Released May 1966 Genre Traditional pop | Recorded April 11, 1966 Label Reprise | |
Length 2:35 (original album/single version, incorrectly listed as 2:25 in the original back cover)
2:44 (extended version from "Nothing But the Best") Writer(s) Bert Kaempfert, Charles Singleton, Eddie Snyder | ||
Avo Uvezian legendary cigar producer and songwriter is the real author for Sinatra's Strangers in the Night songs music. No anywhere is mentioned this fact. He died today : 25 march 2017 age of 91 years old. Please open the link below.
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//armenpress.am/eng/news/884064/sinatra-songwriter-and-cigar-legend-avo-uvezian-dies-aged-91.html"Strangers in the Night" is a song credited to Bert Kaempfert with English lyrics by Charles Singleton and Eddie Snyder. Kaempfert originally used it under the title "Beddy Bye" as part of the instrumental score for the movie A Man Could Get Killed. The song was made famous in 1966 by Frank Sinatra, although it was initially given to Melina Mercouri, who thought that a man's vocals would suit more to the melody and therefore declined to sing it.
Reaching number one on both the Billboard Hot 100 chart and the Easy Listening chart, it was the title song for Sinatra's 1966 album Strangers in the Night, which became his most commercially successful album. The song also reached number one on the UK Singles Chart.
Sinatra's recording won him the Grammy Award for Best Male Pop Vocal Performance and the Grammy Award for Record of the Year, as well as a Grammy Award for Best Arrangement Accompanying a Vocalist or Instrumentalist for Ernie Freeman at the Grammy Awards of 1967. It became a [[Music recording sales certification|gold
Avo Uvezian
In an interview, Avo Uvezian gave an account of the story behind Strangers in the Night stating that he originally composed the song for Frank Sinatra while in New York at the request of a mutual friend who wanted to introduce the two. He wrote the melody after which someone else put in the lyrics and the song was originally titled "Broken Guitar." After presenting the song to Sinatra a week later, Sinatra did not like the lyrics, so the lyrics were rewritten and the song was renamed and became known as Strangers in the Night.
When asked about why someone else (Kaempfert) was claiming the song, Uvezian went on to say that since Kaempfert was a friend of his and in the industry, he asked him to publish the German version in Germany so the two could split the profits since Uvezian did not feel he would get paid for his work on the song in the US. Uvezian stated that when he gave the music to Kaempfert the song had already been renamed and lyrics revised. Uvezian also stated that Kaempfert also gave him a letter acknowledging Uvezian as the composer.
Ivo Robić
It is sometimes claimed that the Croatian singer Ivo Robić was the original composer of "Strangers in the Night," and that he sold the rights to Kaempfert after entering it without success in a song contest in Yugoslavia. This has not been substantiated. Robić—often referred to as "Mr. Morgen" for his 1950s charts success with Morgen, created in collaboration with Bert Kaempfert—was rather the singer of the Croatian-language version of the song, called "Stranci u Noći."
It was published in 1966 by the Yugoslav record company Jugoton under the serial number EPY-3779. On the label of the record, B. Kaempfert and M. Renota are stated as authors, wherein Marija Renota is the creator of the Croatian lyrics. The original composition of "Strangers" was under the title "Beddy Bye"—referring to the lead character William Beddoes—as an instrumental for the score of the movie A Man Could Get Killed.
The phrase "Strangers in the Night" was created after the composition, when the New York music publishers, Roosevelt Music, requested that the lyricists Snyder and Singleton—fresh off of "Spanish Eyes," composed by Kaempfert of "Moon Over Naples" fame—put some words to the tune. "Stranci u Noći" is a literal translation of this phrase.
Philippe-Gérard
In 1967, French composer Michel Philippe-Gérard (more commonly known as just Philippe-Gérard) established a claim that the melody of "Strangers" was based on his composition "Magic Tango," which was published in 1953 through Chappells in New York. Royalties from the song were thus frozen until a court in Paris ruled in 1971 against plagiarism, stating that many songs were based on similar constant factors.
Recording
The track was recorded on April 11, 1966, one month before the rest of the album. Hal Blaine was the drummer on the record and Glen Campbell played rhythm guitar.
One of the most memorable and recognizable features of the record is Sinatra's scat improvisation of the melody with the syllables "doo-be-doo-be-doo" as the song fades to the end. For the CD Nothing but the Best, the song was remastered and the running time is 2:45 instead of the usual 2:35. The extra ten seconds is just a continuation of Sinatra's scat singing.
Sinatra despised the song, calling it at one time "a piece of shit" and "the worst fucking song that I have ever heard." He was not afraid to voice his disapproval of playing it live. In spite of his contempt for the song, for the first time in eleven years he had a number one song, and it remained on the charts for fifteen weeks.
Cover versions
"Strangers in the Night" was recorded by many other artists, among them: