Sinatra....

Sinatra was the very best of a crop of very good singers.

You should get a job at Maggiano's.

Sinatra is the only guy who could sing the bombastic and melodramatic song “My Way” without making people cringe. He was that good.

I love how he effortlessly swings from low notes to high notes in this one.

I had a Sinatra phase too, but it was short-lived. A little of him goes a long way after awhile. I returned to Judy and Ella.

Funny, I can’t stand him. Sinatra us one of the few artists I set to “never play” on Spotify.

This is probably my favorite of his:

Sinatra does something to me. His voice lowers my blood pressure or something. I'm like a kitten being held by the scruff.

Meanwhile, my boyfriend hates him and says he's always flat.

It would be great if we could get a group of people who had no idea who these singers were and played Sinatra, Mathis, Nat King Cole and asked who they thought was the better singer.

r9 Why?

R9 They would all have different answers, even if they were clones of the same person.

R10 Because it might answer the age old and important question , and you could certainly include a few more names ——who is the greatest male singer ever.

A blind taste test by people who have no idea who these singers are. Which means just about any Gen Z you see walking down the street could be a judge..

OP didn't care for him when I was younger. But as I've gotten older, I "get" him more and more.

When you're heartbroken, Frank Sinatra Sings Songs for Only the Lonely is a he'll of a salve.

Damn auto correct! "HELL of a salve..."

In addition to achieving multi-media success in a way very few did (Crosby, before him, did; Garland and Dean Martin did; Fitzgerald, Cole, Peggy Lee less so), there's also his longevity that breaks his singing up into multiple phases you can enjoy, based on your mood.

He was a film star, independent of his singing and work in musicals, and even that can be broken up into 3 periods (MGM, post-MGM, and Rat Pack); he was a television star; he was a radio star; he had hit studio albums and singles; he did concerts in stadiums, bowls, concert halls, clubs, and casinos. There's very little as a mainstream pop singer or actor of his era that he didn't accomplish. He worked constantly.

Sometimes I listen to the early Dorsey big-band recordings, the V-Discs, and his Columbia work from around the same time.

His Capitol albums with Nelson Riddle or Billy May are probably my favorite overall, though I listen to the "sad" ones less and less. Gordon Jenkins you can have.

The early Reprise albums like Ring-a-Ding-Ding retain their fun, and are more or less an extension of Capitol.

The more Rat-Packy or reverb-heavy and under-rehearsed he gets, the less I like. It's interesting to hear him work to change with the times in the way few of his era did, going into the mid-to-late 60s with Cycles, My Way, That's Life, Very Good Year, and Strangers in the Night.

I never listen to the end of career stuff (She Shot Me Down, Trilogy, LA is My Lady, the Duets albums) even though I do own most of it.

Hearing Michael Feinstein's weak cash-grab "Sinatra Project" or tributes from others never engages me either.

Holy Christ, but I love Paris!

Artanis

Anyone that sits around listening to recordings of the Dorsey brothers and their band is all right in my book.

His songs make me so nostalgic, because I've gone through a few phases of listening intensively to them.

Always return to Sinatra as a dependable luxury. His voice was a beautiful instrument, and he inhabited great songs uniquely. Whether upbeat or melancholy, he draws you in like a great actor. With brilliant offhand phrasing, he can own a lyric like no-one else. At his manifold best, untouchable.

R13 that's exactly how I feel. Didn't care for him at all when I was younger, but now there are times when I can just sit and listen to a whole album. As a person I thought he was probably a monster, but damn he could sing. When he was going through his Ava Gardner phase, he had incredible range and power . I think once he turned 70 his voice was over, but this song shows of his range and his power. He sang the shit out of it. He hits some notes I didn't know he had in him. This was recorded late 50's.

He fucked Juliet Prowse, who played MAME.

Just making this suitable for DATALOUNGE...

Sit next to me, r7.

Early Sinatra is very smooth and frisky with the Pied Pipers with Jo Stafford.

He fucked Juliet Prowse, who played Phyllis in FOLLIES.

Just making this *even more* suitable for DATALOUNGE...

Johnny Mathis—-back at you R23

He duets with Connie Haines, but Jo takes the lead with the Pipers.

