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1953–1960: Career Revival and the Capitol years

The release of the film From Here to Eternity in August 1953 marked the beginning of a remarkable career revival. Tom Santopietro notes that Sinatra began to bury himself in his work, with an "unparalleled frenetic schedule of recordings, movies and concerts," in what authors Anthony Summers and Robbyn Swan describe as "a new and brilliant phase."

On March 13, 1953, Sinatra met with Capitol Records vice president Alan Livingston and signed a seven-year recording contract. His first session for Capitol took place at KHJ studios at Studio C, 5515 Melrose Avenue in Los Angeles, with Axel Stordahl conducting. The session produced four recordings, including " I'm Walking Behind You," Sinatra's first Capitol single.

After spending two weeks on location in Hawaii filming From Here to Eternity, Sinatra returned to KHJ on April 30 for his first recording session with Nelson Riddle, an established arranger and conductor at Capitol who was Nat King Cole's musical director. After recording the first song, " I've Got the World on a String," Sinatra offered Riddle a rare expression of praise, "Beautiful!", and after listening to the playbacks, he could not hide his enthusiasm, exclaiming, "I'm back, baby, I'm back!"

In subsequent sessions in May and November 1953, Sinatra and Riddle developed and refined their musical collaboration, with Sinatra providing specific guidance on the arrangements. Sinatra's first album for Capitol, Songs for Young Lovers, was released on January 4, 1954, and included " A Foggy Day ", " I Get a Kick Out of You ", " My Funny Valentine ", " Violets for Your Furs " and " They Can't Take That Away from Me ", songs which became staples of his later concerts.

That same month, Sinatra released the single " Young at Heart ", which reached No. 2 and was awarded Song of the Year. In March, he recorded and released the single " Three Coins in the Fountain ", a "powerful ballad" that reached No. 4. Sinatra's second album with Riddle, Swing Easy!, which reflected his "love for the jazz idiom" according to Granata, was released on August 2 of that year and included " Just One of Those Things ", " Taking a Chance on Love ", " Get Happy ", and " All of Me ". Swing Easy! was named Album of the Year by Billboard, and he was named "Favorite Male Vocalist" by Billboard, DownBeat, and Metronome that year.

Sinatra came to consider Riddle "the greatest arranger in the world," and Riddle, who considered Sinatra, "a perfectionist," said: "It's not only that his intuitions as to tempo, phrasing, and even configuration are amazingly right, but his taste is so impeccable... There is still no one who can approach him."

In 1955, Sinatra released In the Wee Small Hours, his first 12" LP, featuring songs such as " In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning," " Mood Indigo," " Glad to Be Unhappy " and " When Your Lover Has Gone." According to Granata it was the first concept album of his to make a "single persuasive statement", with an extended program and "melancholy mood." Sinatra embarked on his first tour of Australia the same year.

Another collaboration with Riddle resulted in Songs for Swingin' Lovers!, sometimes seen as one of his best albums, which was released in March 1956. It features a recording of " I've Got You Under My Skin " by Cole Porter, which reportedly took 22 takes to perfect.

His February 1956 recording sessions inaugurated the studios at the Capitol Records Building, complete with a 56-piece symphonic orchestra. According to Granata, his recordings of "Night and Day," "Oh! Look at Me Now," and " From This Moment On " revealed "powerful sexual overtones, stunningly achieved through the mounting tension and release of Sinatra's best-teasing vocal lines," while his recording of "River, Stay 'Way from My Door" in April demonstrated his "brilliance as a syncopational improviser."

Riddle said that Sinatra took "particular delight" in singing "The Lady is a Tramp," commenting that he "always sang that song with a certain amount of salaciousness," making "cue tricks" with the lyrics. His penchant for conducting was displayed again in 1956's Frank Sinatra Conducts Tone Poems of Color, an instrumental album that has been interpreted to be a catharsis to his failed relationship with Gardner. Sinatra also sang at that year's Democratic National Convention and performed with The Dorsey Brothers for a week soon afterward at the Paramount Theatre.

In 1957, Sinatra released Close to You, A Swingin' Affair! and Where Are You? —his first album in stereo, with Gordon Jenkins. Granata considers "Close to You" to have been thematically his closest concept album to perfection during the "golden" era, and Nelson Riddle's finest work, which was "extremely progressive" by the standards of the day. It is structured like a three-act play, each commencing with the songs " With Every Breath I Take," " Blame It on My Youth " and " It Could Happen to You." For Granata, Sinatra's A Swingin' Affair! and Songs for Swingin' Lovers! solidified "Sinatra's image as a 'swinger,' from both a musical and visual standpoint." Buddy Collette considered the swing albums to have been heavily influenced by Sammy Davis Jr. and stated that when he worked with Sinatra in the mid-1960s, he approached a song much differently than he had done in the early 1950s.

On June 9, 1957, he performed in a 62-minute concert conducted by Riddle at the Seattle Civic Auditorium, his first appearance in Seattle since 1945. The recording was first released as a bootleg, but Artanis Entertainment Group officially released it as Sinatra '57 in Concert in 1999, after Sinatra's death.

In 1958, Sinatra released the concept album Come Fly with Me with Billy May, designed as a musical world tour. It reached the top spot on the Billboard album chart in its second week, remaining at the top for five weeks, and was nominated for the Grammy Award for Album of the Year at the inaugural Grammy Awards. The title song, " Come Fly With Me ", written especially for him, would become one of his best-known standards. On May 29, he recorded seven songs in a single session, more than double the usual yield of a recording session, and an eighth, " Lush Life," was abandoned as Sinatra found it too technically demanding. In September, Sinatra released Frank Sinatra Sings for Only the Lonely, a stark collection of introspective saloon songs and blues-tinged ballads, which proved a huge commercial success, spending 120 weeks on Billboard ' s album chart and peaking at No. 1. Cuts from this LP, such as " Angel Eyes " and " One for My Baby (and One More for the Road)," would remain staples of the "saloon song" segments of Sinatra's concerts.

In 1959, Sinatra released Come Dance with Me!, a highly successful, critically acclaimed album that stayed on Billboard ' s Pop album chart for 140 weeks, peaking at No. 2. It won the Grammy Award for Album of the Year, as well as Best Vocal Performance, Male and Best Arrangement for Billy May.

He released No One Cares in the same year, a collection of "brooding, lonely" torch songs, which critic Stephen Thomas Erlewine thought was "nearly as good as its predecessor Where Are You?, but lacked the "lush" arrangements of it and the "grandiose melancholy" of Only the Lonely.

In the words of Kelley, by 1959, Sinatra was "not simply the leader of the Rat Pack" but had "assumed the position of il padrone in Hollywood." He was asked by 20th Century Fox to be the master of ceremonies at a luncheon attended by Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev on September 19, 1959. Nice 'n' Easy, a collection of ballads, topped the Billboard chart in October 1960 and remained in the charts for 86 weeks, winning critical plaudits.