A late starter, Steven Maglio‘s professional career began in his Forties as lead vocalist for Joe Battaglia’s New York Big Band, playing numerous dates at New York City’s “Tavern On The Green” and “Rainbow Room.” Steven is not an impersonator, but rather a singer who recreates the classic repertoire of Frank Sinatra in his own voice and style.
I’ve been a fan for quite a few years, and enjoy hearing Steven perform live delivering a bit of the swagger of the Chairman of the Board coupled with the swingin’ sounds of the Great American Songbook. Obviously Sinatra is not only a legendary icon regarded as history’s greatest vocalist, but perhaps he also performed more covers during his career than any other artist — many of which became regarded as the definitive versions of those compositions. We’ve asked Steven to share his thoughts on these classic covers over the course of a few weekly columns called Frank Friday.
One last note, if you find yourself in NYC on a Saturday night, Steven has a standing gig at the Carnegie Club in midtown. One of the last smoky bastions to the decades of the past, the Carnegie Club features Steven with the Stan Rubin Orchestra performing actual charts used back in the heyday. Order a martini and swing-a-ding-ding… And now, on to Steven’s latest, and final, guest post. For now. Special thanks to Steven for sharing! — Michael K.
“Put Your Dreams Away” from the CD, “Songs For Sinatra Lovers”
by Steven Maglio
“Put Your Dreams Away” was written by Ruth Lowe, Paul Mann, and Stephen Weiss in 1945. Frank Sinatra recorded it many times, and would adopt it as his theme song, using it to close his radio and television shows. The first studio recording was on May1, 1945 for Columbia Records, and then re-recorded for Capitol on December 11, 1957. On April 30, 1963, Sinatra made another studio cut that would have a spoken introduction, added at a later date, so it could be used as the opening song of the 1965 album, “Sinatra: A Man And His Music,” which was the album that got me interested in Mr. Sinatra at the ripe old age of seven years old.
This song was also part of a series of recordings that were called “V-discs,” which were recorded with the sole purpose of being distributed to U.S. service men during World War II. All the big musical stars of the time made V-disc recordings, not only to benefit the troops, but because they were the only recordings that were permitted by the musician’s union to be made with live musicians during their strike that was going on at the time. The V-disc collection was only recently released for sale to the general public, as were many new-found old recordings, with the introduction of CDs.
“Songs For Sinatra Lovers” is a CD that was meant to be just that, for “Sinatra Lovers,” so “Put Your Dreams Away” had to be included. So many Sinatra tribute albums, unfortunately, pass over this song. I used it as my closing number, as Frank Sinatra used to do, so as to pay a little tribute within the tribute.
I was lucky to have an arrangement written by Billy VerPlanck, who used to play trombone and write arrangements for The Dorsey Brothers Band, when Tommy and Jimmy reunited in 1950s. Billy, who passed away in June 2009, was the husband of singer Marlene VerPlanck, who was the Dorsey Brothers last female vocalist.
Since “Put Your Dreams Away” was the last song on “Songs For Sinatra Lovers,” that means that this is the last installment of the “Frank Friday” blog. I’ve enjoyed writing these notes and would like to say, THANK YOU to Michael Kauffman, RightsFlow, and Limelight for giving me the forum. I’ll say “THANK YOU” to all the readers too with Frank Sinatra’s most common toast, “I wish you everything you want in life for you and your families. Lots of huggin’ and kissin’, and sweet dreams.”
“I’ll Be Seeing You,”
Steven
Be sure to follow Steven Maglio on Facebook and check out his website! In case you missed them, you can also check out previous blog entries from Steven’s “Frank Friday” series on the Limelight blog.




