I was probably being unfair to Nelson Riddle, whose orchestral arrangements of many of Sinatra's top hits of the '50s and '60s I truly deplore as overblown and often completely off the mark in terms of understanding the song he's arranging. I mark Sinatra's vocal demise as beginning sometime in the early-mid 1950s - which is about the time he started working regularly with Riddle. I'm sure it was brought on by more than the need to squawk out as loud as he could over Riddle's egregiously bombastic arrangements - smoking, drinking, self-indulgent living, and hubris probably all contributed to his gradual vocal demise. But it is interesting to me that the timing also coincided, as I mentioned, with his almost exclusive work with Riddle.
Tony Bennett always struck me as having a lovely natural voice, an honest, heartfelt interpretive sense, and a chronically underpitched intonation.
KM ............................ NEIL SHICOFF, TENORE SUPREMO http://www.radix.net/~dalila/shicoff/shicoff.html
My Own Website http://www.radix.net/~dalila/index.html
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ + I sing hymns with my spirit, + + but I also sing hymns with my mind. + + - 1 Corinthians 14:15 + +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
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