Album of the Year for 1958

The first year of the Grammy Awards demonstrated just how idiosyncratic the voters can be when picking their nominees. Two of the five albums nominated for Album of the Year were by the same performer, and another wasn’t even released until 1959. Most of the initial year’s nominees have become classics, and three of the five have been inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame (oddly enough, the three I’ve already referred to).

Come Fly with Me is one of two albums by Frank Sinatra to be nominated for Album of the Year in the first year of the Grammys. Both albums were huge hits for Sinatra, and Come Fly with Me spent five weeks atop the Billboard album chart in early 1958. It’s designed as a sort of auditory trip around the world. The title song was written for the album by Sammy Cahn and Jimmy Van Heusen, and it serves as a lovely invitation to join someone on a trip. Its cataloging of potential destinations is echoed in the songs “Around the World” (the theme from Around the World in 80 Days, a film in which Sinatra had a cameo) and “Let’s Get Away from It All” (the first song on the flip side or B-side of the album—remember B-sides? Sigh. Good times). There are a couple of stops in the United States, “Moonlight in Vermont” and “Autumn in New York,” that have a downbeat tone that is well suited to the songs. I also enjoyed Sinatra’s rendition of “Blue Hawaii,” which would become a huge success when Elvis Presley recorded it for the soundtrack of his movie of the same name a couple of years later. Remember that this was at least a year before Hawaii became a state, so it would have still been considered quite the exotic vacation spot (which it still is in many ways). The journey wouldn’t be complete without the charming encounter described in “Isle of Capri” or the lovely month of “April in Paris” or some time spent in “London at Night.” The album’s final song is “It’s So Nice to Go Trav’ling,” a lovely song about the joys of returning home after traveling. The album is very cohesive thematically, and the support from Billy May and his orchestra is superb. Sinatra was nominated for Best Male Vocal Performance for the album but was competing against himself for the single release of “Witchcraft,” which had been released in 1957 (what is with the Grammys and dates of release?). Both performances lost to Perry Como, though, perhaps because the votes for Sinatra were divided. It’s still strange to see that sometimes a performance on a full album would compete against a performance on a single record. Come Fly with Me was the first of three Sinatra albums that May arranged; May was also nominated for Best Arrangement for the title song of the album. The album was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2004. Sinatra was right about the cover, though; it does look like an ad for TWA.

Singles: No singles were released from the album. Albums at the time often stood as separate entities from the singles that an artist released. This one was more of a concept album anyway, so taking one song away from the context might have been considered risky.

Most Essential Track: This might be an unorthodox choice given how many great standards are on the album, but it’s probably “On the Road to Mandalay.” It’s based upon the Rudyard Kipling poem and was adapted by Oley Speaks into a song. Sinatra took a somewhat improvisational approach to the song, which upset the Kipling estate, especially his daughter, who effectively had the song banned for decades in the United Kingdom under the auspices of copyright infringement. Since only American record buyers were able to hear the song, you should probably appreciate its exclusivity. By the way, Sinatra’s version includes only the first and last stanzas of the poem, omitting some of the most racist and offensive stuff of the Kipling original. Given his penchant for using the lingo of the hipsters of his day, Sinatra also switches out the word “man” with “cat” and “girl” with “broad” (certainly not the most sensitive choice you could up with if you had a thesaurus nearby), but are those changes really so egregious given the time period?

Oh, sure, you could also just pick the title song since it was explicitly written for the album. I mean, that seems like a more obvious choice, and it won’t likely offend too many people’s sensibilities.

My Favorite Track: Sinatra does such a wonderful version of “Brazil.” Those horns! They really make this a sparkling jazz masterpiece.

 

