Track Listing

1. Where Are You
2. Night We Called It A Day
3. I Cover The Waterfront
4. Maybe You'll Be There
5. Laura
6. Lonely Town Lonely Street
7. Autumn Leaves
8. I'm A Fool To Want You
9. I Think Of You
10. Where Is The One
11. There's No You
12. Baby Won't You Please Come Home
13. I Can Read Between The Lines
14. It Worries Me
15. Rain
16. Don't Worry 'bout Me

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #15517 in Music
• Released on: 1991-04-15
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: .20 pounds

Customer Reviews

It doesn't get better than this
If I could only have one Sinatra album it would be this one. This is his first collaboration with arranger Gordon Jenkins and also I believe his first stereo album - although one track, "I Cover the Waterfront", still sounds like mono, which is a pity since it has a gorgeously impressionistic score.

This is one of Sinatra's "down" albums although its mood is lighter than either "No-one Cares" or "Only the Lonely". His general outlook here suggests a kind of hurt bemusement rather than bitterness - as if his lover has just disappeared although "I'm a Fool to Want You" does have a very bleak despairing atmosphere with a melody that sounds like a debauched carnival tune. On that song Sinatra intriguingly reverses his attitude so that instead of pining for a lost one to come back, he would rather be free but finds himself forever tied to her.

However, most of the tracks have an air of wistful melancholy such as the eerie ethereal "Night We Called It a Day", the wonderfully warm and somehow childlike title track, the spine tingling "Laura", and "I Think of You" which has one of the most irresistible melodies you'll ever hear (I think it may be based on a classical piece - perhaps Rachmaninov?).

So - if you're in a self pitying mood, forget Leonard Cohen or Neil Young. Slip without shame into this lush cocoon of weaving strings and Sinatra's voice, which in itself should need no recommendation.

Frank Sinatra works with Gordon Jenkins for the first time
For Frank Sinatra 1957 went well beyond being a very good year. Of the six albums that the singer released that year I would argue that three of them--the swinging "Come Fly With Me," the hard-driving "A Swingin' Affair!", and the melancholy "Where Are You?"--end up on the short list of the ten essential Sinatra albums. Another two, "Close to You and More" and the soundtrack for "Pal Joey" are only a step or two below that highest level, and only "A Jolly Christmas with Frank Sinatra" is a marginal effort. Three great albums and two very good albums in one year is remarkable (when the Beatles exploded they were releasing "only" two great albums a year), and the cold hard fact is that in 1957 Sinatra had a better year than the entire careers of 99% of the world's recording artists.

"Where Are You?" is not only Sinatra's first album recorded in stereo, it is actually something of a change of pace for the singer since it was the first album he recorded at Capitol with a producer other than Nelson Riddle, beginning a successful collaboration with arranger/conductor Gordon Jenkins. The key difference between the two producers was that Jenkins tended towards the classical touch of lush string-dominated arrangements in providing the proper touch of melancholy for this collection of torch songs. The result is not the stark sadness of earlier Sinatra collections of saloon songs (e.g., "In the Wee Small Hours"), but more an overwhelming sense of sadness. Ten years later he would win the Grammy for producing another essential Sinatra album, "September of My Years."

The choice cuts off of "Where Are You?" would be "The Night We Called It a Day," "I Cover the Waterfront," and "Lonely Town." However, the tone is set by the title track, where Sinatra displays a new sense of delicacy in his vocals, the orchestra effectively reduced to subtle background color. "Where Are You?" is one of these classic Sinatra songs that you get to discover (or rediscover), when you get away from the boxed sets and hit collections and just listen to the albums. Nobody did a better job of putting together thematic collections for each release than Frank Sinatra and this album, which reached #3 on the Pop Charts, is one of his very best in that regard. Additionally, as is usually the case with these remastered CDs, there are four bonus tracks from the same recording sessions including "I Can Read Between the Lines" and "Don't Worry 'Bout Me," which are just the frosting on the cake.

One of his most underrated albums
Although Swinging Lovers, Swinging Affair and Wee Small Hours are often reviewed favourably, this album should be in everyones collection. The support from Gordon Jenkins is superb, as is Sinatra's voice.