Vinyl: MFSL 16-LPs SC-1: FRANK SINATRA - The Collection 1953-1962 - OOP 1983 JAPAN NM

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Background -

Francis Albert Sinatra (December 12, 1915 – May 14, 1998) was an American singer, actor, and producer who was one of the most popular and influential musical artists of the 20th century. He is one of the best-selling music artists of all time, having sold more than 150 million records worldwide. Born in Hoboken, New Jersey, to Italian immigrants, Sinatra began his musical career in the swing era with bandleaders Harry James and Tommy Dorsey. Sinatra found success as a solo artist after he signed with Columbia Records in 1943, becoming the idol of the "bobby soxers". He released his debut album, The Voice of Frank Sinatra, in 1946. Sinatra's professional career had stalled by the early 1950s, and he turned to Las Vegas, where he became one of its best known performers as part of the Rat Pack. His career was reborn in 1953 with the success of From Here to Eternity, with his performance subsequently winning an Academy Award and Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor. Sinatra released several critically lauded albums, including In the Wee Small Hours (1955), Songs for Swingin' Lovers! (1956), Come Fly with Me (1958), Only the Lonely (1958) and Nice 'n' Easy (1960).

Sinatra left Capitol in 1960 to start his own record label, Reprise Records, and released a string of successful albums. In 1965, he recorded the retrospective September of My Years, starred in the Emmy-winning television special Frank Sinatra: A Man and His Music, and released the tracks "Strangers in the Night" and "My Way". After releasing Sinatra at the Sands, recorded at the Sands Hotel and Casino in Vegas with frequent collaborator Count Basie in early 1966, the following year he recorded one of his most famous collaborations with Tom Jobim, the album Francis Albert Sinatra & Antonio Carlos Jobim. It was followed by 1968's collaboration with Duke Ellington. Sinatra retired for the first time in 1971, but came out of retirement two years later and recorded several albums and resumed performing at Caesars Palace, and reached success in 1980 with "New York, New York". Using his Las Vegas shows as a home base, he toured both within the United States and internationally until a short time before his death in 1998.

Sinatra forged a highly successful career as a film actor. After winning an Academy Award for From Here to Eternity, he starred in The Man with the Golden Arm (1955), and received critical acclaim for his performance in The Manchurian Candidate (1962). He appeared in various musicals such as On the Town (1949), Guys and Dolls (1955), High Society (1956), and Pal Joey (1957), winning another Golden Globe for the latter. Toward the end of his career, he became associated with playing detectives, including the title character in Tony Rome (1967). Sinatra would later receive the Golden Globe Cecil B. DeMille Award in 1971. On television, The Frank Sinatra Show began on ABC in 1950, and he continued to make appearances on television throughout the 1950s and 1960s. Sinatra was also heavily involved with politics from the mid-1940s, and actively campaigned for presidents such as Harry S. Truman, John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan, though before Kennedy's death Sinatra's alleged Mafia connections led to his being snubbed.

While Sinatra never formally learned how to read music, he had an impressive understanding of it, and he worked very hard from a young age to improve his abilities in all aspects of music. A perfectionist, renowned for his dress sense and performing presence, he always insisted on recording live with his band. His bright blue eyes earned him the popular nickname "Ol' Blue Eyes". Sinatra led a colorful personal life, and was often involved in turbulent affairs with women, such as with his second wife Ava Gardner. He went on to marry Mia Farrow in 1966 and Barbara Marx in 1976. Sinatra had several violent confrontations, usually with journalists he felt had crossed him, or work bosses with whom he had disagreements. He was honored at the Kennedy Center Honors in 1983, was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by Ronald Reagan in 1985, and the Congressional Gold Medal in 1997. Sinatra was also the recipient of eleven Grammy Awards, including the Grammy Trustees Award, Grammy Legend Award and the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. After his death, American music critic Robert Christgau called him "the greatest singer of the 20th century", and he continues to be seen as an iconic figure.

The original Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab (MFSL) was a California-based company that specialized in high quality reissues LPs. MFSL was still in business until 1999.

MFSL began issuing albums in 1977, during the height of the dissatisfaction over the sound of mass produced (North American) pressings of albums. Most of the decade had been spent by collectors decrying how poor the album pressings had become in the 1970s. There were several reasons contributing to this sense that sound quality had gone downhill.

