FRANK SINATRA
My hero as a child in New Jersey was the Hoboken born singer/actor Francis Albert Sinatra. You may have heard of him. Frank was leading the music scene in seven different decades! His first commecial recording was back in 1938 when he was the lead vocalist for a newly formed band that had a leader who was even skinnier than he was. His name: Harry James (his real name!). Harry started Frank on his road to music immortality and quickly agreed after one year to release Sinatra to join the top band of Tommy Dorsey.
Frank and Harry were close friends for the rest of their lives. Frank soon became the number one male band vocalist under Tommy's leadership. It was from Tommy, that Frank learned the importance of breath control for a singer. All of these points are stories for another day.
To start...here is a short tale about the song that became his signature song in the last phase of his extraordinary career..."My Way." A song whose 40th anniversary is being heralded with the reissue of the 1969 album. "My Way." It was quite possibly the single most popular number from the final act of Sinatra's career. And in concert after concert over a 25-year period, he never hesitated to tell audiences exactly what he thought of it:
-- "I hate this song -- you sing it for eight years, you would hate it too!" (Caesars Palace, 1978)
-- "And of course, the time comes now for the torturous moment -- not for you, but for me." (L.A. Amphitheater, 1979)
-- "I hate this song. I HATE THIS SONG! I got it up to here [with] this God damned song!" (Atlantic City, 1979)
And yet, in many of those same introductions, he told the crowd that the song had been "very good to me -- and singers like me." "My Way" helped keep the Chairman on the road in the '70s, '80s and '90s. Sinatra quickly learned that audiences wouldn't let him off the stage until he gave them "My Way." Even when he tried to end a show without it, he was dragged back on to do it as an encore.
Per the WSJ, "My Way" did the most to cement Frank Sinatra's position as the leading interpreter of what was becoming known as The Great American Songbook. It was written by two guys who belonged to the rock 'n' roll camp, one of whom (Paul Anka) was a Canadian of Lebanese descent, while the other (Claude François) was of French and Italian background and had been born and raised in Egypt. Both were better known as singers than songwriters -- Mr. Anka having started as a teenybopper idol of the early Elvis era, and François specializing in Eurotrash "covers" of American and British hits.
Sinatra must have been elated in the 1980s when he was finally able to switch to "New York, New York" as his concert closer. As late as 1986, "My Way," which led an entire generation to believe that Sinatra was a raging egomaniac, was the last song in the world for which Frank Sinatra would have wanted to be remembered, even though he sang it , acted it, really, so vividly and convincingly that it became one of the major milestones of American popular music." This is the man the New York Times called "The Greatest Entertainer of the 20th Century.'
Here is Frank on stage in Las Vegas singing "My Way."
