Frank Sinatra

Francis Albert Sinatra (December 12, 1915 – May 14, 1998) was an American singer who is considered one of the finest vocalists of all time, renowned for his impeccable phrasing and timing. Many critics place him alongside Bing Crosby, Elvis Presley, and The Beatles as the most important popular music figures of the 20th century. http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=11:iyg9kett7q7b~T1

Recorded legacy

Sinatra left a vast legacy of recordings, from his very first sides with the Harry James orchestra in 1939, the vast catalogs at Columbia in the 1940s, Capitol in the 1950s, and Reprise from the 1960s onwards, up to his 1994 album Duets II.

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Some of his best known recorded songs include:

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• Great American Songbook entries such as "Night and Day", "I've Got You Under My Skin", and "Fly Me To The Moon"
• Comic numbers such as "Love and Marriage" (used as theme for American television comedy Married... with Children)
• Torch songs such as "One for My Baby", "Angel Eyes", and "Drinking Again"
• "It Was a Very Good Year" and "Summer Wind", which capture his mid-1960s persona of sentimental nostalgia
• "That's Life", "My Way", and "New York, New York", which convey his late-stage attitude of bombastic defiance.

Three of his songs made #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 even after the advent of the rock and roll era: "Learnin' the Blues" (1955), "Strangers in the Night" (1966), and "Somethin' Stupid" (1967), the last a duet with daughter Nancy.

Related Topics:
Billboard Hot 100 - Strangers in the Night - Somethin' Stupid

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Of all his many albums, At the Sands with Count Basie, which was recorded live in Las Vegas in 1966, with Sinatra in his prime, backed by Count Basie's big band, remains his most popular and is still a big seller.

Related Topics:
At the Sands with Count Basie - Las Vegas - Count Basie

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Sinatra is also credited with putting out perhaps the first concept albums. 1955's In the Wee Small Hours is the prime example: a set of songs specifically recorded for the album, using only ballads, organized around a central mood of late-night isolation and aching lost love (supposedly due to his separation from Ava Gardner), with a now-classic album cover reflecting the theme. Rolling Stone magazine later named In the Wee Small Hours as #100 http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/_/id/6598220 on their list of the 500 best albums of all time.

Related Topics:
Concept album - In the Wee Small Hours - Rolling Stone - List of the 500 best albums of all time

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The following year's Songs for Swingin' Lovers took an alternate tack, recording existing pop standards in a hipper, jazzier fashion, revealing an overall exuberance; Rolling Stone placed it #306 http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/_/id/6599187 on the above list.

Related Topics:
Songs for Swingin' Lovers - Pop standards

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Other Sinatra milestone albums include 1965's September of My Years, which according to critic Stephen Holden, "summed up the punchy sentimentality of a whole generation of American men," 1973's comeback album Ol' Blue Eyes is Back, and 1980's ', an ambitious triple album using three arrangers that attempted to portray the past, present, and future of his career.

Related Topics:
September of My Years - Stephen Holden - Ol' Blue Eyes is Back - Triple album

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Sinatra won ten Grammy Awards during his career, including Album of the Year for Come Dance With Me in 1959, September of My Years in 1965, and ' in 1966, and Record of the Year for "Strangers in the Night" in 1966. (The Grammy Awards only began in 1958, after two peaks of Sinatra's recording career had already happened.)

Related Topics:
Grammy Award - Album of the Year - Come Dance With Me - September of My Years - Record of the Year - Strangers in the Night

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In addition, Sinatra was named the Down Beat readers' poll Male Singer of the Year sixteen times between 1941 and 1966 and the Personality of the Year six times between 1954 and 1959, and was named the Down Beat critics' poll Male Singer of the Year twice, in 1955 and 1957. Sinatra was also named the Playboy Jazz All-Star Poll Male Vocalist of the Year seven times between 1957 and 1963. http://www.avalon.net/~bstuder/theman.htm

Related Topics:
Down Beat - Playboy

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In 2001 BBC Radio 2 named Sinatra as the "Greatest Voice of the Twentieth Century". http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/music/1281522.stm

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Sinatra was inducted into the Big Band and Jazz Hall of Fame in 1980.

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Stephen Holden wrote for the 1983 Rolling Stone Record Guide:

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:"Frank Sinatra's voice is pop music history. Like Presley and Dylan?the only other white male American singers since 1940 whose popularity, influence, and mythic force have been comparable?Sinatra will last indefinitely. He virtually invented modern pop song phrasing."

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Two decades later, radio personality and musician Jonathan Schwartz's assessment in a 2005 book review for the New York Observer showed that Sinatra's musical reputation had not diminished:

Related Topics:
Jonathan Schwartz - New York Observer

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:"I believe, based on a lifetime of consideration, that Frank Sinatra was the greatest interpretive musician this country has ever produced."

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