I don’t see how you can improve on perfection. And that song to me is truly perfection.
You’re hearing the words of Chuck Granata, talking about “I’ll Never Smile Again.” If you’re a student of music, or just someone with an abiding interest in the Great American Songbook, you’ll know that name. He’s a musical treasure trove of information, trivia, facts, and details.
More than that, though, Chuck’s got a wonderful ability to sum up the big band era with detailed certainty, something he does regularly on Nancy For Frank, the radio program he produces with Nancy Sinatra.
Let’s listen in as Chuck talks with author Peter Jennings...
Peter Jennings: Chuck, before we discuss Ruth Lowe and Frank Sinatra’s signature tunes that she wrote for him, I do want to congratulate you on your wonderful book, Sessions With Sinatra. I felt like I was actually there in the studio when Frank made those landmark records. You did such a wonderful job recreating those moments.
Chuck Granata: Aw, thanks, Peter, I appreciate that. Yeah, that was my aim, to let you, the reader, be a fly on the wall, seeing how all this music went down.
PJ: Well, you certainly achieved that in spades. OK, let’s turn to “I’ll Never Smile Again” by Ruth Lowe. No one knows Sinatra’s music like you do, so tell me about your thoughts on this song. Let’s start with, where would you place it in the five thousand or more tunes comprising the Great American Songbook?
CG: Absolutely in the top tier. It is one of those songs that even today, you can’t help but stop and marvel at it because it’s so expressive. It really comes from the heart, and it speaks to everyone, the feelings of everyday men and women. There’s no getting around the fact that anyone could be in that position of losing someone. It’s simple, it’s elegant, and it’s timely: so, I would absolutely put “I’ll Never Smile Again” in the top 100 standards of all time.
PJ: Wow, that’s lavish praise indeed. I know Tommy Sandler will be thrilled to hear that. You know, Chuck, one thing I always wonder about is with most of the standards being composed by song writing teams, Ruth, of course, wrote this one on her own, words and music. Do you think she could have done better had she paired up with someone?
CG: No. There’s no—how do I say this—there’s no deficiency in that song at all. The melody is beautiful. The lyrics are perfect. I mean, she nailed it. I don’t think it could have been any better if she collaborated with someone. It might have been different, but better? No way. I don’t see how you can improve on perfection. And that song to me is truly perfection.
PJ: So, tell me what, in your opinion, makes a good song, a perfect song? Can you put it into words?
CG: It takes a good melody to start with. Depending on whether it’s a ballad or an up-tempo tune, that melody has to make you feel something. It has to tug at your emotional heartstrings, make you want to dance or be happy or be sad. But that’s just the entrée. The lyrics are most important. It’s that combination of a lyric that speaks to you and makes you think: “Ah. I have felt that way.” And then, you mix in the emotional tug of the melody that pulls that lyric along: I think the combination of those two things are what make a great song.
PJ: Well said.
CG: You know, Peter, when you think of great songs, I think of Johnny Mercer and “I Remember You.” Or Cole Porter: “I’ve Got You Under My Skin” or “Night and Day.” Or Dorothy Fields and Jerome Kern’s “The Way You Look Tonight.” And you add to that group Ruth Lowe with “I’ll Never Smile Again.” These are all world class melodies and lyrics that make you not just feel something, but they make you want to go back and listen again. Those songs are the ones you never get tired of listening to because they mean something. And they help demarcate a place and a time for many people and evoke such strong memories. And they also speak to the future. These are songs that are played at weddings today. And they will be for years to come.
PJ: So, not songs like “Pimp My Ride” that won the Oscar a few years ago?
CG: (laughing) Oh please! You know what? I really wonder if songs like that will be any kind of memory 50 years from now. I don’t think so. But songs like Ruth’s sure will be, because they have that rare combination of melody and lyrical sentiment that is lasting.
PJ: Chuck, you have such a wealth of knowledge about the big band era when “I’ll Never Smile Again” was introduced. Share with me a bit about what was going on then and how this song broke through.
