Sinatra, what is the appeal?

It all started from picking up a best of Sinatra record cheap and once I put it on my turtable I was hooked and have been building a Sinatra library (vinyl and cd) ever since. I am 41 and have primarily listened to hard rock and metal most of my life so I am still shocked by my Sinatra obsession. Anybody else relate to discovering Sinatra in their life and getting hooked, and being shocked that they got hooked on his music?

 

No I liked him when I was 18 or before...I've always liked him. I'm not shocked that anyone would get hooked on anything.

Happy trails with all your records!

 

I turn to Sinatra's music from time to time, so I can't say it's an obsession with me. But there is something about his carefully-cultivated persona that has lasting appeal. Of course all this would mean nothing if his music didn't deliver consistently. His rich voice, his conversational tone, the gravitas he lends even to somewhat slight material (think "Love and Marriage"), his knack for picking excellent, musically compatible arrangers and his choice of songs, his long career---for all these reasons, his recorded works compel listeners across several generations to return to his work again and again.

 

I don't think I ever really disliked Mr. Frank, but his magnificent musical ability seems much clearer to me now.

 

I thought this thread, by its' title, was going to 'go the other way…'
[cuz I've always been on the fence]

 

Me also.

It's pretty hard NOT to appreciate the greats of music like Sinatra IMO, if someone really loves music, not just one style of music.

So, his great phrasing , way with lyrics , wonderful arrangements etc., are hard to deny if one approaches music with an open mind.

 

Im a casual fan. I have a few LPs, in fact I just scored one for $1 at Salvation Army in great shape

 

Give it time...

 

Something about Frank you just got to like. Started as big deal with the BobbySoxers. Started a film carreer. Crashed and burned. Rebuilt his film carrer as an actor, rekindled his music career and made some of the best LPs of the 50's. Was able to produce and pick what movies he wanted to make. One of the first artists to start his own record compa ny. Signed all his cool buddies to it. Made a lot of great films that Elvis would have been jealous of. Let Mo Oston run Reprise, from where we get the Kinks, Jimi Hendrix, Neil Young plus manny many more. Still ha a viable recording career. And he did his way.

Go Frank, Ring a Ding Ding!

 

Yes. Really nice.

 

He's alright, but he's no Dick Haymes.

 

Before the Beatles, before Elvis, there was Sinatra.

 

As some others have noted, I have been well-acquainted with Mr. Sinatra for many moons. In fact, I knew the woman I eventually married would be a decent match because I had the 4-CD Reprise box set while she had 3-CD Capitol best-of. #truelove

Fifteen years later, our almost-12-year-old daughter is a fan, and acknowledged to me the other day that Sinatra sings so well "he doesn't need to write his own songs, because they all become his once he's recorded them." Attagirl!

 

As an old uncle once told me as a boy, "When the student is ready, the teacher will appear".

 

And Sinatra was from New Jersey.....

 

Yeah, the pop music evolution torch seems to be Bing Crosby handed it to Frank Sinatra who handed it to Elvis who passed it off the Beatles.. some unwillingly probably.

I'm always mildly suspicious of anyone who dislikes any of these four but says they like popular music.

 

Yes!! Been to Hoboken and love it.

 

It's all in the phrasing, baby. Willie Nelson is another one this applies to.

 

I agree with you, but I would refine your definition to "pop vocal music" -- there were a lot of additional band leaders and instrumentalists who pushed things forward, too.

 

I can echo your experience. I am also a 40-something person who has been digging into the Sinatra catalog over the last few years much to my own surprise. For me - I will also give the nod to the "phrasing" ability of his vocals. That's what impressed me the most - more so than the well-worn "rat pack" mystique which does nothing for me (Louis Prima and Sam Butera being more my kinda characters). I wrote a little exposition about Sinatra - and more specifically the "Watertown" album - on my blog recently. See here:
http://catchagroove-kaiser.blogspot.com/2015/02/defying-expectations-sinatras-watertown.html

Cheers!
-------- Chris

 

Yes, I was just speaking generally because I didn't want to derail the thread into an argument about the history of pop music.
But as you mention, the progression of (white) vocal stars was pretty much these four preceded by Rudy Vallee maybe.
Louie Armstrong had a profound influence but he never had bobbysoxers screaming at him like Sinatra did.

But , back to old blue eyes here!

 

I like Sinatra as well, but to me Nat King Cole is untouchable as far as male jazz voices go.

 

As for Satchmo, he had Jim Crow to contend with.

 

for years, my dad pooh-pooh'ed him, because his mom (of that proto-bobbysoxer generation) pooh-pooh'ed Sinatra. it was a thing that ran in my family...absolute disregard for celebrities with questionable moral/ethical leanings. (you should have been around when Dale Earnhardt was racing...oh, to listen to the grown-ups blow their top.)

then one day my dad had a Sinatra CD in the car. i was like, "hey what's up with that...after all the lousy things you've had to say about the guy?"
and my dad was basically like, "dude was great. what can i say?"

 

Of course but now I feel bad for derailing the OP's Sinatra thread. Back to all things Frankie, and I don't mean Stallone.