In the Wee Small Hours (original issue: Capitol W-581) is an album by Frank Sinatra with arrangements by Nelson Riddle, released in 1955. It is with this album that Sinatra perfected the concept album, fully realizing the ideas he had been grappling with in record presentation going all the way back to The Voice from 1946. It remains one of the most celebrated and enduring concept albums that Sinatra put out during the 1950s.
The album was his fi...
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In the Wee Small Hours (original issue: Capitol W-581) is an album by Frank Sinatra with arrangements by Nelson Riddle, released in 1955. It is with this album that Sinatra perfected the concept album, fully realizing the ideas he had been grappling with in record presentation going all the way back to The Voice from 1946. It remains one of the most celebrated and enduring concept albums that Sinatra put out during the 1950s.
The album was his first full 12-inch LP, and more importantly it contained a set of songs specifically recorded for the album, which had not always been true of his previous 10-inch records; further, albums at the time were generally randomly compiled collections of a performer's hits rather than deliberately sequenced and selected. In the Wee Small Hours used only ballads, organized around a central mood of late-night isolation and aching lost love (supposedly due to his separation from Ava Gardner). The sequence is triggered by the morose opening title track,...
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