Sinatra! Deep Cuts: Another Ride on the CAROUSEL(part 2 of probably 4)
My Boy Bill: “Oh how I’ll boast and blow!”
(Special thanks to Chuck Granata, of course, and to Michael “Contentious” Kraus and Rob Waldman for reading this through in advance. And as always to Elizabeth Zimmer! The first paragraph or so of this installment is somewhat repurposed from my book Sinatra! The Song is You. Immediately below, Sinatra’s 1946 Columbia Recording of “Soliloquy” from Carousel, as heard on Chuck Granata’s excellent 1996 collection Sinatra Sings Rodgers & Hammerstein. This is the first of two versions that Sinatra would record for Columbia, from April 1946.)
In 1945, Sinatra gave a party at his home in Toluca Lake, and a number of his favorite musicians were with him, including his number one lead trumpeter since the Dorsey days, Rubin “Zeke” Zarchy (1915-2009). This was shortly after the release of the original cast album of Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein’s second musical, Carousel. Forty or so years later, Zarchy recounted for Chuck Granata and myself how Sinatra played the album for everybody, and that when he listened to the two-sided disc of the “Soliloquy,” which Billy Bigelow sings at the end of Act 1, he announced, “these are the kind of things I’d like to sing.”
Even at this point, the “Soliloquy” was already considered a marvel of narrative songwriting; Mel Tormé later told me that when he was working further uptown at the Copacabana, he made a point to stop in at the Majestic Theater every night in hopes of arriving before the intermission, standing in the back, and hearing John Raitt - as Billy Bigelow - sing the “Soliloquy.” It was a giant leap forward in the evolution of musical theater, and, at first, it was widely assumed to be a place where no pop singer would ever follow. (As it turned out, Sinatra was virtually the only one who ever did. He actually recorded the song twice for Columbia, in April and May 1946. The April version, from the R&H collection is above, the May version, as later issued on The Complete Columbia Recordings, is below.)
As popular as he was, Sinatra was then considered essentially just another crooner, not even the mighty Bing Crosby had ever attempted anything as ambitious as “Soliloquy.” (Although to Crosby’s credit, he had sung the remarkable “Ballad for Americans.” This extended patriotic ode to American values that rings the bell loudly for what was then referred to as “racial and religious tolerance”, so effectively that most of the songwriters were unsurprisingly blacklisted during the McCarthy era.)
In many ways, “Ol’ Man River,” another Sinatra staple, was a precedent to “Soliloquy.” Billy Bigelow, like “Joe” in Show Boat, is what Hammerstein would call “a rough-hewn philosopher.” But the most direct forerunner to “Soliloquy” in “Lonely Room” from Act 1 of Oklahoma!: it might be called “Jud’s Soliloquy.” Here we are shown the inner workings of a character analyzing his situation, considering his options, and coming up with a plan; in fact, some of the harmonies, and the overall musical trajectory of “Soliloquy” is directly repeated from “Lonely Room” - the main difference being that Jud is much more of an overt bad guy, there are no lighter moments in the song, almost no points when Jud is sympathetic. You might say that Bigelow is equal parts Curley and Jud, a true antihero, which is how Sinatra would have played him.
Over the next ten years, Sinatra would return repeatedly to “Soliloquy”: there are at least a half-dozen performances documented from the 1940s, including live concerts and radio shows. In 1955, the Hollywood columnist Dorothy Manners wrote, “For years, the ‘Soliloquy’ from Carousel has been a highlight of [Sinatra’s] nightclub act.”
Then in the summer of 1955, the 20th Century Fox movie version went into production. The legendary mogul Darryl F. Zanuck bought the rights from Rodgers & Hammerstein, assigned the accomplished screenwriters Henry and Phoebe Ephron to come up with the screenplay, and then promoted Ephron - if indeed it could be considered a promotion - to producer. It would be the first of six films Ephron would produce over the next two years.
