by Len Hart, The Existentialist CowboyIt's not easy to write about Frank Sinatra who often seems himself to have shaped post-war American pop music. It is said that he began his career as a 'callow crooner'. To be sure, he matured into the sophisticated pop stylist often associated with the 'rat pack' of Sammy Davis, Jr., Dean Martin, Joey Bishop and Peter Lawford!
Sinatra was something of an ingenue in 'From Here to Eternity' with Burt Lancaster and Montgomery Clift. He had lived several lifetimes by the time he got around to singing 'It Was a Very Good Year' or 'My Way'.
His idol was Bing Crosby who pioneered the use of the microphone. Sinatra would follow suit, exploring the 'intimacy' of the microphone. It was a new 'sound' resonating most noticeably among his growing legion of female fans.
'The Voice', not merely a nick-name, was described as 'extraordinarily smooth and flexible'; his phrasing was often echoed by other 'crooners' --Vic Damone, Dick Haymes, Tony Bennett and, most recently, Harry Connick Jr.
Sinatra made maturity and sophistication 'hip'. One writer --whose name I no longer recall --wrote of Sinatra that while women adored him, "men wanted to be him or --at least --have his memories."
While the rock culture of the late sixties, early 70s turned much of pop music on its head, Sinatra seems in retrospect to have ridden it all out, perhaps rose above it all. He had hits --'My Way', 'It was a Very Good Year'. 'The 'Summer Wind' dates to 1965, itself a very good year to include the Rolling Stones 'I Can't Get No Satisfaction', Sonny and Cher's 'I Got You, Babe' and Barry Maquire's 'Eve of Destruction'. This was an era about which it was said an entire generation did not trust anyone over thirty.
Sinatra was not always a nice guy. In Australia, as I recall, he compared female reporters to 'whores'. The bad press might have sunk a lesser career. But not Sinatra's!
Frank Sinatra, the singer and actor whose extraordinary voice elevated popular song into an art, died on Thursday night in Los Angeles. He was 82.
The cause was a heart attack, said his publicity agent, Susan Reynolds. Ms. Reynolds said his fourth wife, Barbara, his son, Frank Jr., and daughters, Tina and Nancy, were at his side at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. She said he would be given a private funeral.
Widely held to be the greatest singer in American pop history and one of the most successful entertainers of the 20th century, Sinatra was also the first modern pop superstar. He defined that role in the early 1940's when his first solo appearances provoked the kind of mass pandemonium that later greeted Elvis Presley and the Beatles. --STEPHEN HOLDEN, Frank Sinatra Dies at 82; Matchless Stylist of Pop
Frank Sinatra - It Was a Very Good Year (Live)
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