I saw him in person twice. My mother and my father loved his music. So we went to one of the shows where he was with Liza Minelli and Sammy Davis. He was awesome. I was about 20. Then another time, when he was way over the hill, he was supposed to do a concert but the weather cancelled it. He rescheduled and came back months later but the auditorium was half full. We scooted up to get closer, ad no one stopped us because I guess they wanted the audience closer instead of scattered all over hell. The thing that struck me is that he didn't perform for us. He performed for the musicians. And he had sheet music on a pedestal thing and he'd pick it up read it. His son conducted. It was a real revelation because it hit me that he was first of all a musician, and his voice washi instrument.

I love Frank, along with Dean, Sammy, Steve & Eydie, all the greats of that era. On the female side, I love Dinah Washington, Billie Holiday, the McGuire Sisters, Kay Starr, and Jaye P. Morgan.

JUDY!

Sinatra was a Billie Holliday fan and he often used her phrasing when he sang. His personal life was a train wreck, but the musicians and conductors loved him. I read that once, Count Basie was deep in debt from gambling. He was in trouble. So Sinatra negotiated and he and Frank recorded a whole album at the Sands in Vegas and cleared his debt.

Whatever he was he was interesting.

His torch song/heartbreak albums are unparalleled.

In the Wee Small Hours from 1955 conducted by Nelson Riddle is the best, but Where Are You? from 1957 runs a solid second.

The catalog is deep with reasons why Sinatra is "Sinatra." I love the album September of my Years. The orchestrations, Franks intonations and phrasing. This is real studio recording... this is a real singer with a voice that is not auto-tuned and dubbed and manipulated. This is a man who knew how to sing with a live orchestra or small group or acapella.

Oh yes, R32, thank you for saying that. I love that he could toss something off like this with a small group on his radio show-- I don't think he ever recorded this song in studio-- and give it feeling, energy, and swing.

[quote]Funny, I can’t stand him. Sinatra us one of the few artists I set to “never play” on Spotify.

I just scratched Dutchie off my to-do-before-I-die list.

r7, that sounds like it samples from that Carpenters' song (or vice versa).

R32 "It Was A Very Good Year" is a pop masterpiece. It is art.

[quote]When you're heartbroken, Frank Sinatra Sings Songs for Only the Lonely is a hell of a salve.

R13 I think of it more of a 'wallow' or pity party. That's why it's great; it shares your heartbreak and allows you to cry.

You have refined taste OP.

[quote]It would be great if we could get a group of people who had no idea who these singers were and played Sinatra, Mathis, Nat King Cole and asked who they thought was the better singer.

All great but hands down it's Sinatra.

Mathis' fluttery vibrato can sound dated. Nat King Cole's gorgeous voice lacked the nuance that Sinatra had in interpreting lyrics.

Thank you R38. I think my favorite serious torch song by Sinatra was "I'm a Fool to Want You" It was almost operatic when he hit those notes. Powerful

I think he sucked as a person, but he was the best of his era….love this:

Sinatra, Tony Bennett, Dean Martin, Perry Como, Bobby Darin, Al Martino, Jerry Vale, Sergio Franchi, Buddy Greco, Julius LaRosa, Frankie Avalon, Fabian Forte, Bobby Rydell....it was like the Mafia had taken over a segment of the recording industry.

Even today, I don't think anyone compares. And there are many great singers out here. He is in a class by himself.

Sinatra is a storyteller.

He's like that one person at a campfire who describes a situation they're in or were in and, for some reason, everybody else sitting there hangs on their every word.

I got a kick out of whoever put the songs in order on my Sinatra CD.

They put "Come Fly with Me", his great wooing-a-woman song then immediately follow it with his famous lament to Joe the bartender on that "torch that I've found, it's gotta be drowned" in "One for the Road".

My image is that woman he succeeded at picking up turned the tables on him, used him, then left him with a broken heart.

One for the Road....

I didn’t “get”‘Sinatra until I saw his liver performance of Angel Eyes on the All The Way documentary.

Ah, that famous Sinatra liver performance. It's never been replicated.

I found it...bilious.

R40, "I'm a Fool to Want You" is too good by half to not include a link. And for others, if you read the Wiki entry for this song, it's got a great back story. Damn, the lyrics are perfection - so are the Gordon Jenkins arrangements and then there's that voice - he slides through notes - doesn't swoop in a rushed manner, but sinks, slides and then rises.

r49: Recorded when he was grieving over Ava.

