Sinatra

Anybody interested? One of the best singers of the songbook, a decent actor, a polarizing, fascinating individual, and it's his birthday. I'm currently looking at Part I of HBO doc, All or Nothing at All. Produced by a friend of mine and the absolute best thing I've ever seen on Frank's life and career. There are a lot of connections between Frank and my family and I've always been a fan of his talent if sometimes disappointed in what I'd learned about his behavior. But still, a great philanthropist, and a guy who had big effect in the world of entertainment and politics.

Yeah, I think it really does depend on what you were exposed to, especially as a kid. Around my house was a ton of jazz instrumentalists, and also vocalists like Sinatra. Tony Bennett, Ella Fitzgerald, etc. Louie Armstrong, definitely, some Billie Holiday, Sarah Vaughn. Then when my brother and I got old enough to buy our own stuff, there was rock and r&b. There was not a single Elvis Presley or Bing Crosby or Dean Martin, and not a single country album. So even now, because I haven't gone out of my way to do so, I know very little of that music. The thing you should know about Sinatra, if you care at all, was that he started as a big band singer, very much in the style of Big Crosby who was the biggest at that time, became a teen idol with the Tommy Dorsey Band, went out on his own (a lot of mythology around how that happened) took a nose dive in the early 50s professionally and personally to the point of multiple suicide attempts, and came back after winning the Academy Award as a much more mature, textured performer who spent his off-time on 52nd Street in New York listening to straight jazz singers like Billie Holiday and Mabel Mercer.

He had taste, and because he was so big he could demand the best from the best musicians and arrangers of the time/ In the early 60s, he started his own record company, Reprise, and that was really his most prolific decade. As in most all cases, it's not the hits, the recognizable tunes where a particular artist stands out. If I have one complaint with his music it's that he didn't do enough small combo stuff. When he did work in a more intimate, as he did with Jobim and also towards the end of his career when he recorded an album with Rod McKuen and even did one or two from Joni Mitchell, I think he did it very well.

A few obscure ones that most people may not have heard:

Last Night When We Were Young https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=flo5BhGgnkk

You Brought a New Kind of Love to me https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OBXvK3ERw4Y

Close To You https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Au2WcXLhsIA

A few more obscure ones:

Willow Weep For Me https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hVFvIOHosmg

Nice 'N Easy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e2dDijEJC_g

A Cottage For Sale https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_1-iD9VB2U

Just Friends https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vyheEqRSYz0

You go to my head https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kg51wdtJcCg

Parumpapumpum https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-QtjaHeyrM

M.N Thorne said:

Actually, my grandmother was not a fan of the rat pack because she was into Chuck Berry and BB King but I did watch every Sinatra film ever. I love man with the golden arm.

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That's a good one. He was known for not wanting to do more than one take on the movie set. But Preminger got him to settle down a bit. It may have had something to do with all the scenes he had with Kim Novak. Read recently, from her, that they'd had a thing. That Frank was her first 'date' in Hollywood. You may know the story about her and Sammy Davis. They were good friends, but Harry Cohn feared that it would do her career some harm, given the racial barriers in those days, and through the mob Sammy was warned to lay off. I think I remember that they told him get married to a black girl or else. He did, and it was strictly business. Not Altovese, but maybe his first wife before May Britt.

Sammy was a talented guy and a friend of my father's. I saw him once in concert at the Greek when he opened for Frank and Sammy stole the show. The Rat Pack looks very corny and inappropriate in retrospect, and it's before my time, but I assume that at the time they were seen as very hip.

hahahaha, yeah, Axl, they had a ball alright. It's easy to judge them by our standards today, which isn't fair of course and makes them look, even Frank, who did more for the rights of black performers in Vegas, and even before when he was with the Dorsey Band, a little racist, and many complain about the way that Sammy was treated in the Rat Pack.

But truthfully, I'm not really much on judging performers, artists of any kind, for their personal lives or personalities off-stage. Frank was, imo, one of the top four or five interpreters of the songbook. I'd put Ella and Billie and Tony in there as well. As far as Sammy, great talent, even a great straight-up singer (forget the dancing and impressions) but chose a lot of corny songs and arrangements. Though that's another thing Frank had over most singers of his time. He had juice. At least from the mid 50s and especially when he got his own label. Her Nelson Riddle, probably Frank's best arranger, say that when you listen to a Sinatra album, regardless of the arranger, it was a product of Frank's mind.

I'm sure this music is alien to a lot of people here, especially younger people. Though my teenage daughter who plays piano and guitar, sings and writes pretty good songs, loves this kind of stuff. But I just wanted to drop a few links here that most people wouldn't think of when they think of Frank Sinatra music. No My Way, Strangers in the Night, or New York, New York, good songs the first hundred or so times you hear them.

I'm gonna try to stay of this site for a while, only because any free time I have should really be spent writing, but it won't be easy because wow, there's so much to be learned here. But it's time for me to get back to work, and let's face it, this site is a bit of an addiction and I've already got enough of those.

And I just wanted to mention to M.N. Thorne upthread who said that she'd seen all of Frank's films, on every Wednesday this month TCM is playing Frank's movies. I think it was last week that I caught my favorite musical of his, Pal Joey. Best, everybody, and I'll see you around.

Sinatra and Jobim https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d9KGMRE3eNc&list=PLXRlv43gsnQ295p4sy70iD8Flaslo5T93

Mckuen's stuff https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Js2hLlNooAk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gNQ9_hPB2Ew

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xsam6HRDJNI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5SUn4JqUTsA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Z27pb7Vv-s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Scr_eXeZn-U&list=PLXRlv43gsnQ35F5hCG_4ndRTLuUVR8Iuu

Lavern08 said:

Not as obscure as you think - It's amazing!


I totally agree!

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Isn't that a great one, Lavern? That album, In the wee small hours, I believe was recorded around 1955, arranged by Nelson Riddle, maybe his most versatile arranger. He had guys who could handle ballads and guys who could swing, and I think Riddle did both better than the others. It was the beginning of probably Frank's most prolific time. Really, for the next twenty years he could do no wrong in the studio.

Correction, the album was Only the Lonely a couple years later. Also arranged by Nelson Riddle.

Here's another one off that album, Guess I'll Hang my tears out to dry. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CDZe0Oew5ow

Every time I hear that song I think of the last time I saw Frank in concert. It was the mid 90s in Cerritos, CA. The Old Man as they called him was in his late 70s, coming to the end of it and would die a few years later. I actually shared a car from LA to Orange County with the guitar and piano player, and the old man was in bad shape that night. The way he dragged himself onto the stage said, 'After 50 fuckin years of this, you're lucky I even showed up.' He couldn't remember the words to a lot of the songs, even with the help of his fans who called them out and the teleprompter which he couldn't read. Full disclosure, his piano player suggested that he may have had a few to many Jacks before the show, but it was painful to watch. I was really sorry I went, until he sang Guess I'll hang my tears out to dry and it was transcendent, like he was a young man again. As great as he always was in the studio I always believed he was even better live, as most of the great ones were.