Strangers in the Night

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Strangers in the Night is the title of a world hit and evergreen released by Frank Sinatra in 1966 , the melody of which was created by Bert Kaempfert .

History of origin

Original 1966 soundtrack for A Man Could Get Killed with Beddy Bye

Bert Kaempfert had received the order from Universal Pictures in 1965 to write the film music for the American agent comedy A Man Could Get Killed (German title: Willkommen, Mister B. ). For this purpose, he wrote an instrumental piece entitled Beddy Bye in the autumn of 1965 , which referred to the main character of the film William "Beddy" Beddoes. His compositions, created with the support of Herbert Rehbein , were registered for copyright in June 1966 by Roosevelt Music, a music publisher owned by Hal Fein. However, Kaempfert was initially not allowed to record his composition himself for contractual reasons.

Fein commissioned the lyricists Charles Singleton and Eddie Snyder - at that time with fresh fame for their texting of the Kaempfert melody Moon over Naples , which they transformed into the world success Spanish Eyes - to write a text for this. Snyder specialized in English-language texts from European originals; Together with co-author Singleton, he wrote a text for the instrumental piece under the title Strangers in the Night , the working title of which Beddy Bye, however, was still retained in the film score. On March 8, 1966 Joseph Gershenson took over the direction of the orchestra for the studio recordings of Beddy Bye , on March 25, 1966 the film premiered. In February 1967 the title won the Golden Globe Award for "Best Original Song in a Motion Picture".

Record recordings

Jack Jones - Strangers in the Night

Music publisher Fein meanwhile offered the piece with text to the record industry. Among those interested was music producer Jimmy Bowen , the producer of Frank Sinatra. But Jack Jones was also interested in the title. On April 4, Jones played three titles, including the Strangers in the Night arranged by Marty Paich and Pete King , which appeared in June 1966 as the B-side of The Impossible Dream and did not make it into the charts. His version is therefore considered to be the original version, because the instrumental version by Gershenson was intended exclusively for the cinema.

A week after Jones was on April 11, 1966 Frank Sinatra in Hollywood under producer Jimmy Bowen with pianist Ernie Freeman as arranger in recording studio 1 of Western Recorders and recorded the song in just two takes . Some session musicians from The Wrecking Crew such as Bill Miller (piano), Glen Campbell and Tommy Tedesco (guitar), Chuck Berghofer (bass), Jim Horn (flute) and Hal Blaine (drums) played in the large accompanying orchestra .

After producer Bowen learned that the earlier recording of Jack Jones was already in the normal mail to the radio stations, he had Sinatra's recording mastered that same evening and sent to major radio stations that night by express mail and air freight, so that Sinatra's recording Arrived there on Tuesday and could be heard on the radio that evening. The release date of the song is therefore April 12, 1966, well before the original by Jack Jones.

Bert Kaempfert recorded his instrumental version on March 8, 1966 for the LP A Man Could Get Killed (Decca # 74750; released April 1966) and played it again on April 4, 1966 for the LP Strangers in the Night (Decca # 74795) a. In the single version (Decca # 31945) released on May 1, 1966, his instrumental version only reached 124th place on the US pop hit parade.

Million seller

Frank Sinatra - Strangers in the Night

Strangers in the Night entered the Billboard charts on May 7, 1966 and became Sinatra's first number one hit in the United States since 1955 ( Learnin 'the Blues ); a total of 5 million copies were sold. The title also reached first place in eight other countries, including France, where 600,000 units were sold, and in Germany, where the single went gold for 500,000 units sold . On May 11 and 16, 1966, Sinatra recorded further titles with Nelson Riddle for an album of the same name , which was released at Reprise at the end of May . The LP also became a million seller after it entered the Billboard album charts on June 18, 1966 and also made it to number one there.

After the Golden Globe Award in February, Strangers in the Night was also honored at the 1967 Grammy Awards on March 2, 1967: Sinatra received the award for “Best Male Vocal Performance” for his interpretation and, together with producer Jimmy Bowen, the award for the "Single of the year". Ernie Freeman received the award for his arrangement, Eddie Brackett and Lee Herschberg were honored as sound engineers.

On May 3, 1967, Strangers in the Night received the award from BMI as the most performed song of 1966. In January 1970, the title was added by BMI to the list of over a million publicly performed songs, in 1990 BMI awarded the fourth Award for four million airplays with a cumulative airtime of 22.8 years.

Despite the success of his recording, Frank Sinatra himself was not convinced of the quality of the song and initially sang the piece only rarely live, mostly as a short version as part of a medley. It was not until 1975, and increasingly since the late 1980s, that the song became an integral part of his concerts, where he sang it hundreds of times, often with ironic and derogatory comments. Sometimes he also changed his lyrics accordingly.

