Frank Sinatra is now known as the greatest popular singer in history and canonized as ‘The Chairman of the Board’. That wasn’t always the case, however. It’s easy to forget that there was a period of time when he was just another aging teen idol trying to stay relevant in the music business. He also had personal problems that are famous–particularly his tempestuous romance with actress Ava Gardner–as well as damaged vocal chords. There was a point after his ‘bobbysoxer’ success that he was in bad shape financially and professionally.

To make matters worse, the impresarios at Columbia Records were abusing his talent in an effort to revive his album sales. His pairing with producer Mitch Miller was particularly disastrous. The nadir of this unholy alliance was probably the recording of “Mama Will Bark”, where the greatest voice of the 20th century shared the microphone with a buxom actress named Dagmar (sort of a Rhonda Shear of her day) and some other ‘vocalist’ howling and barking like a dog in the background. Not surprisingly, Sinatra’s recordings with Mitch Miller were not a resounding commercial success and in 1952 he was dropped by Columbia.

His luck was soon to improve, however, as a number of his colleagues including former Tommy Dorsey vocalists June Hutton and Jo Stafford got him in the door at Capitol Records. This began a nine year relationship that produced some of the finest work of Sinatra’s career. Initially, Frank worked with June Hutton’s husband, Axel Stordahl. These sessions produced some decent music including “I’m Walking Behind You” but wouldn’t last long. Frank wanted to go in a different direction, which became a necessity when Stordahl left to take a gig with Eddie Fisher in New York. After a lengthy search for a replacement, Sinatra reluctantly agreed to work with an experienced big band conductor named Nelson Riddle. The Capitol Records executives were excited about the matchup, but Sinatra had to be convinced.

To say that the first Sinatra/Riddle session was a success is an understatement, and “I’ve Got The World On The String” is somewhat of a ‘shot heard round the world’ for Sinatra’s career and popular music in general. The Ted Kohler/Harold Arlen song is given new vibrancy with Riddle’s buoyant arrangement and Sinatra’s new found vocal maturity. The song was a modest commercial success at the time, reaching #14 on the single charts, but became a classic. It was also a favorite of Sinatra himself, and he continued to perform the song live, frequently as a show opener, for the rest of his life.

When examined in a modern context, Sinatra’s career ‘reinvention’ is almost mind boggling. It’s difficult to envision a star of today popular with the teenage set–like The Jonas Brothers for example–becoming accepted as a serious vocalist for adults. Sinatra not only became a critical and popular sensation, but would go down in history as arguably the most important entertainer ever in American popular culture. None of this would have happened were it not for the magical pairing of Sinatra with Nelson Riddle.