Sessions with Sinatra by Charles L. Granata & Phil Ramone

Author:Charles L. Granata & Phil Ramone
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Chicago Review Press
Published: 2004-03-18T05:00:00+00:00

THE CAPITOL STUDIOS: HOLLYWOOD AND VINE

By 1954, Capitol Records was bursting its seams—the office space above Wallichs’s Music City and the Melrose Avenue studio was just too small. So Capitol began plans to build a new studio office complex, and in 1955, broke ground for what would be called the Capitol “Tower,” strategically located at the corner of Hollywood and Vine Streets in Hollywood, just steps away from Sunset Boulevard and the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

The Capitol “Tower” at Hollywood and Vine streets, Hollywood.

Designed by architect Welton Beckett, the Capitol building’s unique cylindrical shape replicates a stack of records, complete with a “needle” on top (the building’s spire, which contains a blinking red light that spells out “Hollywood” in Morse code). Especially striking when lit up at night, the structure remains one of the most recognizable and historically unique landmarks in Hollywood. “Capitol had bought that lot, and we hired Beckett,” remembers former Capitol President Alan Livingston. “He [Beckett] said, ‘I have always wanted to build a round building, and this is the time to do it.’”

When the building was completed, an elaborate inaugural was planned, and on February 22, 1956, Frank Sinatra, arguably Capitol’s most popular artist, was invited to preside over the very first recording session in the new studios. This time, however, he traded his tonsils for a conductor’s baton, leading a full symphony orchestra in a series of musical vignettes composed by the day’s top composer-orchestrators, for an album simply titled Tone Poems of Color.

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