Seth MacFarlane’s ninth studio album, Lush Life: The Lost Sinatra Arrangements, will feature 12 never-before-heard arrangements created for Frank Sinatra by his legendary collaborators Nelson Riddle, Billy May and Don Costa. The album is set for release June 6 via Verve Records / Republic Records.
MacFarlane has long been a Sinatra fan. Two of the Family Guy creator’s earlier albums, Holiday for Swing and No One Ever Tells You, featured Sinatra’s bassist Chuck Berghofer as well as a 65-piece orchestra. In 2015, MacFarlane performed on the primetime tribute Sinatra 100 — An All-Star GRAMMY Concert.
MacFarlane, 51, was born in October 1973, the very month Sinatra released Ol’ Blue Eyes Is Back, his “comeback album” following a brief retirement (which he wisely reconsidered). Sinatra continued recording through 1994. He died in 1998 at age 82.
These arrangements remained in the private collection of the Sinatra family for many years. In collaboration with the Sinatra family and estate, MacFarlane acquired the entire Sinatra music archive in 2018, and has brought these 12 arrangements to life with a 70-piece orchestra, conducted by British conductor John Wilson, and produced by MacFarlane’s longtime musical collaborator Joel McNeely. Every song on the album was recorded live with this ensemble at George Lucas’ famed Skywalker Sound Studios in Marin County, Calif.
The album’s first single, Billy Strayhorn’s “Lush Life,” features Riddle’s original conceptual arrangement from 1958.
MacFarlane received Grammy nominations for best traditional pop vocal album for his first three non-holiday studio albums — Music Is Better Than Words (2012), No One Ever Tells You (2016) and In Full Swing (2018).
If this new album is also nominated when the nominations for the 68th Grammy Awards are announced later this year, it will become the ninth tribute album to Sinatra to be cited in that category, following Tony Bennett’s Perfectly Frank (1993), Barry Manilow’s Manilow Sings Sinatra (1999), Keely Smith’s Keely Sings Sinatra (2002), Michael Feinstein’s The Sinatra Project (2009) – and two albums each by Bob Dylan (Shadows in the Night, 2016, and Fallen Angels, 2017) and Willie Nelson (My Way, 2019 and That’s Life, 2022).
Bennett’s Perfectly Frank and Nelson’s My Way both won in that category. Sinatra himself won in the category in 1995 for Duets II, which was his final new studio album.
MacFarlane is set to bring Lush Life: The Lost Sinatra Arrangements to the stage with a live performance at Los Angeles’ Walt Disney Concert Hall on Feb. 17, 2026.
MacFarlane has received five Grammy nominations in all – the other two are for best comedy album and best song written for visual media – and an Oscar nomination for best original song for “Everybody Needs a Best Friend” from Ted. Other career highlights include hosting the Oscars in 2013, performing with legendary composer John Williams at the Hollywood Bowl, and recording a duet with Barbra Streisand for her Billboard 200-topping album Encore: Movie Partners Sing Broadway.
Here’s the complete track list to Lush Life: The Lost Sinatra Arrangements:
“Give Me the Simple Life”
“I Never Felt This Way Before”
“Lush Life”
“Flying Down to Rio”
“How Did She Look?”
“Who’s In Your Arms Tonight?”
“A Wonderful Day Like Today”
“When Joanna Loved Me”
“Arrivederci, Roma”
“Hurry Home”
“Ain’tcha Ever Comin’ Back”
“Shadows”