First, collectors noticed that the Japanese pressings, and in many cases the UK pressings, of albums were quieter than US pressings. This was mainly due to better vinyl quality. Many US albums at the time were pressed using recycled vinyl to some extent, as opposed to "virgin vinyl" which had never been recycled. Second, many of the highly successful albums were being mastered from "master tapes" which were second, third, or higher generation copies of the mixdown masters, not the original mixdown masters themselves. Third, mass production in the 1970s, especially in the US where record sales were at an almost undreamed-of height, had certainly resulted in a drop in quality control. Defects such as warpage were much more common than had previously been tolerated.

MFSL tried to answer these problems in the marketplace with a high-quality reissue that, although priced at about double the price of a standard album, would appeal to those buyers who were quality-conscious about the factors which led to high sound quality. From MFSL's catalogs, the way they put it was as follows:

What distinguishes an Original master Recording LP from any other record?

1. Original Master Recordings are exclusively transferred from the original stereo master tape that the musicians recorded in the studio (not from a second, third, or fourth generation copy of that master tape).

2. Each Original Master Recording employs Mobile Fidelity Sound lab's exclusive half-speed mastering process, thus capturing every nuance of sound from the master tape.

3. Quality, not quantity, is the overwhelming consideration in the creation of each Original Master Recording. The number of pressings is strictly controlled. These limited editions assure you that the quality of the last pressing matches the quality of the first.

4. Original Master recordings are custom pressed overseas by the Victor Company of Japan (JVC). Super Vinyl, an exclusive compound far superior to even so-called 100% virgin vinyl, is utilized to achieve maximum clarity and startling quietness.... Super Vinyl also bestows unsurpassed durability to each Original Master Recording LP, achieving a "playing lifespan" at least five times longer than mass- produced records.

5. Each Original Master Recording is ultra-packaged to maintain flatness and prevent warpage.

MFSL became well known for quality vinyl pressings. With the advent of compact discs in the mid-1980s, MFSL moved to the issue of "high quality compact discs," many with a gold strike on the disc as opposed to the aluminum surface of regular discs. The "gold disc" was meant to answer another of the concerns of audiophiles, this time the new CD buyers. Rumors in the mid-1980s had it that the lifetime of a normal CD may be as short as 10 years before the aluminum oxidized and the disc became unplayable. This has widely been discredited as a theory, and most people in the business now view regular, defect-free, CDs as potentially lasting decades to centuries.

Nevertheless, the MFSL "gold disc" led the way for many of the other record companies to issue their own "gold discs." Although MFSL seemed to be a stickler for noise reduction, many of the other "gold discs" had little to recommend them over their regular counterparts other than the snobbishness of a higher list price and a gold color. Audiophiles have done listening tests on various "gold discs" over the years, with the conclusion that the sound quality difference with CDs is much more related to the quality of the master tape than anything else, and in many cases the exact same master tape is used for regular and "gold discs." In any case, the difference that an MFSL compact disc makes, due to the current technology being what it is, is less than the difference that a MFSL vinyl record made when vinyl was king.

Mobile Fidelity went bankrupt in 1999. They sent the following letter to their customers:

November 19, 1999

Dear Friend;
It is with incredible sadness that Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab announces its closure after more than 22 years in business. This announcement was made today after extreme, but unsuccessful, efforts were made to overcome the financial blow dealt by the events leading up to the abrupt closure of M.S. Distributing's music division.

Mobile Fidelity has remained a small, fiercely independent audiophile label since its inception in 1977. The company was able to weather and withstand several economic and industry upheavals throughout the years. As you know, for the past three or four years, much of the high-end audio industry has suffered through a recession. Mobile Fidelity, once again, undertook the necessary measures to ride out the downturn - especially with the anxiously-awaited new SACDs and DVDs with video soon to be in the marketplace.

However, in September of 1999, the closure of M.S. Distributing's music division resulted in a substantial percentage of uncollectable receivables for MFSL, plus the inventory it represented. Without access to the funds or the availability of inventory for re-sale, the financial devastation was more than our small company could overcome. Therefore, as of November 19, 1999, the company that changed the way the world listened to music, itself has closed its doors.

