10. The Train
11. Lady Day* [Bonus Track]
12. Lady Day (11/7/69)* [Bonus Track]
13. Watertown (Session Take)* [Bonus Track]
14. Goodbye (Session Take)* [Bonus Track]
15. The Train (Session Take)* [Bonus Track]
16. Lady Day (11/7/69) (Session Take)* [Bonus Track]
17. 1970 Reprise Radio Promo #1* [Bonus Track]
18. 1970 Reprise Radio Promo #2* [Bonus Track]
As paid mention to, this beautifully crafted album of unique and exquisite storytelling and scene setting from the great man was, perhaps, one of his most ambitious concept albums, as well as his most difficult to record, one imagines.
For not only does it tell a full-fledged story, it is his most explicit attempt at rock-oriented pop. Since the main composer of Watertown is Bob Gaudio, the author of the Four Seasons’ hits Can’t Take My Eyes Off of You, Walk Like a Man, and Big Girls Don’t Cry, that doesn’t come as a surprise.
With Jake Holmes, Gaudio created a song cycle concerning a middle-aged, small-town man whose wife left him with the kids. Constructed as a series of brief lyrical snapshots that read like letters or soliloquies, the culminating effect of the songs is an atmosphere of loneliness, but it is a loneliness without much hope or romance; it is the sound of a broken man.
Producer Charles Calello arranged musical backdrops that conveyed the despair of the lyrics. Weaving together prominent electric guitars, keyboards, drum kits, and light strings, Calello uses pop/rock instrumentation and production techniques, but that doesn’t prevent Sinatra from warming to the material.
In fact, he turns in a wonderful performance, drawing out every emotion from the lyrics, giving the album’s character depth throughout, allowing us, the vicarious bystander, the opportunity with each passing track to grow more and more attached to his centralized character.
And so with Sinatra’s vocals noticeably affected by age and his social circles, to put it politely, here on Watertown we get some of his best, most heartfelt, and soothingly dramatic performances, where all of the above brought forth a quite mesmerizing, and some might say perfect cocktail of expressively sung melancholy.
Now appreciated as a masterpiece of drama and heartbreak, Watertown will also feature, in addition to a recreation of the original packaging, new liner notes, a track-by-track breakdown from songwriter and album producer Bob Gaudio, quotes from Sinatra, plus essays by Frankie Valli, co-writer Jake Holmes, among others who were involved in the original project.
All three formats – Watertown [LP] and Watertown: Deluxe Edition [CD + Digital] – are available for preorder here https://sinatra.lnk.to/WatertownPR. Siriusly Sinatra (SiriusXM Ch. 71) will air an exclusive Watertown special in May.
Upon Watertown’s release, fans and critics alike simply weren’t prepared for such a radical stylistic departure from Sinatra. But the album has shown resilience: Despite the initial lukewarm response, in the decades since the album has had a re-evaluation and, in 2007, The Guardian declared Watertown “one of [Sinatra’s] greatest masterpieces” and in 2015, The Observer noted that “it made some sense that Sinatra would attempt a story-driven concept album, considering he had helped pioneer the thematic concept LP in the 1950s. But on Watertown, Sinatra did something truly risky: he told an entire album-length story from the point of view of [a] character that is most definitely not Frank Sinatra.”
Gaudio’s essay explains that Sinatra, with a level of empathy only he could achieve, was “reaching down into a man’s soul and feeling his pain and still finding hope.”
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