CG: Well, I think, at that moment, the world was on the precipice of war and certainly American servicemen were enlisting and some were even beginning to go overseas. They were missed by their families and their significant others. They were quite young. And that ballad and that lyric resonated with them. It was as much a product of the moment as it was of personal sentimentality. I also think that even though there were some wonderful ballads that were being performed by Frank Sinatra—I think specifically of Frank Loesser’s “Say It,” one of my favourites from that time—“I’ll Never Smile Again” was more personal. Every listener could relate to what the lyrics were saying. And, certainly, Frank Sinatra was poised at that time to be the premier interpreter of those lyrics. So, what Tommy Dorsey and Sinatra and Jo Stafford and the Pied Pipers achieved with that record was this incredibly personal sentiment that just resonated with the public and certainly with people who were missing their loved ones.
PJ: Could someone else have sung that song as well as Sinatra at the time? Or was it his song?
CG: Anyone could have certainly sung it, but it was a matter of whether they could have brought that very personal dimension to it that Sinatra was able to do. He had that ability—the inner sentiment, the inner meaning of a lyric—better than anyone at that time. So, while others could have introduced it, I don’t think anyone could have given it the justice it deserved better than Frank Sinatra. Even though he was still a relatively unknown quantity at the time, it was pivotal in bringing his voice and his persona to the forefront, but it also helped cement his image as a romantic crooner.
PJ: I know you’ve got some thoughts on the role Tommy Dorsey played in making the song a hit.
CG: Well, here you have Dorsey’s band—a pretty hot, swinging band—and they are employing this vocalist. And, at that time, the vocalist was more of an accessory than the feature of the big bands. The focus of most of the big bands was the band leader’s instrument. You listen to the Dorsey recordings—especially the ones from 1940 and ’41—and you hear that right at the start: Dorsey takes a trombone solo. He’s clearly the face of the band. But that started to change: the trombone was supplanted by Sinatra’s vocal, so that he now became the face of the band.
Dorsey had a pretty good ego, but he realized he could bring notoriety to the band by bringing the singer up front, making the vocalist the feature of the orchestra. Which Dorsey did beautifully, and it’s a testament to the fact that it was Frank Sinatra who suggested to Dorsey that he bring strings into the band. Not many of the big bands did that. It was such a perceptive suggestion because that really set the Dorsey band apart, and it also set Sinatra up as a vocalist with that string cushion. He was able to really emote a whole different level in terms of sensitivity and expressiveness. And no one knew better than Axel Stordhal (Dorsey’s chief arranger) how to write for those strings. And Fred Stulce, a member of the band, was quite capable of arranging for strings too and did so beautifully.
PJ: I think another thing that made their recording of “I’ll Never Smile Again” so special is that it featured the Pied Pipers behind Frank as part of the main arrangement of the song.
CG: Absolutely. So, now you have this confluence of elements: you have this soft, romantic, and expressive lyric line, beautifully arranged with the vocal chorus and Frank Sinatra right up front, and it just came along at the right moment. It really spoke to people who needed to hear that kind of almost plaintive, lonely lyric that meant something to them. And that really was the beginning of people sitting up and taking notice of Frank Sinatra as a vocalist, as a crooner, and it also helped to create a whole new sound for the Dorsey band.
PJ: Timing played a role, right?
CG: It was all a matter of timing: you have a wonderful song—an important song—in the hands of a very capable vocalist with one of the number one bands in the country—if not the number one band—and then the added bonus of having the push from Billboard listing the song as #1. It all helped move Frank Sinatra into that limelight where he was, all of a sudden, in the spotlight as the man. And, I think, honestly if you really think about it, that was the beginning of the end of the big bands.
PJ: Really. How so?
