I Really Dislike Frank Sinatra: How alone am I?

As for Sinatra - it's all about "It Was A Very Good Year" for me, so sober and tragic and bittersweet; I like the way he talk-sings, so theatrical. I also associate the song with Leone's "Once Upon A Time In America" for some reason, all that nostalgia and regret and age. Bought "In The Wee Small Hours" last Summer, hoping for more stuff like that, but it kinda put me to sleep. Looking at the album cover seems much more rewarding than actually listening.

all that swing shit is appaling though. bet jamie cullum's got his greedy little eye on an album of it too.

This is a ridiculous statement. Of course he was a musician, and a good one.

A few months ago I saw that one tv special where he does duets with Jobim and Ella Fitzgerald and then lets them do solo stuff, and it's so cool to see him sitting on the floor next to the stage just grinning and enjoying Ella's singing

that's one of the mysteries of art. Lou Reed is supposedly a real twat, and yet that twat wrote "Candy Says" and "Stephanie Says." The twat was responsible for "Berlin" and "Mistrial."

As for Sinatra not contributing to arrangements - well, that's ridiculous and ignorant assertion, based on the assumption that because he didn't play an instrument he just walked into a studio and sang the hell out of something. Sinatra not only sat down with Nelson Riddle and his orchestra to work out the arrangements, he also CONDUCTED the orchestra on several albums, most notably on a Dean Martin album whose name escapes me.

it's just that this seems to go some way further; it's like the most extreme case i've ever heard - how can he ache so much for something he considers fundamentally worthless? it's such a mystery.

yep he was often quite passionate about the arrangements

And the Elvis version SUCKED compared to the original.

you wanna hear extreme, listen to charles manson singing "home is where you're happy." as imperfect men making perfect art go, sinatra was but one of a million. nothing remarkable about him in that sense.

OK from my nickname you probably know how I'm going to vote here, but certainly his peers would have disagreed. Many years ago someone (the BBC?) conducted a poll of over a hundred jazz musicians, arrangers etc as to who were the greatest ever jazz singers, male and female. Guys like Miles Davis, Sonny Rollins, Quincy Jones etc were among the respondents. Sinatra not only won the male category, he scored more than 60% of all votes cast (including Miles's, obv). To put it another way, in a constituency made up of jazz greats, the combined total of votes for every other male jazz singer who ever lived was less than 2/3 of the votes cast for Sinatra.

I read the Nick Tosches book- Dino, Living High In The Dirty Business of Dreams, I believe- and it was very entertaining, but I agree with es hurt, NT was taking the piss a little bit. It was written before Rat Pack Cool came in- at the time all those guys (except Frank, I think) were viewed as jokes. I like Dino in movies- when he sings "My Rifle, My Pony and Me" with Rick Nelson(!) in Rio Bravo or especially when he sends up his own image playing a character called Dino in the underrated Kiss Me, Stupid.

I think Hurting's original objection is sort of personal rather than technical, unless I misread something. And I haven't thought about it much, but it seems to me that influence-wise, he's the number-two popular singer of the past century, after Louis Armstrong, if the wisdom I have received is correct.

which is all to say: sinatra was a fucking grandmaster of a musician.

Frank Sinatra was arguably the most important popular music figure of the 20th century, his only real rivals for the title being Bing Crosby, Elvis Presley, and the Beatles.

Horseshit

My recieved Wisdom throws Ella up there too, for what that's worth.

Stormy's recommendations are solid, and as I mentioned above, I'd also get "Francis Albert Sinatra and Antonio Carlos Jobim."

Also good: "Come Sing With Me" and "Come Fly With Me"

It's hard for us to see why Sinatra and Crosby were so revolutionary in their day, because just about everyone who came after absorbed their innovations. Try talking to someone who lived through the 40s though, and you'll get a different perspective.

This is a ridiculous statement. Of course he was a musician, and a good one.

I meant that he was not an arranger nor a songwriter, and he didn't try to be one. People layed the music down and then he proceded to phrase the lyrics around that.

I guess he had as say in arrangements but I am pretty sure he didn't layed any scores down. There is no reason, especially with the power he held, why he wouldn't have had a say in what he sung. All I am saying is that his main contribution was in the vocal arrangements and singing the song as best he could.

"My Way" is a piece of crap (I prefer Sid Vicious' version), and most of what he recorded after 1960-1961 is rather uneven, until 1968, when his output becomes unbearable. THAT'S when the style overwhelms the substance.

