Savoy Jazz
2003
Rawls Sings Sinatra
About This Album
Tackling the Sinatra songbook seems like a dicey proposition. Who wants to be compared to one of the greatest singers of all time? Most likely you are going to come up short in comparison. Lou Rawls decided to take on the challenge on his 2003 release Rawls Sings Sinatra, which features Rawls wrapping his distinctive baritone around 12 songs associated with Sinatra. It is produced very cleanly by Billy Vera, arranged swingingly by Benny Golson, and split between up-tempo songs like "Come Fly With Me," "That's Life," and "My Kind of Town/Chicago" and ballads like "All the Way," "One for My Baby (And One More for the Road"), and "In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning." Vera and Rawls make a few interesting choices song-wise, picking a few lesser-known songs like "Summer Wind," "The Second Time Around," and "Learnin' the Blues." All the pieces are in place to make this a pleasant exercise in Sinatra-worshipping nostalgia. The only problem is the less-than-perfect state of Rawls' vocals. He definitely shows his age as he occasionally scrapes his way through the trickier passages and growls his way through the swinging tunes.
Track List (try track 1)

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