Showing posts with label Frank Sinatra Jr.. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Frank Sinatra Jr.. Show all posts
02 October 2009
20 January 2009
Inauguration Day 2009 Playlist
On "Frank, Gil, and Friends" today on WFCS 107.7 FM New Britain/Hartford, we saluted the new president with a "Sea-to-Shining Sea" musical celebration plus the "Obama Suite" medley.
Here's the state/city/region play list:
Maine John Linnell
Moonlight in Vermont Frank Sinatra
Weekend in New England Barry Manilow
Spring in Manhattan Tony Bennett
Lullaby of Broadway Bing Crosby
Delaware Perry Como
Georgia on My Mind Matt Monro
Peachtree Street Frank Sinatra and Rosemary Clooney
Piddle, Twiddle and Resolve Cast of 1776
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Bing Crosby
You're in Kentucky Rosemary Clooney
(Back Home Again in) Indiana Bobby Darin and Johnny Mercer
Stars Fell on Alabama Frank Sinatra
My Kind of Town Frank Sinatra
Moonlight Mississippi (A Whistlestop Town) Rosemary Clooney
St. Louis Blues Jo Stafford
Natchez Trace Dusty Springfield
Way Down Yonder in New Orleans Bing Crosby and Louis Armstrong
Houston Dean Martin
East of the Rockies Bobby Darin and Johnny Mercer
Shenandoah (Across the Wide Missouri) Bing Crosby
By the Time I Get to Phoenix Frank Sinatra
Wedding Vows in Vegas Was (not Was) with Frank Sinatra Jr.
San Fernando Valley Frank Sinatra
City of the Angels Tony Bennett
California Frank Sinatra
Here's the state/city/region play list:
Maine John Linnell
Moonlight in Vermont Frank Sinatra
Weekend in New England Barry Manilow
Spring in Manhattan Tony Bennett
Lullaby of Broadway Bing Crosby
Delaware Perry Como
Georgia on My Mind Matt Monro
Peachtree Street Frank Sinatra and Rosemary Clooney
Piddle, Twiddle and Resolve Cast of 1776
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Bing Crosby
You're in Kentucky Rosemary Clooney
(Back Home Again in) Indiana Bobby Darin and Johnny Mercer
Stars Fell on Alabama Frank Sinatra
My Kind of Town Frank Sinatra
Moonlight Mississippi (A Whistlestop Town) Rosemary Clooney
St. Louis Blues Jo Stafford
Natchez Trace Dusty Springfield
Way Down Yonder in New Orleans Bing Crosby and Louis Armstrong
Houston Dean Martin
East of the Rockies Bobby Darin and Johnny Mercer
Shenandoah (Across the Wide Missouri) Bing Crosby
By the Time I Get to Phoenix Frank Sinatra
Wedding Vows in Vegas Was (not Was) with Frank Sinatra Jr.
San Fernando Valley Frank Sinatra
City of the Angels Tony Bennett
California Frank Sinatra
The Obama Suite
Yes, I Can Sammy Davis Jr
Blue Hawaii Frank Sinatra
Thin Man Boogie Pat Longo and his Big Band
Chicago Tony Bennett and Count basie
The Father of Girls Perry Como
Walking Happy Frank Sinatra Jr.
We're Gonna Change the World Matt Monro
Blue Hawaii Frank Sinatra
Thin Man Boogie Pat Longo and his Big Band
Chicago Tony Bennett and Count basie
The Father of Girls Perry Como
Walking Happy Frank Sinatra Jr.
We're Gonna Change the World Matt Monro
10 January 2009
Happy Birthday, Frank, Jr.!
Frank Sinatra, Jr. is 65 today.
To celebrate, check out his 2006 That Face cd, with a very nice version of a great Cahn and Van Heusen song "Walking Happy."
I'm fairly certain that, if Frank, Jr. had any other name, he'd be far better respected than he is. An excellent musician, great bandleader, and a fine singer, he is in an entirely different class than a Harry Connick, Jr. or a Michael Buble. If you really listen, you'll understand that.
His problem, however, has always been twofold:
1) He sounds, thanks to genetics, more like Frank than is beneficial to anyone because you can also clearly tell he's not his father. Before you hold this fact against him, of course, remember that NO ONE is another Sinatra (and certainly not the aforementioned Connick or Buble).
2) From the beginning of his career in the early 60s, he's been rabidly anti-rock-music. (And I don't mean just anti-heavy-metal, or anti-rap, or anti-grunge...I'm talking anti-Beatles.) Given his generation, even if he prefers a Rodgers and Hammerstein to a Lennon and McCartney, there's no need to continually condemn it. That ship has sailed, and, by refusing to accept it, his campaign to keep the Great American Songbook alive and well is, in some ways, discredited...especially since plenty of more contemporary artists have acknowledged, indeed EMBRACED, Sinatra as a seminal influence, musical and otherwise.
Anyway, Franklin Wayne Sinatra (not really a junior at all)...Happy Birthday!
To celebrate, check out his 2006 That Face cd, with a very nice version of a great Cahn and Van Heusen song "Walking Happy."
I'm fairly certain that, if Frank, Jr. had any other name, he'd be far better respected than he is. An excellent musician, great bandleader, and a fine singer, he is in an entirely different class than a Harry Connick, Jr. or a Michael Buble. If you really listen, you'll understand that.