Lyrically and musically, the song always struck me as a piece of defiant hubris - the kind of thing you might sing before being sucked straight into hell. There is something about it that suggests the character has not only failed to triumph except in his own mind, but that he has somehow failed to see beyond his own needs. One could imagine, perhaps, a very rich and unhappy man singing that song.

OK just to remind you, AMG says Frank Sinatra was arguably the most important popular music figure of the 20th century, his only real rivals for the title being Bing Crosby, Elvis Presley, and the Beatles. So this is about 'figures', ie great musicians who largely defined 20th century popular music. Can anyone seriously think Duke Ellington, James Brown, Billie Holliday, Louis Armstrong, Charlie Parker, Ella Fitzgerald, Miles Davis, Ray Charles
come nowhere near the likes of Bing Crosby and Elvis Presley in terms of overarching importance? As you say, if you define importance as popularity then AMG's picks might be the ones, but that's not what the word conveys to me.

yeah, this whole "no, so-and-so was the most important" stuff is k-boring.

and i agree this stuff is k-boring, but amg started it!

Those wacky AMG dudes! Sometimes they right, sometimes...but the above is one stupid-ass statement. Obviously, it's Louis Armstrong. I think Bing and the Chairman would've agreed...Elvis, I dunno, he would've said "that little negor fellow we bumped into on the Strip," or something. Or one of the Blackwoods maybe. That's one thing I never got about Elvis--why couldn't he have called up Sinatra and said, "I wish to work with the guys who play for you, that Bill Miller..Basie, is he available?" It's one of the reasons I say Sinatra over Elvis--I mean, OK, Elvis did use some good guys like in his band, like James Burton, they were fine, but he could've done so much more. "The New New Tennessee Waltz: Elvis and Jimmy Rowles Sing and Play Stick McGhee." "Elvis/Dolphy Summit at the Chicken Shack!!," an album of Louis Jordan tunes arr. by Oliver Nelson. "Delta Duck Got Webb-Foot: Presley, Jim Webb Style." "Hillbilly Bop: Elvis Presley and Sonny Stitt, Burnin' at the Village Vanguard." Instead, he hung out in Vegas and Memphis and ate Nutty Buddies. I don't get it...I guess he really didn't have any fuckin' idea what he was doing, and Sinatra did.

(Surprisingly, the riff in "Smoke on the Water" adapts naturally into horn charts straight out of the big band era.)

"some day you will pay the tab I know"

Gonna have to get one of those five album cd sets, you know, the cheapie ones.

I do see capitol LPs in the charity shops, low price. I do end up wondering 'is that one of the good ones, or?'

I scored a new sealed copy of Only The Lonely from a charity shop for 1 euro a couple of weeks back. I'm really into hearing it but my player isn't. So stopped halfway through. Bummer.Had distorted it before that.
I mean fuzz guitar on The World We Knew is one thing, distorting this classic is just blasphemy surely.

The first Capitol CD's (from 1987 and 1991) are cheap and easy way of getting those albums in decent quality. (The remasters issued in 1998/2001 are notoriously awful, some of the worst examples of "remastering" by a major label.)

Also, Sinatra was apparently a good sport about Piscopo's parody - I wasn't sure if he would be because sometimes he doesn't take a joke too well. Brad Garrett opened for him for a while and at the end of one good set, he told the audience, "thank you, and please stay for Mr. Sinatra." The next day, Sinatra's manager called him in and said "Frank wants to know what you meant by that." And Garrett was like "it was a joke! Of COURSE they're going to stay for Frank, they're here for him, not for me." The manager was like "oh yeah sure....Frank doesn't want you to say that anymore."

Great Lipson interview - they're all chock full of great anecdotes - but that podcast host is the worse kind of blabbering fanboy.

I remember Piscopo saying that his Sinatra impression came from a place of respect, whereas he criticized Phil Hartman’s Sinatra for being mean-spirited and “disrespectful to Mr. Sinatra.” I always thought Hartman’s was funnier. Not by a lot, but he went places Piscopo wouldn’t touch.

The sketch of the Duets recording sessions with Adam Sandler as Bono was probably the only worthwhile thing to come out of that album.

Sorry, but this thread makes me imagine…

How Alone Am I? (Capitol, 1959; Arranged and Conducted by Hurting, assisted by Gordon Jenkins)