December 12th, 2015 is the 100th anniversary of the birth of Francis Albert Sinatra. I won't bore you here with any of the details of his life...all of that is easily available on-line.
What I will say is that Sinatra's music has played a huge part in my life, my mother was a big fan and my sister and I grew up with his music as a backdrop to our lives. So much so that there is hardly a Sinatra song that I cannot sing all the lyrics too. This fact amazes me to no end. How many times must I have heard these tunes to practically know every word all these years later?
Mark Steyn has a fabulous series on his blog, it's called Sinatra's Century and it documents Steyn's 100 top Sinatra tunes. There is no way I can showcase 100, but here is my top five list of Sinatra's I can't live without tunes. And yes, I did get to see him live once, on my birthday in 1976, at the Pacific Coliseum in Vancouver BC.
Number 1
Night and Day
Number 2
I've Got You Under My Skin
Number 3
Fly Me To The Moon
Number 4
I Get A Kick Out Of You (the cocaine version!)
Number 5
Come Fly With Me
Really good stuff. From the singing to the quality of the osngs, it sure would be nice to have this type of music being done on a large scale today.
ReplyDeleteWhat a wonderful post, Fay! I love all those songs as well and although I can't say I know *all* the lyrics, I do know more lyrics than I realized as my folks also played Frank's records. Mark's series looks really good, I've bookmarked that page so I can read them at my leisure. (Couldn't help but chuckle at his "Feline Groovy" on the right side).
ReplyDeleteI have a couple contributions for Frank's 100 birthday. For those who want to read more about Sinatra, James Kaplan wrote a couple wonderful books about him: Frank: The Voice followed by Sinatra: The Chairman, his recently released sequel.
Also have to add this...when we were hunting for a house in 2005 we looked at a nice place in Snohomish but decided against it as it had basically no yard. In the master bedroom was a large, professionally framed poster of this photo:
img:"http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y117/floranista/frank%20sinatra%20mug%20shot_zpstr6yf3d5.jpg"
:-)
Thanks florrie! That mug shot is hilarious, not sure I'd want it in my bedroom though :)
DeleteFay, I think it was a bachelor pad, I couldn't imagine it in my bedroom either!
DeleteHow cool that you got to see him perform live!!
ReplyDeleteOh yeah florrie, that was a big thrill for me. It was his first concert tour after he "retired" for the 1st time. They named it 'Ol Blue Eyes Is Back. The ladies in the office that I worked in bought me a blue tshirt with those words on it to wear to the concert LOL!
DeleteOne more thing...
ReplyDeleteHBO is showing a 2-part special tonight: Sinatra:All or Nothing at All. I've seen it before, it's very good!
Recording as we speak. It is followed by a program called "The Rat Pack" so that's set to record as well.
DeleteWonderful post Fay! I've always loved Sinatra; he has such a warm voice. It's amazing that you got to see him in concert!
ReplyDeleteAnd you would never bore us with the details. I really enjoy reading about - and listening to - music posted by you and Matt (ditto by lewy and lady red, the others seldom post about music). The videos are often music I'm not familiar with or a version I don't know. I'm always willing to give new things a listen, even some of lewy's scary favs :-)
ReplyDeleteJK, lewy. Kbye.
So glad you enjoy the music florrie.
DeleteFay, you probably know this but just in case...don't miss Adele Live in NY, 10:00 PM, NBC, tomorrow night!
ReplyDeleteThanks florrie, on my radar!
DeleteWow.
DeleteJust...wow.