Today we wrap up our special "Strangers In The Night" mini-series with some comments from the guys who were actually there at the time …
GLEN CAMPBELL told the story (in his autobiography RHINESTONE COWBOY) about the time he was asked to play guitar on FRANK SINATRA's legendary recording session for his #1 Comeback Hit, STRANGERS IN THE NIGHT. CAMPBELL remembered the excitement he felt when Producer Extraordinaire JIMMY BOWEN asked him to play on the session:
One of my earliest thrills came when Bowen called for me to play rhythm guitar on a Frank Sinatra session. I had been in Hollywood about three years, but there was still more Arkansas than California in me. I was one of four guitarists and the only one to play in E-Flat with a capo.
“Strangers In The Night" was to become a classic. We rehearsed the song fifteen times before Sinatra arrived. We recorded only three versions or 'takes' when Bowen stopped the session and selected the first rendition. The multi-million-copy version of that song was recorded on the first take!
There were perhaps thirty musicians in the studio that day, including a string section, so who should wind up standing right next to Sinatra's singing booth? Me!
I couldn't take my eyes off him. I couldn't believe that I was in the same room, much less that I was playing for him. Each time I looked at him, he was looking at me. I thought that he was impressed with my playing and that he was taking note that I was the only guitarist using a capo. I was positive I had impressed him, particularly after I saw him talking to Bowen and looking in my direction after the session.
“Bowen,” I asked, “Was Frank talking about me?”
"Yes, Bowen replied.
"What did he say?” I asked anxiously.
He wanted to know who the fag guitar player was. Frank said you never stopped looking at him and he thought you were lusting."
-- Glen Campbell
“STRANGERS IN THE NIGHT” WAS NOT A FAVORITE OF FRANK SINATRA, BUT IT WAS HIS ONLY IMMEDIATE GOLD RECORD. NOW FRANK HAD MANY GOLD RECORDS, BUT IT DID BECOME A SIGNATURE SONG FOR THE CHAIRMAN OF THE BOARD … AND OWNER OF HIS NEW RECORD COMPANY NAMED “REPRISE,” DISTRIBUTED BY WARNER BROTHERS. (CAPITOL WAS ABOUT TO DROP FRANK FROM THE LABEL SO FRANK STARTED HIS OWN COMPANY.)
“STRANGERS IN THE NIGHT” WAS AN INSTANT HIT … IT WENT SOLID GOLD IMMEDIATELY, FOLLOWED BY OTHER SONGS, “THAT’S LIFE”, “SOMETHING STUPID,” WITH DAUGHTER NANCY, AND A HIT BY THE LATE KEELY SMITH ... SO BEAUTIFUL AND THAT IDENTIFIABLE VOICE. WHAT A GREAT SEND OFF FOR A NEW COMPANY.
IT SEEMS FRANK FOLLOWED HIS IDEA OF SIGNING EVERYONE THAT WORKED THE LAS VEGAS STRIP TO A RECORDING CONTRACT. WARNER - REPRISE WAS BORN AND BECAME AN INSTANT HIT. ALL OF THE RAT PACK, OF COURSE, AND JUST ABOUT EVERY STRIP PERFORMER HAD HITS ON THE NEW REPRISE LABEL.
AS A SIDEMAN, ALONG WITH DON RANDI ON PIANO AND CHUCK BERGHOFFER ON BASS, WE HAD A BALL RECORDING ALL OF THE HOLLYWOOD ROYALTY AND THIER HITS ON REPRISE!!!! FRANK ALWAYS KNEW WHAT HE WAS DOING!!!!! WE ALL LOVED THE NAME SINATRA AND I WILL ALWAYS CHERISH THAT NAME!!! (I WAS NANCY’S DRUMMER FOR ALMOST 40 YEARS … WHAT AN AMAZING TRIP!!!) WE ONCE LANDED OUT IN THE PACIFIC ON A CARRIER, THE USS CARL VINSON, WITH NANCY AND CAROL BURNETTE DOING A USO SHOW … YOU WANN’A TALK EXCITING?????
IT SEEMS FRANK FOLLOWED HIS IDEA OF SIGNING EVERYONE THAT WORKED THE LAS VEGAS STRIP TO A RECORDING CONTRACT. WARNER - REPRISE WAS BORN AND BECAME AN INSTANT HIT. ALL OF THE RAT PACK, OF COURSE, AND JUST ABOUT EVERY STRIP PERFORMER HAD HITS ON THE NEW REPRISE LABEL.