CG: Let’s face it: when the big bands were really hot in the late 30s and early 40s, the focus was on the melody played by the band leader, whoever that happened to be—Glenn Miller, or Artie Shaw, or Tommy Dorsey. People weren’t really focusing on the lyrics because these were dance aggregations. People would go to the Hotel Pennsylvania in New York City or the Glen Island Casino on Long Island or the Palladium Ballroom in Los Angeles, and they would go to dance. They weren’t necessarily keying in on a vocalist. But what happened is that when Sinatra took to the microphone on those dance dates, everybody stopped and began to watch him, and that, I believe, is why Frank was such a great showman because he did so many of those dance dates and the one-nighters with the Dorsey band. He learned how to sing to an audience. So, we see this shift from big bands serving to be dance bands—being the background for people dancing—to almost becoming mini concerts where people would come now to see the vocalist—to see and hear Frank Sinatra. And I say “see him” because people would actually stop dancing and watch him.
PJ: I get it. Because of this, the bands were being replaced by the vocalist.
CG: Right. And what happened is, Dorsey was brilliant. Not only was he a great instrumentalist—not only did he bring together the very best musicians in the world for that band—but he also taught Sinatra how to be a showman.
You know, Peter, if you think back, before Dorsey, the bands would have their singer just sitting there ready to croon when called upon. There was no surprise, it was all right in front of you and what was expected. But what Dorsey did is he kept the featured vocalist behind the scenes. So, the band would begin to play and when it was Sinatra’s time to sing, he would actually come out from the wings, as though something special was happening. It’s far more dramatic, with a song like “I’ll Never Smile Again,” to start the tune and then bring out your vocalist. It makes it more of a show, and that’s what Dorsey really did at that moment. He changed the way people presented their bands. Dorsey really started to present the featured vocalist, and even a featured instrumentalist, by making it an event. And those little elements of showmanship were what Frank Sinatra learned early on.
So, that brought about the focus on the singer and the beginning of the end of the big bands. The singer was now the centre of attention, not the band.
I’ve always wondered if Dorsey would do the same thing if he knew what the outcome was going to be.
PJ: Chuck, what about Ruth’s other song for Sinatra: his theme song?
CG: “Put Your Dreams Away”: it’s equally beautiful. I don’t think the sentiment could be better put. It was a wonderful closing theme for Sinatra, and he clearly recognized that from very early on, from almost the beginning of his solo career and his radio career because he used it as his closing theme and continued to do that up until the mid 1960s when he had those great “A Man and His Music” TV specials, and he closed those with “Put Your Dreams Away.” And, of course, it was played at his funeral, the last tune as people left the church. I should add that Nancy chose that song to end her weekly show on SIRIUS Radio each time. It again is such a beautiful sentiment with such a wonderful meaning. I put it in the same class as “I’ll Never Smile Again.” They’re very different, the catalysts for one being a very sad situation and the other one really does speak of hope and optimism, but I love the song and I know it’s one of Nancy’s favourite songs.
PJ: Parting thoughts?
CG: You know, I’m kind of surprised that Ruth didn’t write more songs for Sinatra and other singers.
PJ: Truth be told, I think she got tired of all the hoopla in New York and L.A. and yearned for the simpler life back in Toronto. There, she married a stockbroker who was not at all keen on the showbiz kind of stuff, so she really gave it up and became a society chatelaine. She had two kids and enjoyed a wonderful, very full life. But when you consider those two songs, I agree. I’m sure there were others in her, but it just wasn’t the way the cards were laid out.
CG: Interesting, I didn’t know that. But let me share one other thought with you. I always thought “I’ll Never Smile Again” has a very Mercer-like quality. Those are lyrics that, if I didn’t know who they were written by, I’d guess Johnny Mercer. It’s that kind of quality. Mercer spoke to everyone too. Mercer wrote for the common man: you didn’t have to be sophisticated and highbrow to get the lyric line as you did sometimes with, for instance, Cole Porter. Mercer’s lyrics were plain and simple, and the expression is always right up front.
That, and when you consider Sinatra recorded “I’ll Never Smile Again” four times: well, you gotta know he felt the song had legs. There was the original with the Dorsey band, then the movie version, then with Gordon Jenkins in 1959 for that devastating album No One Cares, and then, again, for Reprise in 1965 for A Man and His Music. I mean, the fact that he recorded it all those times, each time with a different reading, that, in itself, has to say something about its importance.
Thanks, Chuck Granata. It’s always a pleasure to partake in such knowledge and informed opinion.