Tuesday, December 12, 2006
“I thought of quitting, baby, but my heart just ain’t gonna buy it.”
It was on this day in 1915 that Frank Sinatra was born in Hoboken, New Jersey to Anthony Sinatra, a fireman, and his wife Natalie. For sixty years, in pubs and in palaces, he entertained the entire world: the…Sunday, December 10, 2006
Sunday Morning Sinatra - “Birth of the Blues”
This bright Sunday, let’s give ‘em all an airing. Below, you’ll find a film of Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis Jr., and Dean Martin—with a little camero by Johnny Carson. It was recorded on June 20, 1965 at the Kiel Opera…Sunday, November 19, 2006
Sunday Morning Sinatra - “One For My Baby (And One More for the Road)”
It has been a long while since I’ve posted a Sunday Morning Sinatra. Feels like it’s time. Scott Johnson, a one-man Grove Dictionary of American standards, observes that yesterday, November 18, was the anniversary of Johnny Mercer’s birth. Mercer is…Sunday, October 22, 2006
Sunday Evening Sinatra - “I Couldn’t Sleep a Wink Last Night”
Frank Sinatra debuted on the silver screen in a 1944 movie called “Higher and Higher.” That film features a wonderful scene in which Sinatra sings the velvety noctune, “I Couldn’t Sleep a Wink Last Night,” by Jimmy McHugh. And here’s…Saturday, September 30, 2006
Dino Paul Crocetti and Francis Albert Sinatra
I missed the Sunday Morning Sinatra last weekend, and so I offer this one an entire day early. This is a fabulously entertaining medley of tunes sung by Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra. Look up ‘entertainment’ in the dictionary and…Sunday, September 17, 2006
Sunday Morning Sinatra - “The Most Beautiful Girl in the World”
Rodgers and Hart wrote “The Most Beautiful Girl in the World” for the 1935 show Billy Rose’s Jumbo, about a ‘bout-to-go-under circus family and their savior of a publicity man. The show itself isn’t terribly well-remembered, though a 1962 film…Sunday, September 10, 2006
Sunday Morning Sinatra - President Nixon & “You Make Me Feel So Young”
This Sunday’s video is a little longer than usual—six minutes—and you will have to excuse the dim recording, the scattered static, and the imperfect sound quality. But I think this is really something to see: It is a one-camera recording…Sunday, September 03, 2006
Sunday Morning Sinatra - “My Funny Valentine”
American standards don’t come much more standard than the immortal tunes penned by Lorenz Hart and Richard Rodgers for the 1936 show Babes in Arms, about a gang of teenagers who put on a musical to save their struggling vaudevillian…Sunday, August 27, 2006
Sunday Morning Sinatra - “I Won’t Dance”
From 1957 to 1958 there was a television program called “The Frank Sinatra” show. It starred Sinatra, of course, along with arranger and band maestro Nelson Riddle. One episode of the program begins with the closing few bars of “(Love…Sunday, August 20, 2006
Sunday Morning Sinatra - “Ol’ Man River”, Revisited
Two weeks ago we saw Frank Sinatra sing the American classic “Ol’ Man River” from a 1946 Richard Whorf film called Till the Clouds Roll By, a tribute to the song’s composer, Jerome Kern. Here is Sinatra doing the very…Sunday, August 13, 2006
Sunday Morning Sinatra - “I’ve Got You Under My Skin”
“Cole Porter’s shining hour” is how Frank Sinatra used to introduce this song, written by the famous composer (who was, by the bye, one of the original Whiffenpoofs) in 1936 for Born to Dance. Sinatra started performing it in the…Sunday, August 06, 2006