AS A SIDEMAN, ALONG WITH DON RANDI ON PIANO AND CHUCK BERGHOFFER ON BASS, WE HAD A BALL RECORDING ALL OF THE HOLLYWOOD ROYALTY AND THIER HITS ON REPRISE!!!! FRANK ALWAYS KNEW WHAT HE WAS DOING!!!!! WE ALL LOVED THE NAME SINATRA AND I WILL ALWAYS CHERISH THAT NAME!!! (I WAS NANCY’S DRUMMER FOR ALMOST 40 YEARS … WHAT AN AMAZING TRIP!!!) WE ONCE LANDED OUT IN THE PACIFIC ON A CARRIER, THE USS CARL VINSON, WITH NANCY AND CAROL BURNETTE DOING A USO SHOW … YOU WANN’A TALK EXCITING?????
HAL BLAINE
Pianist Michel Rubini devotes an entire chapter to Frank Sinatra in his new book “Life In The Key Of Rubini.” Obviously, this was a momentous day for all parties concerned (except maybe Frank! Lol)
Everybody remembers things a little differently … but the jist of the story remains the same …
Before I got the call to play on my first Sinatra recording date, I didn’t believe that I had arrived.
Then one day, the miracle of all miracles happened … I got the Sinatra call that up to then had only been a dream. It came from Jimmy Bowen, a hot young producer for whom I had been working. Bowen was going to cut a song called “Strangers In The Night” with Frank and wanted me to play the piano on it. Sinatra desperately wanted back on the Top 40 Charts, to be contemporary and relevant again. “Strangers” was carefully chose by Bowen to hopefully do exactly that. And when Sinatra hired you for a project, you were expected to come through. So the pressure was on for Bowen.
In keeping with the importance of the recording session, Bowen hired the great Ernie Freeman to do the arrangement and also blew out all the stops budget-wise. No expense was spared. The night I walked into the studio at United Recorders, I was greeted by no less than about sixty guys in the orchestra. It was a huge date by anyone’s standards, let along Jimmy Bowen’s … usually he had about seven or eight musicians on hand … but this time around, practically every string and horn guy in town was there.
As I walked up to the Steinway concert grand piano, however, I noticed a man already sitting there looking at some sheet music. Pleasantly introducing himself as “Bill Miller,” e went on to say that he was Mr. Sinatra’s pianist and would be playing the session, which left me flabbergasted. Here was my big chance to play with the Chairman of the Board himself and someone was taking my place. I didn’t know what to do; I certainly couldn’t argue with Bill about who was supposed to be sitting on the piano bench.
So I walked back to the control room and quietly stood behind Bowen. After about a minute, Jimmy became aware of me standing behind him, turned around and said in a voice that clearly indicated he was pressed for time, “Rubini, what the hell are you doing in here? You should be out there at that piano!”
As politely as I could, I told Bowen that I had already been out there, but that Bill Miller announced to me that he was going to be playing the session and that I should just go sit somewhere else.
Bowen zipped out of the control room and back into the studio, with me following along about six feet behind him like a lap dog. He walked right up to the piano and, I swear, proceeded to hand out the biggest line of bullshit I have ever heard in my life. With a perfectly straight face, he ever so pleasantly told Bill Miller … Frank Sinatra’s personal pianist, mind you … that he knew that Bill was the greatest piano player ever but that he (Bowen) had already hired me to play on a special part for the record that wasn’t written on the sheet music. Because of that, there wouldn’t be enough time to show anyone else how to do it. Therefore, would he (Bill) mind too terribly if I (Michel) just played on this one song?
Bill Miller thought about this for a couple of seconds and decided that he didn’t want to argue with Bowen. After all, Bowen was the producer and it was his date. You don’t argue with the general when you are only a private. So the ever-gracious Miller got up from the piano, and I sat down. Bowen and Miller then walked back to the control room together. What a politician Bowen was. He could talk the shine off a new pair of shoes.
With that little disruption out of the way, I sat down and looked at the music for the first time. I had never rehearsed a special part with Jimmy in the office. That was all baloney. Bowen just wanted me to do my usual thing. He knew I’d play exactly what he needed for the record.
We rehearsed the song for about an hour until everybody had played the arrangement about a dozen times. At this point, we all knew what we were going to do by heart. We could have played it in our sleep.