In 1977, Ephron would publish his memoir, We Thought We Could Do Anything; this turns out to be the most important eyewitness account regarding the production to find its way into print. Yes, leading lady Shirley Jones has been asked about this a million times (including many times by me) but she gives the overall impression that she was too busy minding her own business - and being concerned with performing her own part correctly - to pay much attention to the interaction between Sinatra and Ephron, or Ephron and Zanuck regarding Sinatra.
Ephron’s autobiography is refreshingly Frank - he is very much in favor of Sinatra as an artist and a musician but finds him a very difficult human being to work with. Generally, most of the people who shared this opinion were in the movie business; nearly everyone in the music world felt completely the opposite: songwriters, arrangers, the musicians themselves, all felt Sinatra was the easiest guy to work with. As we know, Sinatra felt much more at home in a recording studio than on a movie set, and it showed.
There’s a lot to unpack in Ephron’s account of the Carousel filming; it was his first movie as a producer, and it was a considerable success at the box office and - unbelievably - critically as well. I’ll work my way through it gradually here, but today, let’s focus on Sinatra, Ephron, and the “Soliloquy.”
# # #
Oklahoma! wouldn’t be released until October 1955, but odds were that it was going to be a big hit and that a movie version of Carousel would follow. As early as February 1955 Sinatra seems to be aware that this production was coming and he was campaigning to play Billy Bigelow, much as he had done for Angelo Maggio two years earlier. On April 25, Hedda Hopper reported, “Frankie’s on a campaign now to land the lead in Carousel at 20th - that’s one he wanted to do for a long time.” (Buffalo Courier News)
In February, while Sinatra was in the middle of taping his all-time masterpiece of an album, In The Wee Small Hours, he made an extra trip into the Capitol studios and recorded a new version of “Soliloquy.” This was essentially using the same arrangement he had recorded in 1946, with Richard Jones, a producer and occasional staff arranger at for Capitol, conducting. (And also the brother of percussionist and musical zany Lindley Armstrong “Spike” Jones.) Now using tape rather than the acetate-disc method of ten years previously, he was able to record the piece in sections, and was on a different track than the orchestra. This version, alas, only survives in incomplete form: we hear the first part and the last part, as well as the complete orchestral track, but the vocal for the middle section is missing.
Around April or May, Zanuck gave Ephron his marching orders: the script was to be ready by June 15, at which point they would begin recording and then filming on location. Along the way, Ephron drops some fascinating might-have-beens for the role of Julie: Doris Day was considered, but her recent film with Sinatra, Young at Heart (1954), had not been a notable success. In June, it was announced that Jane Powell was set to play Julie and that R&H were currently considering Sinatra “as Jane’s co-star.” (Hollywood Reporter, June 25, 1955)
For at least a year, it had been bruited about that Judy Garland, fresh from her triumph on A Star is Born (a rough parallel to Sinatra in From Here to Eternity) was keen to play Julie. In July 1954, the Hollywood Reporter stated that she was being interviewed for both South Pacific and Carousel, which at that time was set to be an MGM production. According to Ephron, Luft insisted that she would only consider it if Rodgers and Hammerstein would rewrite the “Soliloquy” as a duet for Julie and Billy. Thankfully, Ephron had the good sense to turn this down - he didn’t even suggest it to Rodgers & Hammerstein. (And yet even then the producer-screenwriter went and totally trashed the bench scene, which, as we discussed previously, is not only the most important sequence in the show, but virtually in all of musical theater. Ephron also made the mistake of writing in an introduction, so that the film begins with with the now-deceased Bigelow looking down from Heaven. Why, Henry, why?)
# # #
In the first week of July the trade papers were reporting that the screenplay was finished, Sinatra was firmly cast in the lead role, and location shooting was about to begin. (Hollywood Reporter, July 4; Variety, July 6) But according to Ephron, Sinatra was already antsy. The main reason was that somehow, someone had falsely informed him that Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein were not happy with him being in their movie. (We’ll get more into this in the next installment, but this was completely incorrect: Hammerstein had already made a point to tell Zanuck that he and Rodgers both thought that Sinatra was an excellent choice.)
