WaPo: Geoff Edgers: Why Frank Sinatra still matters

[Frank Forman]

Of course he does. Sinatra is the most important person in history.

Proof:
1. America is the most important country in history
2. Popular culture is the most important thing about America
3. Over the years, Sinatra is the most important figure in popular culture.
Q.E.D.

He made a few songs with the Hollywood String Quartet.

Geoff Edgers: Why Frank Sinatra still matters
http://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/music/why-frank-sinatra-still-matters/2015/05/28/560e0e92-03c0-11e5-bc72-f3e16bf50bb6_story.html

"Frank is just like you. Just like me. Only bigger."--George
Schlatter, a friend

Let's get one thing straight. There can't be another Frank. These
days, you don't operate on that plane and get away with it. Was he
in the Mob? Was he an informer? Did he ruin Ava Gardner, sleep with
Marilyn, throw a plate against a restaurant wall just because they
cooked the pasta too long? Come on, al dente!

Act like that today and you'd be TMZ'd faster than you can tweet
Alec Baldwin. But that's just behavior. Flip on your TV and you'll
understand the other reason nobody can match Sinatra. In this age of
the media megatropolis, of over-saturated, over-exposed,
over-everything, competition is just too fierce for one figure to so
dominate the spotlight. If Milton Berle were starting out now, he
wouldn't get a 30-year deal from NBC. He'd be cross-dressing on
Comedy Central to beat out Guy Fieri on a Wednesday night.

With Frank's 100th birthday approaching, along with an NSO Pops
concert devoted to his music, I've been talking Sinatra over the
past week, on the phone, at neighborhood barbecues, with other music
fans. I've been throwing on his records, from the classics ("Come
Dance With Me!") to the spottier ("Trilogy: Past, Present, Future"),
sifting through good books and that Kitty Kelley paperback and
scouring YouTube for every scrap of visual data.

Truth is, celebrity anniversaries are nothing more than dates, and
dates nothing more than marketing opps for album reissues, tribute
concerts and related product. But for me, an unrepentant fan, it's a
great time to remind everyone why Frank still matters.

It goes well beyond the tough-guy themes, torch songs and "Duets"
albums that, although sterile and disappointing, launched an entire
industry of songbook-styled projects. Some of them are even quite
wonderful.

1. Presence

What's most startling, when you focus on Frank, is how ever-present
he is 17 ^1/[2 ]years after his death, how regularly he bullies his
way into your living room.

There he is, on David Letterman's "Late Show" farewell week,
channeled through "Bob Dylan," the greatest songwriter of our time,
who decided to croon a classic made famous by Sinatra. There's "The
Theme From New York, New York," played 81 nights a season, without
fail, after the final out at Yankee Stadium. Even in death, Frank
can insert himself into the middle of a nasty domestic squabble.
Third wife Mia Farrow taking a swipe at Woody Allen by suggesting
that Ol' Blue Eyes, not her film-directing ex, may have fathered son
Ronan. And his staying power is undeniable, even as the icons of
yesteryear--Ray Charles, Liz Taylor, even Hemingway--fade away.

"As far as touching him goes, nobody touches him," "Dylan" said in a
surprisingly personal interview earlier this year, explaining why
his new record featured 10 songs made famous by Sinatra. "Not me or
anyone else."

"The word 'icon' is much overused, but if it applies to anyone in
American popular culture, it is Frank Sinatra," critic Terry
Teachout said in the Alex Gibney documentary that aired on HBO in
April, "Sinatra: All or Nothing at All."

2. Beyond imitation

Let's play a quick parlor game. Try to come up with a contemporary
equivalent of Sinatra. I tried. You can at least take a good stab
with Jimmy Stewart (Tom Hanks), John Wayne (Clint Eastwood) or
Jackie Wilson (Bruno Mars.) With Sinatra, you'll need to combine
superpowers, taking Robert Downey Jr.'s swagger, Beyoncé's Forbesian
reach and Justin Timberlake's triple-threat skills. And that still
doesn't fill out the man.

"He conquered every medium--television, recording, films," Tony
Bennett said after Sinatra's death. "He was just born for what he
did."

The "fully emancipated male," Gay Talese called Sinatra in his
famous 1966 Esquire profile, "Frank Sinatra Has a Cold."

Then take on that other quote, the one that sounds, at first blush,
like enough jive to knock your DeSoto out of second gear.

"Frank is just like you. Just like me. Only bigger."

This, to me, is about authenticity. It's a word often tossed around
but rarely practiced. It is about being real in everything you do,
on or off stage. Remaining authentic is no small feat when you're
hanging around presidents and movie stars, selling millions of
records, and when your very identity comes from singing songs
written by others.