A few minutes later, Frank Sinatra showed up with his entourage. He entered the studio followed by a bunch of people, mostly couples, who were in evening dress. They all looked like they had stepped off the pages of GQ Magazine or had maybe just left the casino. The men wore dark silk suits and ties and the women had on cocktail dresses and/or evening gowns with furs to match. Diamonds, too, sparkled from every lady’s ear and neck.
Marching in behind Sinatra, they were directed to about thirty nearby metal folding chairs, where they all sat down and quietly watched us. It was quite surreal … I had never before played a session where the artist brought his own audience! Of course, this WAS Frank Sinatra.
With the vocal booth placed right next to the piano near the back wall of the studio, Sinatra walked up to me, stuck out his hand, and introduced himself (as if he needed to do such a thing!) Naturally, I stood and shook his hand in return, told him my name, and said that it was a pleasure and privilege to be playing for him. Though he looked at me somewhat quizzically while probably wondering where Bill Miller was, much to my relief, Sinatra didn’t have me thrown out. He actually couldn’t have been more cordial.
Standing in front of his microphone, Sinatra then chatted a bit with Bowen and Ernie Freeman. After some sound adjustments, we finally started the song. Frank came in on cue and we did a take, but at the end, he got a little confused. On the records of the ‘40’s and ‘50’s, the arrangers always wrote real “cold” endings to the songs … they didn’t just fade out. Sinatra thought “Strangers” was going to end like that. Nobody had told him it was going to gradually fade. This was the rockin’ ‘60’s after all, and almost all of the pop / rock records faded out.
Normally, as a song fades, the singer will repeat the tag line or chorus over and over ad the engineer slowly lowers the recording volume … which is what was supposed to happen on “Strangers In The Night.” But either Sinatra just didn’t know he was expected to do that or else he had failed to prepare a proper ending to match the fadeout.
After Sinatra stopped singing, he and Bowen then had a hushed discussion near me about what was happening. I could see that Sinatra was not happy. Bowen finally asked Frank to just vamp (i.e. make up) something at the end to sing over the top of the music. I think Bowen was secretly praying at that moment that God would deliver him from Sinatra’s impending wrath, which could be withering, if not career-ending, when he was displeased about something.
We cut it again and Frank scatted something at the end that was not great, to say the least. Bowen and Sinatra talked once more, this time through their headphones, and an increasingly impatient (and likely embarrassed) Sinatra said he would do one last take, but that was it ... take it or leave it … he had a plane to catch.
So we recorded a third and final pass at the tune. This time, however, when we got to the end, Sinatra, the old pro that he was, cut loose with the now famous “doo-be-doo-be-doo” scat line We played the music around for about thirty seconds with him singing over the top of us and then Ernie stopped the band just as the engineer faded the volume down to zero. And that was it.
Sinatra asked Bowen if he had what he needed, said goodnight to me, and then walked over to his guests. Just before departing, Sinatra turned to all the musicians and said “Thanks, boys … great job.” His entourage then rose as one, just like the good little soldiers they were, and followed him right out the door of the recording studio and into the night.
As the orchestra took a break, Bowen walked out into the studio. He and I stood together in front of the big Altec playback monitor speakers as Eddie Brackett rewound the tape and then replayed the whole song for us. When it got to the fade out, just as Frank began singing the “Doo-be-doo-be-doo” part, Bowen turned to me and asked, “So, Rubini, what do you think?”
After a moment of reflection, I replied, “You know, Jimmy, this is either the worst fade ever recorded and it’s going to be a total bomb, or people are going to pickup on it and think it’s really cool and it’ll sell a million copies. One or the other.”
Well, we all know what happened from there. “Strangers In The Night” became a giant success, going all the way to number one on the Billboard Hot 100 Singles Chart in 1966, in the process knocking The Beatles’ “Paperback Writer” right out of the top spot and also winning a Grammy for Song Of The Year. You can’t get any more contemporary than that! And I’m fortunate to say that I was there when it happened. That’s when I knew I had finally arrived. (I also just happened to play on Mr. Sinatra’s next hit record, “That’s Life,” putting me on two of Mr. Sinatra’s biggest hits of all time.
-- Michel Rubini
-- Michel Rubini
From "The Wrecking Crew" film documentary (produced by Denny Tedesco), here is a clip of some of the musicians talking about this very special session ...