Still, by the time Sinatra and Ephron finally meet, presumably in June, Sinatra is already talking about quitting. He’s also insisting that Ephron, in his role as producer, should fire the assigned director, Henry King, and bring on Jean Negulesco instead. This seems very left-field; both King and Negulesco had many successes, and Negulesco had shepherded Jane Wyman through her Oscar-winning role in Johnny Belinda (1948). (The Romanian-born director had also made a series of very stylish musical short subjects for Warner Bros.) Still, there was no apparent reason why Sinatra was down on King and high on Negulesco, he had never really worked with either of them, except that he had recently sung the main title theme for Negulesco’s Three Coins in the Fountain (1954), which had recently won an Oscar for Sammy Cahn and Jule Styne.
Ephron found this obnoxious - an actor telling him what to do - but Sinatra turned out to be correct: King, for all his past and future successes, would do a thoroughly mediocre job in directing Carousel.
In the Summer of 1955, Sinatra and Jones, who had by now been cast as Julie, began recording their principal songs. Ephron has nothing but praise for Jones, which she deserves. Ephron also states that at this time, Sinatra attempted to record a new “Soliloquy” - this is listed in some discographies, but the jury is out as to whether it actually happened.
Ephron says that Sinatra attempted to record “If I Loved You” and “Soliloquy” on the same night in one of the 20th Century Fox studios in Hollywood.
After a few false starts, Frank sang "If I Loved You" beautifully. I'd always thought that no one could read a lyric the way Frank could. He didn't disappoint me. I still have one of the few records of it in existence, though by now it is almost worn out.
To belabor a point one more time, even 20 years later, Ephron, astoundingly, is still thinking of “If I Loved You” as just another song, rather than part of a complex, highly-layered musical scene - he never seems to have come to the realization that it’s far more intricate in all its nuances than “Soliloquy.” He also talks about “If I Loved You” as a solo, having apparently forgotten that Julie also sings in this scene. Ephron continues:
Then came the tough one — "Soliloquy.” [Conductor Alfred] Newman said, "After we get that, we'll take a break and then your voice will be fresh again, and we can start from the beginning, and don't worry if we don't get one perfect take. We can always cut one together." Frank nodded and went to the booth near the orchestra. I offered up a prayer for one good take. God was elsewhere. Frank blew all six takes. There was mild panic in the recording room. Was the vocal range too much for Frank or was he just not in his top voice tonight? Two years before he had recorded "Soliloquy" for Capitol Records, and while it had not been a blockbuster, it was good and would have more than fitted our needs. Was he no longer capable of it? Everybody refused to make a judgment. Finally, Frank came out sweating and angry. "Let's try it another time," he said. "I've had it for tonight." Forty musicians on overtime down the drain.
Spoken like a true movie producer. It wasn’t completely down the drain, since they had at least emerged out with a usable take of “If I Love You.” Yet Ephron is already pissed at Sinatra and Sinatra is testy with him. Ephron is at least aware that Sinatra has sung “Soliloquy” previously; he isn’t a discographer or archivist, so I don’t blame him for thinking he recorded it for Capitol in 1953 rather than Columbia in 1946. He should have been aware, however, that Sinatra had a deep history with the song, that he didn’t merely make a record of it - virtually the only pop singer to do so - but, as we have seen, returned to it many times from 1946 onwards.
It’s worth noting that Ephron states that the Summer 1955 Alfred Newman “Soliloquy” was incomplete and we also know that the February 1955 Dick Jones “Soliloquy” only survives incomplete. It seems possible that Ephron is conflating the two, but, unless some part of the alleged Fox version actually turns up, we will never know for sure.
