Thought I'd have a quick listen to the disco version for the first time. It is by far, one of the worse records I've heard in a sometime. I didn't know it even existed.

I am reminded of a Mike Reid joke.

A young man in a night club is desperate to impress his girl friend. He asks Frank Sinatra to approach them during his act and greet him by name.

Sinatra is very reluctant. The young man is persistent. Frank relents and agrees to his request.

After a few songs, Sinatra strolls over and says ‘Hello George, how are you tonight?’

The young man looks up and replies :-

“Not now Frank. I’m with a bird!

Sinatra works best for me when I suspend all that Vegas/Rat Pack/Mafia obsessed stuff. If I can just listen to one of his studio albums, say, Sings For Only The Lonely, and appreciate it purely for the vocals and arrangements, it's great stuff.

I wouldn't care if I never heard again anything that would be on a Greatest Hits type job.

Also, I don't get the hero worship. There's been enough memoirs and biographies now for anybody to realise that he was at the very least a deeply unlikeable man.

Weren't that odious lot 'The Clan', as opposed to the Bogart/Bacall (yawn), Garland, Niven 'Rat Pack'?

Could be; certainly.

Oceans Eleven I remember making an effort to watch. Didn’t do a lot for me.

It’s difficult to enjoy anything Rat Pack related without being very aware of how badly Sammy Davis Jnr is treated. Not least by himself. Like a little kid desperate to join the gang of bigger boys who are bullying him.

I believe they were always very decent and protective of him in private. In public they all (including SDJ) felt the need to fall in behind the wider attitude of the day. As a coloured jew, married to a white woman he was a pretty easy target.

One thing you can say about him he was a supporter of the Civil Rights movement.
During the 50's he was back on top and wielded enormous power in the entertainment industry, he began to insist that members of his orchestras that backed him live and also in the studio were integrated.

Last edited by Runninggeez (2022-03-16 10:07:15)

With reference to those dreadful movies and some of Frank's more cringe-making stunts, it was perhaps a bit like the way The Beatles soon went about their business (or Ralph Lauren), i.e. we've got the bloody fools eating out of the palms of our hands therefore they'll suck up any old shit we put under their silly noses.  A quick viewing of 'Help' will confirm this, let alone the self-indulgent drivel of 'Yellow Submarine' and 'Give My Regards...'  It must be very tempting.  Cash in the bank.  Look - in a slightly different context - at the thousands of sweaty, hairy twats who surrounded me at Knebworth in August 1976: all still imagining Mick and Keef were real roots rock rebels rather than the lead actors in a corporate hustle.  At least, with Louis Armstrong and his shtick, we knew what the old boy was about.

Not to mention Gordon Brown, grinning and gurning like mad on YouTube.  Who needs 'Spitting Image' when most of these people are already beyond parody?

AFS
Am I right in thinking you are referring to the Avid Compilation. If so there is another Sinatra comp they did called Early Years that I highly recommend.

Also look out for Glen Millar Lost tapes just for the majestic vocals of Johnny Desmond. Possibly the most underrated?unknown singer ever. His version of The Music Stopped is exceptional

How to separate the man from his music.  Impossible? 
Alec Wilder - who was evidently no fool - must have held Francis in high regard.
But maybe Francis didn't threaten Wilder or try slapping him around.
Or maybe I should try reading a more objective biography.

Just reading, in McBrien's superb biography of Cole Porter, that Cole chided Sinatra for failing to sing 'I've Got You Under My Skin' the way it was written.

I should like to have been a fly on the wall during that particular exchange.