A song surfaced on YouTube which was written by Elton John and Bernie Taupin for Frank Sinatra back in 1978.
The discovery made by the Sinatra family made back in 2002 concerns the Reprise session of July 17, 1978. As usually done at each recording session, Musician Union’s session sheets were filled out, noting the songs recorded, the master numbers attached to them, the time and location of the session as it took place, and the individual names of each instrumentalist, primarily as a basis for paying the musicians for their work.
According to the session sheet for July 17, 1978, Sinatra and orchestra gathered at TBS Studios in Burbank, California, from 7.30 to 12 pm. The orchestra was conducted by Vincent Falcone jr. It included a large string and brass section (40 musicians incl. one harp, all listed by name) plus Tom Hensley and Bill Miller on piano, Tim May, Al Viola and Marty Walsh on guitar, Milton Kestenbaum, Milton Nadel and Gene Cherico on bass, Ronnie Tutt and Irving Cottler on drums, and Alan Ester and Larry Bunker on percussion. This team, according to the sheet, recorded three songs with vocals by Sinatra „That’s What God Really Looks Like“ (Reprise master #WCA 8129), „Remember“ (#WCA 8130) and „You And Me“ (#WCA 8131). No take numbers for the masters are indicated.
None of the three recordings were ever released, while discographers who searched the Warner/Reprise and Union files for Sinatra recordings came up with some of the session data. Reportedly, when the 1995 Reprise 20-CD „suitcase“ was about to be compiled, the recordings were searched for at Reprise/Warner but couldn’t be located. Participating musicians were approached but while they all vividly remembered the session, no one of them seemed to have an idea about where the recordings were.
In mid 2002, as Nancy Sinatra has said, the tapes have been re-discovered. This is important news to Sinatra world, because while two of the songs from July 1978, „You and Me“ and „What God Really Looks Like“ were re-done by Sinatra aboit a year later and then issued on his Reprise 3-LP album „Trilogy“, the third song, „Remember“, never surfaced on any record.
It’s a (by then) contemporary song especially written for Frank Sinatra by Elton John and Bernie Taupin. Sinatra sang in concert frequently between May 1978 and April 1979, to an arrangement he credited to Don Costa. Some of you older fans might have witnessed it in concert, he also took it to Europe during his 1978 appearances in London, England. It is a fine song, and Sinatra’s rendition as heard in concert was very grand.
Don Costa’s arrangement as performed in concert was cleverly picking up certain „Elton John sound elements“, let’s see if the studio recording also carries these.