Yet Sinatra, with all of his qualities and flaws, remained
completely authentic. As a singer, he didn't just adapt, he crawled
into each phrase. On those rare moments where he chose poorly--
listen to his corny take on the Beatles classic "Something"--the
singer still feels 100 percent committed. As a public figure, he
never hid, whether accused of having ties with the Mafia or playing
out his marital splits in public. There would be no joint press
releases on a "conscious uncoupling" with Gardner, Farrow or anyone.
To the end, Frank confessed that he knew nothing more than the
average galoot.

"I'm supposed to have a PhD on the subject of women," he is quoted
in Bill Zehme's wonderful "The Way You Wear Your Hat: Frank Sinatra
and the Lost Art of Livin'. " "But the truth is I've flunked more
often than not. I'm very fond of women; I admire them. But, like all
men, I don't understand them."

3. Reinvention

He came from a different world. Francis Albert Sinatra was born Dec.
12, 1915--before TV, before radio--to a pair of Italian
immigrants. He grew up in Hoboken, dropped out of high school and
then, after working an odd job or two, scored a recording contract
with bandleader Harry James. That led to the Tommy Dorsey band, fame
and the first stage of his career as the baby-faced big-band
crooner.

Eventually, everything came apart: his first marriage, to Nancy
Barbato; his singing career (Columbia Records cut him loose in
1952); and his confidence. In the early '50s, Sinatra tried to kill
himself, once with sleeping pills, a second time by slashing his
wrists. (He denied the attempts.) It wasn't until his Academy Award
for best supporting actor in 1953's "From Here to Eternity" that
Sinatra's luck seemed to change. He signed with Capitol Records and
reinvented himself. He sang in a lower register and his material
stretched, from winks and highballs to smoky, dark confessions.

"At times, the lowest note of a melody becomes almost spoken, giving
him a much greater sense of intimacy," Elvis Costello wrote in Mojo.

These days, we marvel at the entertainers atop the Forbes list--
Dr. Dre raking in hundreds of millions from headphones, Taylor Swift
defying all with her Spotify grab. Frank Sinatra did this 60 years
ago, at a point when artists were usually too busy being ripped off
to become corporations. Yet Frank had "his own film company, his own
record company, his private airline, his missile-parts firm, his
real-estate holdings across the nation, his personal staff of
seventy-five," as Talese wrote.

(Sinatra also, the writer revealed, had a woman on his payroll at
$400 a week to follow him around with one of his many hairpieces.)

As far as he got from New Jersey, as much as he reinvented himself
--there was the second "retirement" in 1971, before a return two
years later--Frank never forgot his roots. He took pride in his
Italian heritage, even if part of that pride came from feeling
mistreated because "my name ends with a vowel."

How much was true, how much was simply who he hung out with? The FBI
had more than 1,000 pages on Sinatra but never charged him with
anything. Mario Puzo created the fictionalized Johnny Fontane in
"The Godfather," a crooner whose career is saved multiple times, in
ways mirroring Sinatra's life, by the Corleone family.

4. The Song

There are a lot of Sinatra albums and a lot of people who have
pontificated on them. Most start by praising 1958's ode to pathos,
"Only the Lonely."

But to me, the greatest Frank record is from a June show in 1962.
He's playing with his sextet in Paris, and it's as loose as a show
can get. "It's obvious what his trouble is--girls," Frank tells
the audience as he introduces the saloon ballad "One for My Baby."
"Cherchez la femme. Which in French means 'why don't you share the
broad with me?' "

At other moments, he coughs, clears his throat and apologizes. "I've
gotta stop sleepin' in the park."

Jokey or not, his performance is impeccable, whether swinging
through "Goody, Goody" and "Without a Song" or breathlessly roaming
through the verses of "My Funny Valentine" and "One for My Baby."
More than anything, this performance--stripped down from his
orchestral heft and captured in its entirety, unlike the other live
recordings released during his lifetime--gets to the essence of
what made Sinatra Sinatra.

It is how a man takes a song written by somebody else, performs it
for decades, and it still sounds as fresh, pained and passionate as
the first time it emerged. It is a special gift and one we don't
need a special birthday to recognize.

NSO Pops: Let's Be Frank: The Songs of Frank Sinatra Friday and
Saturday at the Kennedy Center Concert Hall. Tickets: $30-$99.
202-467-4600. www.kennedy-center.org.

Geoff Edgers joined the Washington Post staff as national arts
reporter in 2014. Before that, he worked as an arts reporter at The
Boston Globe.