Watertown (album)

Infobox Album |
Name = Watertown
Type = Album
Artist = Frank Sinatra


Released = 1970
Recorded = July 14, 1969 –
July 17, 1969
Genre = Classic pop
Length = 36:18
Label = Reprise Records
Producer = Charles Calello
Reviews =
* Allmusic Rating|4.5|5 [http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=10:i4he4j371wav link]
Last album = "A Man Alone"
(1969)
This album = "Watertown"
(1970)
Next album = "Sinatra & Company"
(1971)|

"Watertown" is a studio album by American singer Frank Sinatra, released in 1970 (see 1970 in music).

It is Sinatra's most ambitious concept album, an experiment perhaps first started on the 1966 album "That's Life". It charts the story of a middle-aged man in Watertown, New York, whose wife has left him with his children.

It is similar in tone and nature to Sinatra's earliest concept albums, albums that evoke an air of despair and loneliness, found on such albums as 1958's "Frank Sinatra Sings for Only the Lonely" and 1955's "In the Wee Small Hours".

Stephen Thomas Erlewine describes the album's construction as being a 'Series of brief lyrical snapshots that read like letters or soliloquies, the culminating effect of the songs is an atmosphere of loneliness, but it is a loneliness without much hope or romance - it is the sound of a broken man'. It is this introspection that one consistently finds in Sinatra's later albums, culminating in Sinatra's last concept album, "" from 1980.

"Watertown" was arranged and conducted by Bob Gaudio, 1/4th of the 1960's pop vocal group "Frankie Valli & the Four Seasons".

The album was released to mixed critical reviews and poor sales.

Track listing

All songs written by Bob Gaudio and Jake Holmes.
# "Watertown" – 3:36
# "Goodbye (She Quietly Says)" – 3:06
# "For a While" – 3:09
# "Michael and Peter" – 5:10
# "I Would Be in Love (Anyway)" – 2:31
# "Elizabeth" – 3:38
# "What a Funny Girl (You Used to Be)" – 3:00
# "What's Now Is Now" – 4:04
# "She Says" – 1:51
# "The Train" – 3:26
# "Lady Day" (CD bonus track) – 2:47

Personnel

* Frank Sinatra - vocals
* Bob Gaudio - composer, arranger, conductor
* Jake Holmes - lyricist
* Charles Calello - producer

External links

* [http://www.simpleton.com/20021230.html A perceptive essay on "Watertown" by Simpleton]
* [http://www.personal.psu.edu/sxh36/watertown.htm Ed O'Brien interviews Watertown Lyricist Jake Holmes and Composer/Producer Bob Gaudio]
* [http://www.duckworthsquare.com/frankosonic/frankosonic/2006/09/frank-sinatra-watertown.html A more unorthodox take on the album's central concept from Frankosonic]