MICHAEL BOLTON - 'BOLTON SWINGS SINATRA'

Release date: November 20th, 2006
(Concord Records/Universal Music)

New album pairs Bolton with big band, classic songs; Nicollette Sheridan joins him for duet on 'The Second Time Around'

 

International superstar Michael Bolton has taken on another extraordinary challenge with Bolton Swings Sinatra The collection finds him singing classics like "New York, New York," "Night and Day," "My Funny Valentine," "Fly Me to the Moon," "Girl From Ipanema" and "That's Life," and bringing in special guest Nicollette Sheridan for a duet on "The Second Time Around."

"For years I've kept a list of dream projects," Bolton notes. "At the top of that list was an album of songs made famous by Frank Sinatra."

Supervising the arrangements and orchestrations down to the last note, he's created an affectionate, dynamic tribute to some of the greatest recordings of the 20th century. The result will be a revelation even for long time fans - soulful and swingin', Bolton Swings Sinatra is a dazzling pairing of singer and material.

Fired up by a spectacular big band of top musicians including 17 horns and 35 string players, and working with top-flight arrangements and audio technicians in the legendary Capitol studios where the Chairman of the Board and countless other icons have put down tracks, Bolton went to work on a batch of songs he'd loved since childhood.

He was strongly aided in this endeavour by co-producer Alex Christensen, arranger Chris Walden and engineer-mixer Al Schmitt, the latter a veteran of many Sinatra sessions, among other famed recordings. "They're brilliant," Bolton asserts of these aural architects. "They helped make everyone feel happy - the players loved the creative environment. Al's like the doctor who's delivered 200 of the most famous babies in the world," he adds, referring to Schmitt's extraordinary track record in the studio, which has earned him 15 Grammy™ trophies.

Having already sold 53 million albums, scaled the Pop, R&B and Classical charts, performed at sold-out venues worldwide, sung with Luciano Pavarotti and Ray Charles, written songs with Bob Dylan, traded guitar licks with B.B. King and penned hits for Barbra Streisand and KISS, Bolton might have been tempted to rest on his laurels. Instead, true to form, the vocalist threw himself into researching Sinatra's life and work and preparing to put his own mark on a selection of material Sinatra had made his own.

"Sinatra sang with such power and such vulnerability," marvels Bolton. "He was a great storyteller. I just tried to tell some of these stories in my own way. He is one of the very few singers with such a dynamic vocal and personal range that he could sing with complete authority, strength and conviction one moment and in another stir us to our core with a tenderness and a sense of vulnerability that would deliver the pure emotion and meaning the composer intended."

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