As early as June 1966, Billy May , one of Sinatra's constant companions as arranger and orchestra conductor for decades (1957–1988), published an instrumental version on his LP Billy May Today ( Capitol ), which with deliberately parodic interludes the “doo-bee-doo -bee-doo ”at the end of Sinatra's recording and thus alluded to the“ quality ”of the song in a similar way.

Authorship disputes

The great success of Strangers in the Night soon after the publication of the title led to a long series of different, partly judicial disputes between Kaempfert and other composers, who claimed copyright ownership for themselves. The processes dragged on for almost a decade.

Ivo Robić - Stranci u noći

Occasionally it is claimed that the Croatian-Yugoslav musician Ivo Robić was the original composer of the song. It is said that he unsuccessfully submitted the song for participation in a competition in Split and then sold the rights on to Bert Kaempfert. However, there is no evidence for this story. Robić - often after his world success the morning of 1959 “Mr. Morgen “(which was created in collaboration with Kaempfert) was rather the interpreter of the Yugoslav version of Strangers in the Night, which was published as Stranci u noći in the early summer of 1966 by the Yugoslav record company Jugoton with the serial number EPY-3779. On the label of the record are “B. Kaempfert "and" M. Renota ”as the authors, with Marija Renota being the author of the Croatian text. Stranci u noći is a literal translation of the song Strangers in the Night, created by Singleton and Snyder .

When Sinatra's recording became a worldwide success in 1966, Kaempfert's close companion Herbert Rehbein, who had worked with Kaempfert on the film soundtrack for A Man Could Get Killed , felt disadvantaged. However, the two friends settled the conflict internally without Rehbein being officially registered as co-composer.

In 1967 the French composer Michel Philippe-Gérard complained that the melody of Strangers in the Night was quoted from his Tango Magique (English title: The Magic Tango ), published in 1953 by the New York music publisher Chappell Music , which at the time was written by Tino Rossi and Eddie Fisher , 1954 together with Hugo Winterhalter , was interpreted. The latter reached number 22 in the US hit parade in July 1954. Other similar lawsuits were added. As a result, Kaempfert voluntarily agreed - in order to spare his German music publisher Hans Gerig problems, as he stated - that collecting societies such as the German GEMA and the French SECAM temporarily freeze the current European royalties for the composition in a trust account. Here GEMA is quoted as saying that the bigger the hit, there are "the more plagiarism complaints".

In April 1971, a Paris court found that "many songs are based on similar constant factors" and dismissed the plagiarism allegations. In February 1972, the accrued income of 4 million marks plus interest was released to Kaempfert. Other lawsuits continued in the US until the mid-1970s, but were ultimately all decided in favor of Kaempfert.

Cover versions

From Strangers in the Night numerous cover versions exist; Within twelve months of Sinatra's release, there were more than 200, including Vikki Carr (June 1966), Connie Francis (July 1966) and Andy Williams (1967). The title received a BMI award.

In August 1966, Peter Beil launched a German version under the title Fremde in der Nacht (with a German text by Kurt Feltz ) that made it to 24th place on the German charts . The GEMA chose strangers in the night to hit the year 1967th

Harald Juhnke , an admirer of Frank Sinatra, brought out the parody Straßen von Berlin with lyrics by Bert Kaempfert's daughter Marion Kaempfert in July 1998 ( Harald Juhnke sings Sinatra on his LP ). In October 2003 Paul Kuhn presented a version that was completely different from the original, arranged for a trio, on the album Remember When - Paul Kuhn Meets Bert Kaempfert .

In 1990 Eric Clapton used the beginning of the melody in the first guitar solo for Sunshine Of Your Love .

In 2011, a version by Rea Garvey was used for the film Rubbeldiekatz .

