Marriage Trap

This first collection of Sinatra's singles and B-sides with Nelson Riddle is also the best one. The album kicks off with the irrepressible 'I've Got the World on a String' and features such essential tracks as 'South of the Border,' 'The Gal That Got Away,' 'Learnin' the Blues,' and the movie themes 'Three Coins in a Fountain,' 'Young at Heart,' and 'The Tender Trap.' 'Rain' and 'Don't Worry 'Bout Me' are dark ballads good enough to be on one of Sinatra's 'wrist-slasher' LPs, and display a depth that many of his singles lack.

Nicknamed "The Voice," "Ol' Blue Eyes," "The Chairman Of The Board," and "Frankie Boy." Beginning his musical career in the swing era with Harry James (2) and Tommy Dorsey, Sinatra became a solo artist with great success after signing with Columbia Records in March 1943; he stayed with Columbia until he got dropped by the label in June '52. Sinatra signed a seven-year recording contract with Capitol Records on March 13, 1953, and released several critically lauded albums while with Capitol. Sinatra left Capitol to found his own record label in 1960, Reprise Records, toured internationally, and fraternized with the Rat Pack and President John F. Kennedy in the early 1960s.

Long before today’s ‘rebellious’ pop idols, singers Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin and Sammy Davis Jr plus actor Peter Lawford and comedian Joey Bishop had entered showbiz legend as the genuinely hellraisin’ Rat Pack. The handle proved a gift to journalists chronicling the life and high times of the all-male quintet whose leading lights were, without doubt, three of the greatest entertainers of the 20th Century. And there’s little doubt they lived life to the full, both individually and collectively.Enjoy an album that captures three great entertainers, separately and in combination, performing at their best.