Sleep Warm (Expanded)
Dean Martin
Published by Rhino.com
Sleep
Warm (Expanded)
Dean Martin
Published by Rhino.com
Menefreghismo.
Nick Tosches sprinkles it throughout his Dino biography; it's Italian
for the art of not giving a shit. Per Tosches' essential tome, the blackjack
cool was no act. So given the emotional divide between the unflappable Martin
and the mercurial Sinatra, Sleep Warm is a fittingly placid answer
to the latter's tear-stained concept albums of the mid to late '50s. Sinatra's
split with Ava Gardner (it's believed that he never got over it) was supplying
the grief for such classics as In The Wee Small Hours and Frank
Sinatra Sings For Only The Lonely. Martin was enjoying success as an actor
and testing the bounds of crass on The Dean Martin Show—by all
appearances sleeping warm indeed. This 1958 Capitol release features orchestrations
conducted by Sinatra. And like that singer's torch collections, it gathers top-shelf
standards of a consistent mood and theme: "Dream," "Sleepy Time
Gal," "Goodnight Sweetheart," and so on. It's no Only The
Lonely—recorded just four months prior to these sessions—but
then again, nothing is. Frank does his best Nelson Riddle at the podium, so
arrangements are tasteful, if short of magical, and Martin's vocals are refreshingly
free of his signature slides and warbles. But the dream/sleep theme gets tedious,
eventually robbing each successive track of its individual pleasures. And even
discounting the shadow of Sinatra's best, that keeps Sleep Warm from
being a classic. However, sample some of the more saccharine bonus material
on this reissue to hear how the original 12 songs marked a personal high. It
sounds, anyway, like Dino cared.