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ^ The Main Event
  2. ^ Kai Sichtermann : Kultsongs & Evergreens. 55 hits and their story . Parthas-Verlag, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-86964-029-7 , here p. 238; Marc Boettcher: Stranger in the Night. The Bert Kaempfert story. European Publishing House, Hamburg 2002, ISBN 3-434-50523-7 , p. 176 f.
  3. ↑ Complete cast list for the recording with Luiz Carlos do Nascimento Silva: Put Your Dreams Away. A Frank Sinatra Discography. Westport: Greenwood Press, 2000. ISBN 0-313-31055-6 ; here p. 404 f. Guitarist Donnie Lanier (and not arranger Ernie Freeman) is specified as the orchestra leader in the official written minutes of the session.
  4. ↑ See Charles L. Granata: Sessions with Sinatra. Frank Sinatra and the Art of Recording. A-Cappella Books, Chicago 1999, ISBN 1-55652-356-4 , here p. 180 f.
  5. ↑ Both records were released in 1999 on a CD from the Taragon label .
  6. ^ Fred Bronson: The Billboard Book of Number One Hits , 1985, p. 202
  7. ^ Joseph Murrells, Million Selling Records , 1985, pp. 231 f.
  8. ↑ Chart surfer
  9. ^ Günter Ehnert: Hit balance sheet - German chart singles 1956-1980 . 1st edition. Verlag popular music-literature, Norderstedt 2000, ISBN 3-922542-24-7 , p. 446 .
  10. ↑ Gene Scolatti, 100 Bestselling Albums of the Sixties , 2004, p 80
  11. ↑ Scott P. Sayers, Jr./Ed O'Brien: Sinatra: The Man and His Music. The Recording Artistry of Francis Albert Sinatra 1939-1992. 2nd ed. Austin 1992, ISBN 0-934367-24-8 , p. 261.
  12. ↑ Billboard Magazine, May 13, 1967, Kaempfert Predicts Shift to Soft Music , p. 26
  13. ↑ Billboard Magazine January 9, 1971, p. 3
  14. ↑ Data from Giuseppe Marcucci: The Sinatra Legacy. Florence / Amsterdam (pp. 1–1487, on CD-Rom), 2007. (= Where Or When. The Sinatra Database, Chronological Section. 5th ed.); There entries on Nov. 3, 1966, July 13, 1967 and Nov. 26-5. Dec 1968.
  15. ↑ Individual records of the concert dates at Marcucci, The Sinatra Legacy , sv Strangers In The Night ; Overview of published live recordings at The Main Event (as of 2006).
  16. ↑ At a concert in the "Altos de Chavon" amphitheater in La Romana on August 21, 1982 he called the song "the worst fucking song I ever heard" after his performance, "the worst song I have ever heard" ("Concert for The Americas", released by Warner on VHS and DVD).
  17. ↑ So z. B. the line a warm embracing dance away to a lovely / lonesome pair of pants away ; see. Will Friedwald: Sinatra. The Song Is You: A Singer's Art.Scriber, New York 1995, ISBN 0-684-19368-X , here p. 423 with note 15.
  18. ↑ Tony Wilds: Billy May Today album review at allmusic.com (accessed April 15, 2011) .
  19. ↑ for example in Pierre Perrone: Eddie Snyder: Co-writer of 'Strangers in the Night' and 'Spanish Eyes' article in The Independent from April 6, 2011 (accessed April 15, 2011) ; Eddie Snyder , article in The Telegraph, March 31, 2011 (accessed April 15, 2011)
  20. ^ Marc Boettcher: Stranger in the Night. The Bert Kaempfert story. Europäische Verlagsanstalt, Hamburg 2002, ISBN 3-434-50523-7 , here pp. 179-184.
  21. ↑ we7 - Tino Rossi - Tango Magique - Listen Free ( Memento of the original from August 2, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.we7.com archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (audible, complete original version)
  22. ^ Marc Boettcher: Stranger in the Night. The Bert Kaempfert story. European Publishing House, Hamburg 2002, ISBN 3-434-50523-7 , pp. 189 ff.
  23. ↑ Billboard Magazine, April 15, 1967, Charge is Holding Up "Strangers" Royalties , Billboard Magazine, p. 52
  24. ↑ Billboard Magazine, April 17, 1971, Writer Loses "Strangers" Case , p. 50
  25. ^ Kai Sichtermann: Kultsongs & Evergreens. 55 hits and their story . Parthas-Verlag, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-86964-029-7 , here p. 240 f .; Marc Boettcher: Stranger in the Night. The Bert Kaempfert story. European Publishing House, Hamburg 2002, ISBN 3-434-50523-7 , p. 191.
  26. ^ Marc Boettcher: Stranger in the Night. The Bert Kaempfert story. European Publishing House, Hamburg 2002, ISBN 3-434-50523-7 , pp. 190 f.
  27. ^ Marc Boettcher: Stranger in the Night. The Bert Kaempfert story. European Publishing House, Hamburg 2002, ISBN 3-434-50523-7 , p. 178.
  28. ^ Marc Boettcher: Stranger in the Night. The Bert Kaempfert story. European Publishing House, Hamburg 2002, ISBN 3-434-50523-7 , pp. 187 ff.
  29. ↑ YouTube: Eric Clapton - Sunshine Of Your Love , about 2:25 to 2:40