A few days after this session with Sinatra, Ephron tells us that they all got in a plane for Boothbay. We’ll talk more about Sinatra, Ephron, Zanuck and what happened in Maine in the next installment, but for now let’s listen to “Soliloquy.” This is the February 1955 recording, conducted by Dick Jones. We’re going to hear it in two edits: the first is the track as it exists and was heard in the 2002 Rhino Records package, Sinatra in Hollywood. As mentioned, you hear Sinatra’s voice at the beginning and end, with a long stretch of vocal missing in the middle. (Sinatra did actually record his part satisfactorily, but that piece of audio has somehow been lost.)
The second edit is prepared by the expert musician and archivist Dan Levinson, who has taken the February 1955 recording and spliced it with the 1946 Columbia version. Even though nine years have passed, Sinatra’s voice hasn’t lost any power and the tempo and the key match perfectly. Dan refers to this as his “Frankenstein” edit, but it’s so smooth that it’s impossible to tell exactly what has been Frankensteined.
to be continued: in part three, we’ll take a look at how Rodgers & Hammerstein really felt about having Sinatra in their movie - and the answer might surprise you. (It did me!)
Below, Sinatra’s 1963 version of “Soliloquy,” arranged and conducted by Nelson Riddle, from The Concert Sinatra.)
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Sing! Sing! Sing! : My tagline is, “Celebrating the great jazz - and jazz-adjacent - singers, as well as the composers, lyricists, arrangers, soloists, and sidemen, who help to make them great.”
A production of KSDS heard Saturdays at 10:00 AM Pacific; 1:00PM Eastern.
To listen to KSDS via the internet (current and recent shows are available for streaming.) click here.
The whole series is also listenable on Podbean.com, click here.
Disclaimer: These are my memories of these incidents, nothing more, nothing less. I apologize in advance in case they may not line up precisely with anyone else’s account of what transpired on those occasions.
Very Special thanks to the fabulous Ms. Elizabeth Zimmer, for expert proofreading of this page, and scanning for typos, mistakes, and other assorted boo-boos!
Sing! Sing! Sing! : My tagline is, “Celebrating the great jazz - and jazz-adjacent - singers, as well as the composers, lyricists, arrangers, soloists, and sidemen, who help to make them great.”
A production of KSDS heard Saturdays at 10:00 AM Pacific; 1:00PM Eastern.
To listen to KSDS via the internet (current and recent shows are available for streaming.) click here.
The whole series is also listenable on Podbean.com, click here.
SPECIAL ENCORE PERFORMANCES!
December 31: The Early Years 1935-42 hosted by Will Friedwald
January 1: The Columbia Years 1943-’49 hosted by Ken Poston
January 2: The Radio Years: hosted by Chuck Granata
January 3: The Fall and Rise (1950-’54) hosted by Will Friedwald
January 4: Frank and Nelson hosted by Will Friedwald
January 5: The Capitol Years hosted by Loren Schoenberg
January 6: Bonus! Sing! Sing! Sing! Some Frank Conversation with Adam Gopnik
January 7: The Movies: Hosted by Chuck Granata
January 8: The Early Reprise Years 1960-'65 hosted by Loren Schoenberg
January 9:The Concert Years hosted by Ken Poston
January 10: The Rat Pack hosted by Ken Poston
January 11: Inside the Studio hosted by Chuck Granata
January 12: Bonus! In the Wee Small Hours with AJ Lambert (Sinatra’s granddaughter)
January 13: 1965-1974 The Main Event hosted by Will Friedwald
SLOUCHING TOWARDS BIRDLAND is a subStack newsletter by Will Friedwald. The best way to support my work is with a paid subscription, for which I am asking either $5 a month or $50 per year. Thank you for considering. (Thanks as always to Beth Naji & Arlen Schumer for special graphics.) Word up, peace out, go forth and sin no more! (And always remember: “A man is born, but he’s no good no how, without a song.”)
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