Open Mike: Frank's 100th

Saturday night—Today is Frank Sinatra's 100th birthday. As you might have heard.

The only child of Sicilian immigrants, Sinatra was in many ways the prototype of the modern superstar.

When I was a raggedy young art student living in a tiny walk-up apartment in Georgetown, I liked to walk. I could walk for miles, and was in the habit of getting out of the apartment at eight, nine or ten at night and walking for a few hours. Often there were things going on at the Kennedy Center, and sometimes I could get in and see them—if I came in 45 minutes or more after a classical concert started, for example, sometimes I could get the ticket-takers to waive the charge for a single obstructed seat, and I'd join the audience between pieces.

One brilliant warm Spring night there seemed to be a lot of excitement radiating from the Kennedy Center as I walked past along the Potomac. Had to be somebody big—it got so you could recognize the signs, feel the energy in the air. So I went up to investigate. There were cars and people everywhere, but the police had one of the driveways barricaded off and there was a knot of people clustered by the barricade. There was just one single car parked up by the door all by itself. I sort of snuck up through the bushes on the grass so I could get a better look. A cop was there to motion me to go no farther. I can still see it in my mind's eye: an utterly perfect, spotless, gleaming vintage Bentley, looking regal. I indicated the car and raised my eyebrows. The cop nodded.

"Mr. Sinatra's."

Ah.

The singer had a fabulous stereo, too—three-channel, on which he listened to three-channel master tapes (pictures here). Bet that would sound great even by today's standards. Weird factoid on that score: Sinatra had one punctured eardrum. It's what kept him out of the ranks during WWII, back home singing torch songs for all the lonely women. Maybe his '40s stuff was the foundation of his popularity—he sang songs about loneliness, sounding like the sentiments came straight from his heart, when so many people really were lonely.

I must admit I've never been a true fan. When I was young, Elvis was for grownups, and Sinatra was for older grownups. Even the Beatles and the Stones were for kids who were teenagers when I was in grade school. (I'm "Generation Jones." If you were born between 1955 and 1965, Google it.) But of what I've heard, I like his '40s stuff best, too.

 (Music by Jule Styne, lyrics by Sammy Cahn, arrangement by George Siravo.) More here.

Whether you're a fan or not, it's kind of interesting to think back as these cultural milestones click past. Happy Sinatra Centennial.

Mike

"Open Mike" is the off-topic editor's choice page of TOP. It usually appears on Sundays. Some weeks it's a day late, some weeks, a day early.

ADDENDUM: The Internet Is Amazing Part 253,781,463,920: Here's "Mr. Sinatra's" (as the cop said) 1963 Bentley S3 Saloon as it looks today...and from about the same angle I saw it from all those years ago at the Kennedy Center, even.

Still looks pretty good. It looked better when it was 20 years old instead of 52, under the night sky and the bright lights of the Kennedy Center, guarded by police.

Oh, and the Internet says the concert happened in April of '83....

Original contents copyright 2015 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

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Comments

[Stephen Gilbert]

Much more than pictures at that link. (http://blogs.kcrw.com/rhythmplanet/frank-sinatras-classic-hi-fi-system/)

A window into an entirely different nutty world.

Thanks

[Benjamin Marks]

Sinatra was an American original all right. But he was a creature of his time. For crooners I prefer Mel Torme, or even Tony Bennett. In general Sinatra was not my style of actor either..he was wooden, even. I just watched "Pal Joey" the other day. Awful stuff. Just terrible. Still, he meant something to a lot of folks and the American century was his in many ways.

[Tim McGowan]

Two things I've heard about Sinatra. First ,he was able to carry his notes long and effortlessly because he learned from horn players how to breath in and out at the same time.Secondly, he was responsible for the demise of big bands. Big Bands had a boy singer and a girl singer. The bands were what people came to see , not the singers. Frank changed that. He became more popular then the bands. Hence their demise.

[Wayne P]

Thanks, I really enjoy your "Off Topic" posts.

[Earl Dunbar]

Three channel analog tapes still sound amazing, whether pressed onto good vinyl or transcribed to DSD 256.

[Yoram Nevo]

The Israeli songwriter and columnist Eli Mohar wrote in his obituary for Frank Sinatra, that Sinatra's secret was to enter
at the last millisecond of the musical phrase - just when you thought it was too late, but it wasn't.
He Had the perfect timing !