Herb Belkin was a co-founder of Mobile Fidelity and a co-owner until his retirement nearly five years ago made this statement when contacted: "I am deeply saddened with the knowledge that the employee-owned Mobile Fidelity - which for so many years represented a major symbol of quality in the field of pre-recorded music - was in the end a victim of bigness and mediocrity. I, along with all audiophiles every - where will deeply miss the musical efforts of MoFi."

Herb and the loyal employees of Mobile Fidelity wish to thank all of our friends and supporters throughout the years. Without everyone's belief in our efforts to make the very best audio reproductions possible, our star wouldn't have shone so bright for so long. We offer our best wishes to those companies that remain and hope they survive this most challenging era of high-end audio.

We sincerely hope that our memory and legacy will continued to be enjoyed for many years to come through the hundreds of classic LPs, aluminum and gold CDs, and even cassettes, that Mobile Fidelity has lovingly remastered for the enjoyment of music lovers, and for ourselves. It was a wonderful ride while it lasted.

Because almost all of the MFSL issues are well-known albums, we have just listed the titles and artists below, and not the individual tracks.

We would appreciate any additions or corrections to this discography. Just send them to us via e-mail. Both Sides Now Publications is an information web page. We are not a catalog, nor can we provide the records listed below. We have no association with Mobile Fidelity or MFSL Records. Should you be interested in acquiring albums listed in this discography (which are all out of print), we suggest you see our Frequently Asked Questions page and follow the instructions found there. This story and discography are copyright 1998, 2002 by Mike Callahan.

VINTAGE SINATRA IN AN EXPENSIVE PACKAGE

By JOHN ROCKWELL

Published: October 16, 1983, NY Times

Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab, the Southern California concern that last year favored us with a 14-disk, $325 boxed collection of the complete Beatles British albums, all of them half-speed-mastered and pressed in Japan on special vinyl, is at it again. This year, also on its Original Master Recording label, it has just released a 16-disk, $350 set called ''Sinatra.''

Frank Sinatra might not at first seem the hippest possible subject for such a compilation. He hardly espouses the latest now sounds; his politics have drifted into the curmudgeonly, and his public image blends stiff dignity with vulgarity.

But he is also a great singer, the word ''great'' invoked with no serious qualification at all. He defined an era of popular song and singing, exercising an enormous influence on other singers. His achievement sheds new light on the increasingly shadowy distinctions between rock-and- roll and other forms of American popular song. And now, with the surprising commercial success of Linda Ronstadt's ''What's New,'' an album directly inspired by his songs, singing and arrangements, Mr. Sinatra seems more timely than ever.

What we have here are most of Mr. Sinatra's Capitol albums from 1953 to 1962; not present are a couple of compilations, two sound tracks, a Christmas album and ''Point of No Return,'' omitted either because they didn't fit thematically, according to Mobile Fidelity's president, Herb Belkin, or because of technical deficiencies. Still, there is plenty of Sinatra left.

Those who have collected the offerings of Mobile Fidelity and other audiophile repackagers know by now that on a purely sonic level, these records sound very good indeed. The pressings are largely free from crackle and pop, and the sound - while not an entirely new experience - is simply clearer, fuller and brighter than it was before.

Of these disks, the best-sounding records are the early ones, in monaural sound. When stereo first arrived around 1957, pop producers felt impelled to dramatize the potential of the new medium by exaggerating the stereo separation - the splitting up of the left-to-right spectrum. Their work may have sounded punchy on a cheap home stereo system then, but on a modern set now it seems tinny and gimmicky.

Another complaint has to do with the clumsiness of the packaging. The set comes in a big silver box with slots that hold two each of the individual albums. The box has too many slots, one of which is filled with a ''Geo-Disc'' for cartridge alignment - the Beatles set had one, too - that seems unnecessary. A lavish booklet discussing Mr. Sinatra's career at some length, with ample illustrations, would have made more sense. In addition, the cardboard sleeves for the separate LP's are clumsily designed.

The disks themselves, however, are presented with laudable completeness. With a few of the albums, Capitol deleted songs when the original mono LP's were reissued in stereo; here, they are complete, with some songs appearing in stereo for the first time.

Of course, ''completeness'' in a project like this is an illusion. Not only did Mr. Sinatra record some songs during this period that are not included here, but he had and has an extensive recording career that precedes and postdates the Capitol period. There were Brunswick and Columbia recordings with Harry James, Victor disks with Tommy Dorsey, the whole Bobby Soxer frenzy and early solo career on Columbia, from 1943 to 1952, and then the Warner-Reprise years from 1960 to the present.