Ella Fitzgerald won the Grammy for Best Female Vocal Performance for Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Irving Berlin Songbook, one of two Grammys she picked up at the first ceremony. She would ultimately receive fourteen Grammy Awards over her long career. Buyers of this album certainly got a great deal; it’s thirty-one classic Irving Berlin songs over a double LP set that lasts for about 95 minutes. What a bargain for so many great performances! She released a number of these so-called “songbook” albums during her career, and it’s tough to pick the best of them all, but this certainly stands as one of the best. The first song on the album is a favorite of mine, “Let’s Fact the Music and Dance,” a lovely way to start. We get Fitzgerald’s distinctive approach to the “Cheek to Cheek” and “Change Partners” (with no change in pronouns, surprising given the time period and intriguingly provocative) and “I’m Putting All My Eggs in One Basket” and her tempo-shifting “Always.” Whew! I wasn’t familiar with the mesmerizing “Russian Lullaby,” the unexpectedly smooth “Get Thee Behind Me Satan,” or the charming “Slumming on Park Avenue,” just to name a few songs, but now I love them enough to have searched for them online to learn more about their history. If I only mention a few songs that stand out, it’s because these are all amazing and it’s tough not to want to talk about them all. Look at “You Can Have Him,” a delightful song about pretending you’re not in love with someone that nevertheless catalogs all of the “little things” someone does for another person. Or consider “I Used to Be Color Blind,” a song about how you see the world in a different way once you’ve fallen in love. You do indeed notice the brightness of the colors of the world when in love. Even if you’ve heard the many versions of “Puttin’ on the Ritz” and “Alexander’s Ragtime Band,” as just two examples, Fitzgerald’s take on them causes you to consider them in a different way. The album was arranged and conducted by Paul Weston, one of the founding members of the Grammys. Interestingly, Weston also conducted the orchestra when Fitzgerald performed about half of the album at the Hollywood Bowl in 1958 just a few months after recording the album. A recording of that concert, Ella at the Hollywood Bowl: The Irving Berlin Songbook, was released in 2022 after it was discovered in the attic of Verve Records founder Norman Ganz. It’s worth a listen too.

Singles: There’s no listing of singles being released from this album. That wasn’t always a trend.

Most Essential Track: How do you pick a single track from a collection of thirty-one classic songs by one of the greatest songwriters of all time? How about “Blue Skies”? Why not “Supper Time”? How could you pick between her version of “Isn’t This a Lovely Day” and “It’s a Lovely Day Today”? This is quite the impossible task when you pair such a great singer with so many great songs.

My Favorite Track: As I said earlier, one of my favorite Berlin songs is “Let’s Face the Music and Dance,” and Fitzgerald’s performance starts with a slow burn in a low register that takes off like a great jazz band getting the audience on their feet.

Who doesn’t love a good torch song? Frank Sinatra Sings for Only the Lonely, Sinatra’s second album to be nominated in this category, is a collection of some of the greatest torch songs of the 20^th Century. I don’t like to describe any performance as a so-called “definitive” one, but very few people have done better versions of “Guess I’ll Hang My Tears Out to Dry” or “What’s New?” (although Linda Ronstadt is a contender for her singing of those two magnificent songs on her What’s New album). Listen to his take on “Blues in the Night” and “Willow Weep for Me,” and you’ll comprehend how male singers can also handle torch songs as well as female singers. The first song on the album, the title song of “Only the Lonely” (not the Roy Orbison hit), sets a beautiful tone for almost an hour of heartfelt, heartbreaking music that perhaps reaches its peak with the downbeat “It’s a Lonesome Old Town.” Just look at how many of the titles signal that this is going to be an album of very sad songs: “Good-Bye,” “Ebb Tide,” “Gone with the Wind” (not the theme music to the 1939 film). Frank Sinatra Sings for Only the Lonely spent five weeks at #1 on the Billboard album charts, the same number of weeks Come Fly with Me did earlier in 1958. The cover art, a striking photograph of Sinatra in clown makeup in the style of Pagliacci taken by Nicholas Volpe, won the first ever Grammy for Best Album Cover Photography. The album was certified gold for sales of more than half a million copies and remains a great album to play when you’re in the mood to wallow a bit in your misery, particularly in the case of unrequited love.

Singles: There’s no listing of singles being released from this particular album. Sometimes artists released singles independently of an album, and sometimes the album just stood on its own.

Most Essential Track: There are so many classic performances on this album that it’s tough to pick one. Could it be “One for My Baby (And One More for the Road)”? It’s the last song on the second side of the album, and it’s a fitting capper to the overall vibe of this recording.

My Favorite Track: “One for My Baby (And One More for the Road)” is one of my favorite songs of all time, and Sintra gives a masterfully slow tempo performance here. Sinatra recorded this song for at least six different albums during his career, so he must have loved it too.

