Frank Sinatra - A Man and His Music

[flemtone]

Watched this on TCM a few days ago. Sinatra was great, the Count Basie Orchestra was phenomenal.

 

Frank may have been a thug, but no one can deny his vocal mastery of using the mic and his voice as superb instruments, wringing nuance and phrasing from lyrics and arrangements. The only better singer in that genre is Tony Bennett who, in my opinion, has 'the perfect voice'. Slightly below the Sinatra level is Mel Torme, but Frank had 'The Whole Package'.

 

'Sinatra at the Sands' and 'In The Wee Small Hours' are in permanent rotation in my CD player.

 

Anyone else a fan?

[boosh]

Yep,...another fan here

[Kendrix]

My Dad was a die-hard Sinatra fan and some of that got abosrbed by me over time.

I have "live at the sands" on DVD-A. However, i prefer the studio recordings because they just sound better- they are more polished.

 

His best stuff is timeless / is unmatched by anything else out there.

[Han]

'It was a very good year' makes me shiver each time and so does 'Strangers in the night'.

[russrags]

I always wanted to hear him LIVE while he was still around, but never did get the chance ... however ... I was at the studio one day (Westlake, Hollywood) and went to open and go through a door, well it opened just a little too easy and I almost lost my balance ... it was FRANK on the other side of the door and we were both opening the same door at the same time. I just looked up and said "FRANK" and shook his hand !!!!! I'll never forget it.

 

 

Russ

Nashville

[Lee Knight]

I always wanted to hear him LIVE while he was still around, but never did get the chance ... however ... I was at the studio one day (Westlake, Hollywood) and went to open and go through a door, well it opened just a little too easy and I almost lost my balance ... it was FRANK on the other side of the door and we were both opening the same door at the same time. I just looked up and said "FRANK" and shook his hand !!!!! I'll never forget it. Russ Nashville

 

Ha!! It would've been great though if he had said, "RUSS!"

[blue2blue]

I like Sinatra better (as a singer, that is), but I'd have to say I think Torme was a better singer, from the perspective of technical mastery. His pitch and control, his technical mastery of his vocal style, were far more consistent over the length of his career.

 

But Frank could really sell a song in his prime. I think it was tied to the same general personality make up that made hims such a flexible and (usually) utterly convincing actor. Whether he was playing a wide-eyed kid from Brooklyn in those musicals in the 40s or a bitter, overweight, and supremely cynical detective late in his acting career, he brought something to a role that he also seemed to bring to a song (when he wasn't goofing around, of course, which was not that infrequently, particularly on live albums).

 

 

Often, some of our best artists are not very nice people. One of my 3DW pals worked for many years as a lead horn man for a pop/R&B star who has gone on to that big jam in the sky, but who was utterly beloved by his fans in life as in death. Just don't ask my friend about the boss if you don't want to hear the unvarnished truth...

 

But that sainted artist was realy one of the greats, artistically, despite some personality traits that could make him difficult to work with and a big pain, apparently, to work for...

[blue2blue]

 

I always wanted to hear him LIVE while he was still around, but never did get the chance ... however ... I was at the studio one day (Westlake, Hollywood) and went to open and go through a door, well it opened just a little too easy and I almost lost my balance ... it was FRANK on the other side of the door and we were both opening the same door at the same time. I just looked up and said "FRANK" and shook his hand !!!!! I'll never forget it. Russ Nashville

 

 

Two of my closer brushes with the famous were when Lawrence Welk drove by me and a buddy as we were driving my old SAAB 96 through Dead Man's Curve on Sunset and sneered at us.

 

I wasn't so sure it was Welk, but I was sure it was a sneer. As Welk's Lincoln Towncar pulled away from us with a low V8 growl, our celeb-spotting was confirmed by the license plate, it was "A1ANA2" ("A-one, and a-two...")

 

My other brush with fame was coming out of the men's room at the Whisky A Go Go one night in 1981, still on crutches after a nasty motorcycle wreck, and ended up planting all my weight on a crutch that ended up smack on the toe of the cowboy boot of X's John Doe, who was trying to get into the bathroom. I said "Sorry, John," and he gave me pained look that suggested a mix of compassion and painful annoyance. Which I figured was about the best he could manage as I hobbled out past him.

 

I did get Nina Hagen to sign some records, come to think of it. That's pretty stellar... or maybe... cosmic.

 

 

 

Oh wait!

 

No, I got a good one: some friends of mine threw a beach party out on Bolsa Chica for Jonathan Richman, who was in town to play a gig in Long Beach and was sleeping on the couch (it's hard being a cult hero) at a friend's house in OC. I wasn't really a Richman fan at the time, got there late and was sitting on the periphery of the pretty big party (maybe 50 or 75 people) when someone passed a guitar that was going around to Richman and he sings a verse and chorus of "Volare."

