Orchestral arranger Nelson Riddle could take a melody and make it a hit for the most popular singers of his day, writes Arminta Wallace

Half a century ago Capitol Records issued an album which was to become one of the most iconic in the history of popular music. Songs for Swingin' Lovers featured Frank Sinatra at his effervescent best, and was acclaimed at the time as one of the most polished performances ever to appear on vinyl. For many people, however, the music sounds just as fresh 50 years later - or as one Sinatra fan put it in an online record review posted earlier this year, "I love so many of his albums, but this is the one I'd marry."

When lovers of this kind of music stop swingin' and start analysing the record's enduring appeal, the consensus is that the orchestral arrangements by Nelson Riddle have a great deal to do with it. "Most people think the songwriter writes the song, Frank Sinatra comes along and sings it, and that's it - but that's not the case," says conductor, arranger and jazz guitarist David O'Rourke, who has put together a programme of Riddle's arrangements called, appropriately, Songs for Swingin' Lovers, which will be performed at the National Concert Hall this weekend. "When Cole Porter wrote I've Got You Under My Skin, it was a crooner's ballad - a slow, dreamy song - and it completely bombed. Nelson Riddle put an introductory riff on to the song and it became a hit."

An arranger, O'Rourke explains, had a number of functions, from choosing the key which would show the singer's voice in the best light to altering the harmonies of the song itself. "What stands out about Nelson Riddle was the speed at which he had to work when he became popular - and how he managed to maintain a certain level of quality while having to write on autopilot," O'Rourke says. "There's also the fact that his work for different singers was so different."

Riddle's daughter Rosemary, who is now 58, and who will be in Dublin to introduce the concert, attended many of her father's recording sessions and recalls many of the top performers of the time attending parties at the family's beach house in Malibu. "I remember Judy Garland being at my dad's 40th birthday party, when I was 13," Riddle says. "She happened to have broken her arm and had a pink cast on it - and because it wasn't completely dry, some pink Plaster of Paris remained on one of our black leather chairs."

Those were the good times, when her father was in demand by all the top artists of the day; the Riddles were particularly friendly with Nat Cole and his wife Maria.

Sinatra was, Riddle says, a more stand-offish character. "He had a sense of what had to be done - he had a great business sense about him - and he always had his whole entourage with him at recording sessions." Nevertheless, she remembers the singer's generosity to her family. In 1961, one of the youngest Riddles was badly injured by a car while riding his bike and was rushed to hospital in Santa Monica; when Sinatra heard about the accident, he sent his personal neurologists to consult on the case.

Underneath the glamour and smooth-as-silk music, of course, there were bitter rivalries. "I think they often felt that someone else was going to grab their job if they didn't keep on top, you know?" Riddle says. "I didn't see it in Ella Fitzgerald at all. She had a warmth that always made her very approachable, very easy to talk to. But I think Frank was very aware of the competition. He was always worried that he wasn't going to keep on top - so he tried to change with what was happening in music."

At one stage this led to a rift between Riddle and Sinatra which lasted for many years. It was about to be healed with a new album, planned for release in 1985, but Nelson Riddle died before the project got started.

"Dad's success had all the trappings of that time, the glamour and everything," says Riddle.

"But it also had a sadness to it. In the early days mom and dad were working together for his career - in fact, she was instrumental in his success. She made sure he was in contact with the right people and she was his copyist when he couldn't afford a copyist."

After a few years at the top, however, the stresses of success began to pull the marriage apart.

"They divorced in 1970 after 23 years of marriage. It's just one of those things - especially in the entertainment business. If you allow it to happen, it happens."

What was it, does she think, that made her father's musical arrangements so special? "He was always able to take a melody composed by someone or other, and make it his own by using the colours of the orchestra, and layering the different sounds," she says. "His voicings of the strings made a sound, a harmony, a colour that was very much his own."

According to David O'Rourke, the story of Mona Lisa exemplifies Nelson Riddle's approach to music.

"Sinatra always claimed to have turned the song down - and apparently several singers passed on it," he says.

The song was given to Riddle under the Hollywood ghost-writing system which saw busy arrangers farm work out to lesser-known colleagues and pay them piece money, then claim the resulting arrangements as their own. "At one of Nat Cole's sessions, one of the musicians pointed to Nelson Riddle and said, 'See that guy sitting over there? He's the one who really made your arrangement.' And Nat insisted right there and then that the artwork be changed on the album to give Riddle the credit."

As well he might, O'Rourke says. "The original song had maybe two or three chords in it. It was very simple, and a lot of people thought it was corny. Nelson Riddle changed the harmony and wrote a piece influenced by French impressionism - people like Ravel and Debussy. The average listener wouldn't have picked up on that. It would have been just a new sound to them. But this is where Nelson Riddle stands out from other arrangers - and why his music still sounds so fresh 40 years later."

Songs for Swingin' Lovers is at the NCH on Fri and Sat. The RTÉ Concert Orchestra is conducted by David O'Rourke, with guest vocalists Gary Williams and Allan Harris