one as he restored the tracks. The vocals were added over the last 10 years as we went along. It really was a big undertaking, but it wasn't ego-driven. I really didn't want the music to die.”
She’s particularly pleased that arrangements by her late friends Costa and Billy Strange are represented, Strange having arranged both “Somethin’ Stupid” and the non-soundtrack version of “You Only Live Twice.” Many of the musicians are well-known, she says, and include L.A.’s famed Wrecking Crew of session players, of which guitarist Strange was a member.
Sinatra is promoting Shifting Gears so far via her active Twitter account, as well as Facebook. She notes on her website: “It’s been a real struggle because when we say ‘vault’ we really mean ‘garage,’ which is where the tapes were for decades before we had the vault. Some were multi-track, some were quarter-inch and some were only cassettes!”
She also lauds the Shifting Gears artwork by Shag, which evokes the “I Gotta Get Out Of This Town” segment from the Movin’ With Nancy special. ~ Jim Bessman http://www.examiner.com/article/nancy-sinatra-shifts-gears-with-new-digital-album
Shifting Gears
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