His problem, however, has always been twofold:
1) He sounds, thanks to genetics, more like Frank than is beneficial to anyone because you can also clearly tell he's not his father. Before you hold this fact against him, of course, remember that NO ONE is another Sinatra (and certainly not the aforementioned Connick or Buble).
2) From the beginning of his career in the early 60s, he's been rabidly anti-rock-music. (And I don't mean just anti-heavy-metal, or anti-rap, or anti-grunge...I'm talking anti-Beatles.) Given his generation, even if he prefers a Rodgers and Hammerstein to a Lennon and McCartney, there's no need to continually condemn it. That ship has sailed, and, by refusing to accept it, his campaign to keep the Great American Songbook alive and well is, in some ways, discredited...especially since plenty of more contemporary artists have acknowledged, indeed EMBRACED, Sinatra as a seminal influence, musical and otherwise.
Anyway, Franklin Wayne Sinatra (not really a junior at all)...Happy Birthday!
23 December 2008
Sinatra: No (X-)mas! No (X-)mas!
On Tuesday, 23 December, I did my annual WFCS Christmas radio show on "Frank, Gil, and Friends," during which I played a good chunk of Sinatra's official Christmas albums from Capitol and Reprise Records.
While I'm a huge Sinatra fan (why else would I have hosted a Sinatra program for the past 15 years and published two books?), I've never warmed to his post-Columbia Christmas recordings.
To put it bluntly, they ain't Bing (or even Andy Williams, for that matter). Only yesterday's show brought out the "why" to me. Unlike almost everything else he recorded (and, most certainly, unlike his very best songs), I don't believe a word he's singing.
If, as is commonly believed (and, to my mind, as is correct), Sinatra's remarkable strength as an interpretative performer comes from telling stories through his songs, and if, in doing so, he makes his audience believe he's telling those stories to each of them alone, then way too much of A Jolly Christmas from Frank Sinatra, arranged by Gordon Jenkins (1957), Twelve Songs of Christmas (with Bing Crosby and Fred Waring) (1964), and The Sinatra Family Wishes You a Very Merry Christmas (1968), sounds as if he's reading a phonebook into a megaphone on Main Street. Almost none of the recordings, and certainly none of the traditional hymns or carols he recorded in the '50s and '60s, is subtle, sincere, or intimate...which may be a tall order for any singer, but he IS Frank Sinatra, so it should NOT be too tall an order for him.
Aside from "Mistletoe and Holly" and "The Christmas Waltz," both written specifically for him, the songs come off stiff and stagy: too somber to be enjoyed (much less joyous), not heartfelt enough to be heartwarming, or too kitschy to ring true. The frequent choral arrangements don't help the intimacy, but, even alone, he never actually convinces me that it matters whether "All ye Faithful" actually come or whether "It" indeed "Came Upon the Midnight Clear."
His recording for Columbia Records in the '40s fare far better, perhaps due to his more angelic voice and swell Axel Stordahl arrangements, but Sinatra seems equally comfortable balladeering -- e.g., "Christmas Dreaming (A Little Early This Year)" -- and swinging -- e.g., "Santa Claus is Coming to Town."
Most importantly, however, the proof that they work is plain: I believe.
While I'm a huge Sinatra fan (why else would I have hosted a Sinatra program for the past 15 years and published two books?), I've never warmed to his post-Columbia Christmas recordings.
To put it bluntly, they ain't Bing (or even Andy Williams, for that matter). Only yesterday's show brought out the "why" to me. Unlike almost everything else he recorded (and, most certainly, unlike his very best songs), I don't believe a word he's singing.
If, as is commonly believed (and, to my mind, as is correct), Sinatra's remarkable strength as an interpretative performer comes from telling stories through his songs, and if, in doing so, he makes his audience believe he's telling those stories to each of them alone, then way too much of A Jolly Christmas from Frank Sinatra, arranged by Gordon Jenkins (1957), Twelve Songs of Christmas (with Bing Crosby and Fred Waring) (1964), and The Sinatra Family Wishes You a Very Merry Christmas (1968), sounds as if he's reading a phonebook into a megaphone on Main Street. Almost none of the recordings, and certainly none of the traditional hymns or carols he recorded in the '50s and '60s, is subtle, sincere, or intimate...which may be a tall order for any singer, but he IS Frank Sinatra, so it should NOT be too tall an order for him.
Aside from "Mistletoe and Holly" and "The Christmas Waltz," both written specifically for him, the songs come off stiff and stagy: too somber to be enjoyed (much less joyous), not heartfelt enough to be heartwarming, or too kitschy to ring true. The frequent choral arrangements don't help the intimacy, but, even alone, he never actually convinces me that it matters whether "All ye Faithful" actually come or whether "It" indeed "Came Upon the Midnight Clear."
His recording for Columbia Records in the '40s fare far better, perhaps due to his more angelic voice and swell Axel Stordahl arrangements, but Sinatra seems equally comfortable balladeering -- e.g., "Christmas Dreaming (A Little Early This Year)" -- and swinging -- e.g., "Santa Claus is Coming to Town."
Most importantly, however, the proof that they work is plain: I believe.
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