 

A few minutes later I was slapping some mustard on a hot dog at a little card table and Jonathan walked up. I said, "Nice version of 'Volare.' But have you heard the new Barry White version?"

 

Jonathan looked at me and says, "Bull{censored}." (I think that's what he said, anyow, it's been some years.) He turned to one of our mutual friends and said, "This dude tells me Barry White's got a version of Volare!" and the friend says, "Well, it could be, he's got a new album out."

 

So Richman steps up close to me and says, "I'll bet he doesn't know the second verse of Volare! No one does that verse."

 

He's maybe 15-18 inches from me, looking me square in the face, very street... and then he starts singing the second verse, a capella, inches from my face, looking me square in the eyes defiantly. 50-75 people are suddenly absolutely silent. My inclination -- being from a long line of Celts and other norther Euro strains -- is to step backwards and assay my defensive options.

 

But I realize that if I do that, I've dropped some sort of challenge, I've chickened out. So I stand there, a half smile no doubt frozen on my face, while he sings the verse and refrains the chorus. He stops. We're both silent for a moment. Everyone else is silent. I say, "Best version of the second verse I ever heard," and stick out my hand and we shake. And then we all have a big laugh.

 

 

I hadn't actually been planning on going to his show that night but I went out, bought a cassette of the then-new Barry White album, with Volare on it, and slapped it in his hand when I ran into him in the club before the show. "Check it out, Jonathon. Something to listen to when you're back out on the road."

 

I don't know if he did -- I'm guessing he did. But when his next album came out the next year or so, the song "Parties in the USA" sounded like it might have been at least partially inspired by the beach party (which was broken up by Huntington Beach police, featured prominently in the song).

[Rudolf von Hagenwil]

Was he not the brother of Buddy Rich?

[area51recording]

The chic baseball movie "A League Of Their Own" was partly filmed here in Evansville, IN, and when they wrapped production in our area they had a party at a local club. One of the bands I was playing with at the time was booked to play the party. Madonna was one of the stars, and she had a casette tape of some stuff she wanted to play thru the PA. Unfortunately all we had was a CD player. And she went to each member of the band, as well as the sound guy, one at a time, demanding that one of us run out and get a casette player from somewhere, in "like 10 minutes". We all took turns telling her to f*ck off.....

[blue2blue]

Funny thing was, on the cassette was her unreleased cover of "You Can't Always Get What You Want"...

[russrags]

A buddy of mine had his CD all duplicated and half of them came back with his artwork on the front of the disc, but Frank Sinatra's music recorded on the disc.

 

He wasn't too upset, because he figured out there somewhere were a bunch of Frank Sinatra CD's with his music on Frank's disc !!!!

 

 

Russ

Nashville

[WRGKMC]

I think it was either Bob Hope or Sinatra invested money in some of the first Reel to Reel development that came from an inventor in Germany captured after the war. They wanted it so they could tape their Radio shows and play them back at different times and time zones. Who would think it would go so far as it has (Also with the help of les Pauls contribution to multitracking).

[doug osborne]

 

I think it was either Bob Hope or Sinatra invested money in some of the first Reel to Reel development that came from an inventor in Germany captured after the war. They wanted it so they could tape their Radio shows and play them back at different times and time zones. Who would think it would go so far as it has (Also with the help of les Pauls contribution to multitracking).

 

 

Bing Crosby

[meccajay]

Like you Flemtone, I came up in the tri-state area.. So I heard that stuff all my life growing up. Didn't appreciate it then. At Christmas time Sinatra was blaring over the house in any restaurant you went to. It grated at me.

 

Then I grew up..

 

And after moving away from home, I began to long for all the things of home.. Sinatra was one of the purest examples of what defined home for me. I feel in love with his music, only to realize those seeds had been planted long before. Upon visiting home I rifled thru dad's record collection and it was filled with Sinatra, Crosby, Ellington, Sarah Vaughn and the like. I loved those records!

 

Sinatra's music always will be, and always has been a part of me.

 

**Love his movies too, saw From Here To Eternity for the 1st time last night, and The Joker Is Wild, and Suddenly are 2 of my favorite classic movies of all time.

[Lee Knight]

 

...saw From Here To Eternity for the 1st time last night,

 

 

Great, great movie.

[D Charles]

Well, you guys need to start a 'brushes with greatness' thread right away! :-)

[alcohol]

When Jonathan Richman sang Volare for you, how nasal was his voice, how awkward his intonation ,and did he inadvertently modulate to a different key?

[flemtone]

 

Well, you guys need to start a 'brushes with greatness' thread right away! :-)

 

 

 

Nah, the DJ's and news broadcasters my family and I have known over the years are great enough.

[Kendrix]

Well i once smoked a cigar that came form Franks personal vault.

At some point the estate sold his stock of hand rolled cigars and some became available on the net. My cousin who is very into fine cigars,bought a dozen.

 

Given its heritage, when i smoked it, i also drank some scotch- neat.