[Jim]

Speaking of running across interesting things, today we saw the World Press Photo exhibit at the Rotunda in Beverly Hills. Great photos, of course, chosen by peers. It will be there until Jan 3.
While there, we were interviewed by one of the staff and got into a long discussion on how to get more interest in the exhibition in the US. LA is the only stop this year.
See http://www.worldpressphoto.org/exhibitions

[R. Edelman]

Mike, I think the car pictured is a Bentley S3 Saloon. The S3 Continental carried a different, lighter body, and was more rare than the S3 Saloon. The S3 Saloon was very similar to the Rolls Royce Silver Cloud III, the most notable difference being the grill.

[Thanks--fixed now (taking your word for it). --Mike]

[mike plews]

The difficult part about the Frank Sinatra centennial is that his career was so long and varied that most of what I am seeing right now is the video equivalent of a greatest hits tribute album.
That's fine but to me Frank Sinatra gets more interesting when you wander off into some of his less known work.
Thanks to YouTube it's possible to sit down and explore his career on your own terms.
A couple of less visited places I can recommend are his live work with Red Norvo and a V disc on which he conducted the music of Alec Wilder.
He also did a wonderful read of another Wilder song "South to a Warmer Place", it's on YouTube too.
And then there's this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XP64PDhcs4Y

Seven minutes that will make your day.
I guarantee it.

[Steve Smith]

Also, Frank Sinatra as a boxing photographer:

http://www.pophistorydig.com/topics/muhammad-ali-joe-frazier/

[Bruce Mc]

"... during WWII, back home singing torch songs for all the lonely women."

This version of Frank singing "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas," makes me think of that time - although I wasn't around then.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8bbYr264pI4

[Dogman]

I discovered Sinatra when I was a freshman in college, around 1967/68. I had discovered Elvis while in junior high school and Dylan in high school. Somewhere in there, the Beatles and the Stones made their appearance as well. Seems like there was an idol for every season. Of course my discovery of Sinatra was kind of late. He had been one of the most popular singers around in the early 1940s, before I was even born. As I was growing up, I viewed him more of a news item and an actor than a singer. I don't recall ever actually listening to his singing at the time. But by the time I hit college, I had discovered Brubeck, Monk and Miles and my appreciation of Sinatra's music as vocal jazz-pop hit its full stride. Even when his material was mostly trendy dreck, Sinatra made it a little interesting. And I doubt anyone will ever really surpass Sinatra's collaborations with geniuses like Gordon Jenkins and Nelson Riddle. Those recordings will always be sublime.

When he died, I played Sinatra CDs all day, knowing he would always be with us. And of course he is.

[Trevor Johnson]

An excellent piece in the Guardian, yesterday:

http://www.theguardian.com/music/2015/dec/12/very-long-retirement-frank-sinatra-final-years

The Bentley S3 is a car I traveled a lot in as a child, surprisingly compact inside, especially in the back. The best S3 (Bentley, not Nikon), was owned by the father of a friend of mine, the S3 Continental Coupe by Mulliner Park Ward.

[Bob Rosinsky]

Given a choice, I'd choose Frank's hi-fi over the Bentley.

[Colin Work]

I never really 'got' Sinatra ... until I realised it wasn't so much his voice as his timing, esp. in his later (post 60) recordings - so many of them seem to court disaster. So laid back at times he's horizontal.

Couple that to his recordings with the Nelson Riddle Orchestra .. I must have listened to "Got you Under My Skin" a thousand times, and the brass section still gives me shivers.

[Robert]

The BBC responded with an article today;
http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20151214-frank-sinatra-at-100-was-ol-blue-eyes-really-dangerous

[Andrew Lamb]

I think I'm the same age as you (58) but I love Sinatra. His recordings for Capitol, in the '50s, are peerless.

I was lucky enough to see him in concert, at the Royal Albert Hall in London, in September, 1980. Despite his age, he was sensationally good. I wept with joy when he sang In The Wee Small Hours.

All through the concert men and women would walk to the edge of the stage and leave him gifts of flowers, bottles of whisky and even phone numbers...

I had a chance to see him again the following year but declined on the grounds that he was in such good form the one time I saw him I didn't want to ruin the memory. My friends, who went, told me I made the right choice.

[Tom Montgomery]

That 3-track system brings back memories. My first real job was as a technician at RCA Studios in Montreal, and one my first tasks was to convert the Scully 3-track recorders to 4-track. The recording consoles had 3 channels: left, centre and right. There were 3 speakers hung from the ceiling in the control room. When upgrading to 4 channels, they simply added another speaker for monitoring. Then when 8-track machines arrived, the studio manager had every intention of installing 8 speakers across the front of the control room! Fortunately, cooler heads that knew about monitor mixing systems prevailed.