Ring a Ding Ding

It is one of the great regrets of my listening life that I never saw Frank Sinatra in concert. Even toward the end, when his voice was a vestige of what it once had been and he was a little shaky on some of the lyrics, it would have been worth the experience. It would have been a kick just to be in the same room.

Last week Frank Sinatra Jr. was on our show. He sings the old man’s songs now and for many years was his father’s orchestra leader. While he sat for our interview I could not help but silently size up the physical similarities between father and son. You catch that profile in the right light and there’s not much doubt about the gene pool.

Sinatra’s music is important to many people for many reasons. Some of these have very little to do with the actual songs or how he interpreted them. My mother was a big fan. She would have been right in that bobby-soxer wheelhouse that catapulted Frank into the stratosphere of popular culture. When my Mom died at the age of 44, I found that listening to Sinatra somehow connected me to her memory better than just about anything else.. My father…thin as a rail for much of his life…once told me that Frank Sinatra made being skinny fashionable , if not downright sexy.  Like I say…people have their reasons.

My favourite Sinatra song keeps changing. It is hard to argue with the way he swings through The Best Is Yet To Come.  It is, after all, the line you’ll find on his headstone should you ever make the pilgrimage to the family plot in Cathedral City.

Then I got kinda hooked on It’s My Heart…just for the simple sake of the melody alone. And now I find a show tune like All I Need Now Is The Girl  (from Gypsy) to be at the top of my ever-evolving Sinatra list.

Sinatra Jr. is not the old man..and he would be the first to tell you that. Yes, he sings the great American songbook but it is also part of his mission to preserve his father’s legacy. My co-hosts found him aloof, if not a tad arrogant. I didn’t react the same way. Maybe I thought I knew more about the family dynamic…and what a family it must have been! There are more books about Frank Sinatra on my bookshelf than any other entertainer. And I have a lot of books.

I found Jr. to be reserved, thoughtful and a tad defensive. Plus, he’s a night owl. Saloon singers…no matter what  generation…are not at their most personable when you drag them out of bed at 6am. That’s just about the time Frank Sr.was finally getting some shuteye for much of his performing life. As he was standing up to leave the set , Frank Jr. looked at the other members of the team (each of them a stunner), then looked back at me and said, ‘Boy, you’ve got a tough job’. I think his must be lot tougher..but in a Sinatra kind-of-way, I knew exactly what he meant.

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