But there is a reason to box the Capitol albums, quite apart from the fact that Mobile Fidelity obtained the rights to them (and the extensive cooperation of the late David Cavanaugh, a Capitol vice president). These are the albums that marked the apex of Mr. Sinatra's record-sales success, and defined his mature artistry.

As a singer, Mr. Sinatra offered - and offers still; he remains a technical paragon - an easily produced pop baritone. It reaches up into a low-tenor lightness without ever really being suitable for topnote belting. And it can go down for the occasional cavernous bass effect.

But for the most part, Mr. Sinatra keeps the tessitura, or average range, precisely where he feels the most comfortable. His voice rides easily on the breath, as classical terminology would have it: never forced, flexible within its limits, supple and expressive. In fact, the classical and popular vocal expert Henry Plesants, in his book ''The Great American Popular Singers,'' argues that Mr. Sinatra's technique is closer to the principles of the 17th- century Italian originators of bel canto than is that of present-day opera singers, who, he feels, have distorted the declamatory purity of the original bel-canto style in pursuit of tonal brilliance and volume.

If his singing thus represents a model for classical vocalists, it also derived much from jazz. Mr. Sinatra has always credited Mr. Dorsey's trombone as having inspired his phrasing. By the time of these Capitol albums, he had learned to phrase with an easy authority that lifts even banal songs into memorability. As such, he accomplished as significant an infusion of musical traits associated with American blacks into the white mainstream as did the rock generation later on.

No matter what the material, Mr. Sinatra manages to make something personal from it. In the rock era, ''singer-songwriters'' take forever with their albums, struggling to compose songs that voice their truest inner feelings. Pop singers of Mr. Sinatra's time, like country singers today, turned out albums much more frequently, combing through the available sheet music and at their best bending it through force of personality into an expression of self.

The albums in this set alternate, for the most part, between Mr. Sinatra's ''swinging'' and ''lonely'' modes - in other words, between uptempo jazzish jaunts in which Mr. Sinatra projects an image of insouciant, footloose sexuality, and deeply, painfully vulnerable ballads. Fully five of the LP's here actually contain some variant of the word ''swing'' in the title, and most fall into a predominantly breezy or torchy pattern.

If two LP's had to be picked to embody these tendencies, they would be ''Songs for Swingin' Lovers,'' a No. 2 album in Billboard magazine from 1956, and ''Only the Lonely,'' which reached No. 1 in 1958 and stayed on the chart for 120 weeks. ''Only the Lonely'' should be of special interest today, since it was probably Mr. Sinatra's own best-selling album and since it contains three songs re-recorded by Miss Ronstadt on ''What's New.''

Scattered through this box are other superb albums, of course, among them such Sinatra classics as ''Songs for Young Lovers,'' ''In the Wee Small Hours,'' ''Come Fly With Me'' and ''No One Cares,'' where Mr. Sinatra's singing reaches a peak of frail sensitivity.

But not all the songs attain the high level epitomized by these disks. Partly because toward the end Capitol fell back on compilation reissues, since Mr. Sinatra was already releasing albums on Reprise, this box as a whole seems to depict the steady decline of Tin Pan Alley songwriting from the peak of Irving Berlin and George Gershwin into the mire of present-day middle-of-the-road and novelty schlock. Indeed, the level of song quality is so variable that the merely curious - as opposed to committed Sinatra fans - might be advised to wait a year or two and get the best individual albums as Mobile Fidelity releases them singly; ''Nice 'n' Easy'' has already been so released.

The subject matter of American popular song broadened and diversified in the rock era. But love remains at the core of all popular song, and Mr. Sinatra's obsession with the varieties of the romantic dream, as the paramount answer to all of life's problems, tells us much about the country as a whole during the 1950's. After that, it became increasingly difficult to sustain such an innocent fairy tale, and those songwriters who tried to do so ran the risk of pandering to sentimentality at its crassest.

