ProStudioMasters.com

The legacy of Frank Sinatra – one of the world's most enduring singers – includes a studio album no one anticipated: Watertown. Recorded in 1969 and released in 1970, the concept of Watertown unfolds as a personal tragedy about a working man with children whose wife suddenly leaves him. Sinatra's performance elicits sadness, defeat and forlornness. Ultimately, as Sinatra so wonderfully expresses, it's also a story about one man's resilience. Frank Sinatra Enterprises and UMe present Watertown, newly mixed and remastered from the original Reprise session tapes resulting in superior sound quality. The original album sequence is complimented here by eight bonus tracks, including alternate takes from the recording sessions, two radio ads and "Lady Day," which was not part of the Watertown concept. Charles Pignone produced the updated edition from the new mixes created by longtime Sinatra engineer Larry Walsh – the team behind recent FSE/UMe releases Sings for Only the Lonely and Nice 'N' Easy. Upon Watertown's release, fans and critics alike simply weren't prepared for such a radical stylistic departure from Sinatra. But the album has shown resilience: Despite the initial lukewarm response, in the decades since the album has had a re-evaluation and, in 2007, The Guardian declared Watertown "one of [Sinatra's] greatest masterpieces" and in 2015, The Observer noted that "it made some sense that Sinatra would attempt a story-driven concept album, considering he had helped pioneer the thematic concept LP in the 1950s. But on Watertown, Sinatra did something truly risky: he told an entire album-length story from the point of view of [a] character that is most definitely not Frank Sinatra."