The very first Grammy for Album of the Year went to The Music from Peter Gunn, a soundtrack album to a TV series that lasted for three seasons. The music was written and arranged by Henry Mancini, who also conducted the musicians who performed on the album. Interestingly, the album was released less than four months before the awards ceremony and was still #1 on the charts when it received the top award; that’s an unlikely scenario in today’s music world. I mean, supposedly, the awards were for recordings that were released in 1958, but The Music from Peter Gunn was released in 1959 and could have been considered for the next year’s awards? The Grammys always have odd periods for “years.” The Music from Peter Gunn spent 10 weeks atop the Billboard album chart and was certified gold for selling more than half a million copies. It’s been inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame (1998) and selected for the National Recording Registry at the Library of Congress (2010). It also received a Grammy for Best Arrangement for Mancini and was nominated for Best Performance by an Orchestra and Best Original Cast Album (Broadway or TV). It also spawned a sequel that was nominated for Album of the Year in the second year of the Grammy Awards, More Music from Peter Gunn, perhaps not the most inspired title for an album. I don’t mean this in a disrespectful way, but this album would make for lovely background music for a cocktail party. It’s very delightful easy listening, a sort of soft jazz showcase, and most of the songs are not that long, around three minutes or so each. Some of the songs probably make more sense as the background for the scenes for which they were written: “The Brothers Go to Mother’s” and “Session at Pete’s Pad” and “Fallout!” are some prime examples. Other songs are just nice to listen to. “Dreamsville” is very smooth and evocative of a particular mood as are “Slow and Easy” and “Brief and Breezy”—as you probably guessed from those oh-so-descriptive titles. Truthfully, the songs are almost interchangeable to the point that I initially wrote “Soft and Breezy” as a song title. I will admit, though, that I am always a fan of music that uses a vibraphone, and this album has some great playing by Victor Feldman. The title song is probably better known today than the series that spawned it, which says something about the lasting power of music.

Singles: “Peter Gunn” (reached #8 on the Billboard singles chart)

Most Essential Track: “Peter Gunn” is the main reason people probably bought the album. It’s a mesmerizing couple of minutes of jazzy rock and roll, and it reached the top 10 of the singles charts thanks to a version by trumpeter Ray Anthony that Mancini arranged. It’s been used countless times in movies and television shows, and it's been covered by dozens of performers. The song itself was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2005.

My Favorite Track: Honestly, it’s still the title track. It is such a part of our public consciousness now even though many people nowadays weren’t even alive when the show was on the air.

 

I will admit to not being very knowledgeable about classical music even though I’ve heard it throughout my life, starting with those marvelous Warner Brothers cartoons. So when I started listening to Van Cliburn’s performance of Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1 in B-Flat Minor, Op. 23, I instantly recognized those distinctive first four notes. Cliburn had just won the first ever International Tchaikovsky Competition in Russia performing this piece and Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 3. To have an American win a competition named for Russia’s most famous composer and during the Cold War era between the U.S. and Russia was groundbreaking, and he returned to the states a hero. This album was his first recording, and he’s backed here by the RCA Victor Symphony Orchestra being conducted by Kiril Kondrashin. Kondrashin had been the conductor of the Moscow Symphony Orchestra for the Tchaikovsky Competition and came to America at Cliburn’s request. This was the first classical album to reach #1 on the Billboard album charts, staying there for seven non-consecutive weeks. It was also the first classical album to be certified platinum for sales of more than one million copies. Cliburn also won the first Grammy Award for Best Classical Performance: Instrumentalist (with Concerto Scale Accompaniment). That’s all pretty impressive for a 23-year-old from Shreveport, Louisiana. Cliburn is justifiably famous for his skill at the piano, and it is on full display on this recording. It’s a mesmerizing 34 minutes and a lovely way to spend half an hour or so.

Singles: This is an album of classical music representing a complete concerto. Would there have even been singles that were 20 minutes long for, say, “Allegro non troppo e molto maestoso –Allegro con spirito,” the first movement of the concerto?

Most Essential Track: The opening notes of the first movement are justifiably famous, but the entire concerto is, of course, of one piece. All of it is, sort of, by definition, essential.

My Favorite Track: It’s tough to pick a favorite when the entire performance is meant to be considered as a whole, really. I would say, though, that Cliburn’s performance of the third movement, “Allegro con fuoco – Molto meno mosso – Allegro vivo,” is especially memorable for his deftness and playfulness.

 

Grammy Winner: The Music from Peter Gunn by Peter Mancini

My Choice: Frank Sinatra Sings for Only the Lonely. I did suggest how much I love torch songs.

Note: The five best-selling albums of 1958, according to Billboard, were (in order) the original cast show album for the Broadway musical My Fair Lady, which was released in 1956 and was still selling strongly; the original cast show album for the Broadway musical The Music Man, which was released in 1957 and was also still selling strongly; Johnny’s Greatest Hits by Johnny Mathis, a compilation album; the soundtrack to the film South Pacific; and Frank Sinatra’s Come Fly with Me. Interesting, isn’t it, that only one of the albums nominated for Album of the Year was among the best sellers of the year? Of course, check back for the 1959 Grammy Awards, and you’ll understand why one of them wasn’t on the list. (It’s actually pretty clear from the above descriptions, but perhaps you’ve missed it.)