Still, the singing here remains superior no matter what the songs, and the arrangements are at the same high level (a few embarrassing experiments with female and boy choruses aside). Most of the arranging was by Nelson Riddle, who is also responsible for Miss Ronstadt's record. But Gordon Jenkins and Billy May also do their share, the former more romantically heavy-handed than the subtler Mr. Riddle, the latter more overtly jazzish for some of the ''swinging'' albums. And the musicians are the finest the studios of New York and Hollywood had to offer; the prestigious Hollywood String Quartet even appears under its own name - its members play separately on nearly all the Los Angeles records - on ''Close to You.''

Even if not every song is up the highest level, these records should still be of interest to anyone concerned with the evolution of American popular music. Most of these disks appeared after the supposedly watershed year of 1955, when rock-and-roll seemed to sweep aside all other forms of pop music. Several of them proved to be huge commercial successes, too, well into the post-Presley era.

Mr. Sinatra has never been comfortable with music that is overtly rock or even folk-rock oriented. But he remains a commanding figure in our popular culture. That tells us that our musical landscape was never as scarred by as crude and absolute a territorial division between pre-rock and rock as some polemicists would have us believe. Mr. Sinatra's songs and singing style reached their peak after rock had been born, and they live on for us today. They live in his actual person, of course. But they live, too, in this documentary album, and anyone who wishes to hear Frank Sinatra, or indeed his kind of American singing and songs, should invest in this set.

• LP made by MFSL / MOFI / Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab Records, in JAPAN

• LP released in 1983 (limited edition of 10,000 sets worldwide - numbered set = 894)

• LP recordings are both in STEREO and MONO

• Record Catalog Number: SC-1

• Record Labels are primarily off WHITE with BLACK lettering, with the MFSL logo. In SUPERB collectors grade condition - you will be hard pressed to find a nicer copy than this one!!

This listing is for a super rare, out of print 16-LP boxed title - an OPENED and in near mint minus condition LP PRESSED and ISSUED by MFSL Records of a highly collectible title from their catalog - a superb title featuring -

Frank Sinatra & Friends

The Collection - 1953-1962

Full length LPs in the set include -

LP01 - Swing Easy / Songs For Young Lovers
LP02 - In The Wee Small Hours
LP03 - Songs For Swingin' Lovers
LP04 - Close To You
LP05 - A Swingin' Affair
LP06 - Where Are You?
LP07 - Come Fly With Me
LP08 - Sings For Only The Lonely
LP09 - Come Dance With Me
LP10 - Look To Your Heart
LP11 - No One Cares
LP12 - Nice N' Easy
LP13 - Sinatra's Swingin' Session!
LP14 - All The Way
LP15 - Come Swing With Me!
LP16 - Sinatra Sings...Of Love And Things!

Performers / Credits -

• Performer – Frank Sinatra

• Mastered By – Original Masteringworks

• Pressed By – Victor Company Of Japan, Ltd.

• Manufactured By – Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab, Inc.

• Distributed By – Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab, Inc.

• Licensed From – Capitol Records, Inc.

CONDITION Details:

The 16-LP box is in near mint condition! The box has NO splits or crushed corners! The corners and seams are solid with virtually NO shelf wear (as new). The colors on the box are sharp and clean (see pictures with this listing as they are of the actual item).

The set comes complete with a Geo-Disc, used to set up your cartridge/stylus/turntable .

The 16-LPs are in near mint condition! We found that the vinyl looked superb on this vintage LP set (glossy and appear as though they were never played). There are no significant marks and the LPs retain much of the original gloss and sheen - obviously well taken care of! They may have a bit of dust and perhaps a finger print or two on them so they should be cleaned before playing. There are NO serious spindle marks on the record labels either. Just beautifully made vinyl! That said, acquiring a vintage LP like this is for the performance and rarity of the LP, not necessarily for the sound quality.

A Short Note About LP GRADING -

• Mint {M} = Only used for sealed items.
• Near Mint {NM} = Virtually flawless in every way.
• Near Mint Minus {NM-} = Item has some minor imperfections, some audible.
• Excellent {EXC} = Item obviously played and enjoyed with some noise.
• Very Good Plus {VG+} = Many more imperfections which are noticeable and obtrusive.

For best results, always thoroughly clean your LPs before playing them.

LPs can be audiophile quality pressings (any collector of fine MFSL, half speeds, direct to discs, Japanese/UK pressings etc., can attest to the difference a quality pressing can make to an audio system).

Don't let this rarity slip by!!!