His phrasing was impeccable. He thought about the words he was singing and his voice made you understand and feel exactly what the songwriter intended.

Love Frank, but Sammy deserves so much more recognition than what he gets.

[quote]I think as a singer he was singular.

As in "not a Siamese twin, you stupid bimbo twat?

Shaddup.

I did post a link to the song R48. I posted at R20. I didn't realize he co-wrote the song. Man....those lyrics. He was begging. I'd read that he and Ava had a very volatile relationship because Nancy wouldn't divorce him. She would get frustrated and break it off and then he'd go after her and she'd come back. He was pretty pitiful when it came to her. But for me that's the song that really showcases his remarkable voice. I love his t torch song/heartbreak phase.

[quote]Love Frank, but Sammy deserves so much more recognition than what he gets.

True. A great singer. Up there with the best.

The singer Johnny Fontane in The Godfather was based on Sinatra.

Kind of touching that Frank never really got over Ava. He made sure that she was looked after and taken care of long , long after they parted ways. He took care of all of her personal and medical needs right up until the day she died. He was a fool to want her for sure because she was off chasing matador dick.

Ava and Luis Miguel Dominguin:

R57 apparently long after they parted Ava would continue to visit Frank's mother, Dolly. Dolly was crazy about her.

r54, my post was in reply to r47.

Ava was hot. Sinatra was not.

Sammy was extremely talented, but i find him unendurable.

R60 It is reported that Sinatra had other qualities not readily visible to the eye.

There's a recent Paramount+ series, "Mafia Spies," that covers the Mob-Sinatra-Kennedy-CIA connections as documented by some recently declassified government archives. Some of the dramatic recreations with actors are cheesy, but there are some interesting talking heads and the story is stranger than fiction.

His voice could be quite soothing.

Poor Dolly. I remember reading that Frank was haunted with visions of his terrified, beloved mother dying in that plane crash. She was in that plane for only one reason and that was to see her baby boy wowing them in Las Vegas.

It must be very draining to be expected to be “on” whenever people demand, and wanted only for your voice. So many singers become contorted by it. No wonder so many were complex personalities.

That he didn’t record a late career version of And I’m Telling You I’m Not Going is our great loss.

Highly recommend the Alex Gibney documentary series, All or Nothing At All.

Francis Albert was not a monster. He was pretty much a great man.

I'll never forgive him his allegiance to the Reagans. But I will always love his music.

Tried and tried to love Sinatra for decades. I like him, but Tony is my hero. Johnny Mathis isn’t in the league with either.

R68, it was only because the Kennedys fucked him over.

^ Yeah, JFK stayed at Bing Crosby's house instead of Sinatra's. So fucked over.

Someone please help me because I think Johnny Mathis was a way better singer than Sinatra. And Bobby Darin was better than Mathis.

R5- Another words you returned to your gay roots.

I love Tony Bennett and I met him years ago. Lovely guy. He had a great voice and he was a true Jazz singer. But Sinatra is in a class by himself. Johnny Mathis had a beautiful voice, but he was no Sinatra.

Sinatra did so much more than carry a tune. He inhabited the song.

Comparing Mathis to Sinatra is like comparing Dionne Warwick to early Streisand. Different categories.

Great singer but a truly awful fellow. He really did have people beaten up- sometimes in front of him so he could “enjoy” it. Yes I know he could be generous too. But his crude and mean side, even violent, shades his obvious gifts as a singer.

He and the Rat Pack were verbally abusive towards Sammy, always making racist comments and jokes. Even Dean Martin would call him the N word. Yet at the same time, they helped to end segregation in Las Vegas so Sammy and other black entertainers could perform at the hotels and stay there too. Very complex man.

{quote]they helped to end segregation in Las Vegas

LINK?

R79, There are numerous stories out here of Frank insisting that hotels in Vegas and anywhere else he performed stop banning Blacks from their dining rooms and lodgings. Guys like Nat King Cole Count Basie, and many more. In fact he found Nat in the kitchen and invited him to have dinner and raised hell to make it happen. And yes,R78 is correct he broke the color line with the Will Mastin Trio, which included Sammy, his dad and his uncle. He was a complex man. Probably Bi-polar.

Here’s an article about this…