In September 1998, shortly after Frank Sinatra’s passing, the jazz critic Francis Davis described Sinatra’s career in The Atlantic as a two-decade procession of taking songs off the market, meaning that once Frank had recorded them, his interpretations were immediately accepted as definitive and thereby discouraged other singers from recording them afterward. I thought of this last night during CBS’s 100th anniversary tribute broadcast. The musical lineup had its share of superstars in their own right, but at no point during the two-hour show was there any hint that the songs that they sang belonged to anyone but Frank, despite a half century having elapsed since the original Sinatra recordings. One could pity the likes of Carrie Underwood and Garth Brooks for having volunteered to be subject to the comparison.
I still know barely enough about music to be dangerous, so I will leave it to our friend Tom Frederickson to discuss Sinatra’s musical legacy. For those wishing to get to know Frank, I would suggest the purchase of two of Frank’s albums (the ultimate tribute to a musician) to start:
Songs for Swinging Lovers, Capitol Records, 1956
Only the Lonely, Capitol Records, 1958
The latter is particularly recommended if your heart has been broken a time or two.
I would also recommend reading Gay Talese’s classic 1966 profile, “Frank Sinatra Has a Cold,” to get a sense of Frank when he was at the height of his powers and cultural resonance. Kind of like the Taylor Swift of his day, though it won’t take long to figure out that Swift still has some distance to go before she approaches Frank’s league.
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