ALBUM: The Best of Frank Sinatra
MVC Rating: 4.0/$$$$
Now here’s a bit of a switch. Frank Sinatra. He’s arguably one of the best or best known singers of the 20th Century.
I picked this re-issue up in Birmingham sometime in the 1980s. I can’t remember exactly why — I may have heard a Sinatra song in a movie. Or, I may have just wanted to be able to field a request. If someone’s at my house listening to music — which was a common pastime — and said, ‘Hey got any Sinatra? I could say, ‘Of course.’
For me, his music was ‘easy listening or jazzy easy listening. Critics often cite his ‘effortless’ singing style and phrasing as to what made him so good. I see that. The songs come out fully baked, casual, effortless and you are left wondering ‘how did he make me like this song.
I have little awareness of the days when he was in his prime. This greatest hits captures some of his best and best known songs like ‘Young at Heart,’ ‘High Hopes,’ and ‘Chicago.’ Noticeably absent however is ‘Strangers in the Night,’ which supposedly Sinatra hated. Also ‘My Way’ is not here. I’m going to dock the grade a point for not having those iconic songs on a ‘Best of.’
When I was a kid I knew a little about the Rat Pack. I liked Sammy Davis Jr. and Dean Martin the best; I actually didn’t see Sinatra on TV as much as Davis and Martin.
I even read Davis’ autobiography, how he lost his eye and all of that. I knew Dean Martin through the Jerry Lewis movies and and his own variety TV show. Martin always had a drink in one hand and a cigarette in the other. And that was while he was singing(:
I did pick up some Frank Sinatra on 78 records but I still need to sift through a stack of these to see what I have.
It was a whole different world of popular music back then —1940s and 50s. Sinatra, however, in the 1960s must have been listening to newer stuff. He called the Beatle George Harrison’s song, “Something,’ the ‘greatest love song of the past 50 years.’
Sinatra covered that song as did about every crooner around the world, from Liberace to James Brown to (more recently) Billie Eilish.