Tuesday, July 31, 2007

Frank Sinatra


Francis Albert Sinatra (December 12, 1915 – May 14, 1998) was an American jazz oriented popular singer and Academy Award-winning actor. He was also indisputably the 20th-century's greatest singer of popular song. Though influenced by Bing Crosby's crooning, and by learning from trombonist Tommy Dorsey's breath control and blues singer Billie Holiday's rhythmic swing, Frank Sinatra mainstreamed the concept of singing colloquially, treating lyrics as personal statements and handling melodies with the ease of a jazz improviser.

Beginning his musical career in the swing era with Harry James and Tommy Dorsey,he became a solo artist with great success in the early to mid 1940s, being the idol of the 'bobby soxers'. His professional career had stalled by the 1950s, but it was reborn in 1953 after he won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor.

He signed with Capitol Records, and released several critically lauded albums (such as In the Wee Small Hours, Songs For Swingin' Lovers, Come Fly With Me, Only the Lonely and Nice 'n' Easy). Sinatra left Capitol to found his own record label, Reprise Records (finding success with albums such as Ring-A-Ding-Ding, Sinatra at the Sands and Francis Albert Sinatra & Antonio Carlos Jobim), toured internationally and fraternized with the Rat Pack and President John F. Kennedy in the early 1960s.

Sinatra turned fifty in 1965, recorded the retrospective September of My Years, and scored hits with "Strangers in the Night" and "My Way". He attempted to weather the changing tastes in popular music, but with dwindling album sales and after appearing in several poorly received films, he retired in 1971. Coming out of retirement in 1973, he recorded several albums, scoring a hit with "(Theme From) New York, New York", and toured both within the United States and internationally until a few years before his death in 1998.

He had three children; Nancy, Frank Jr., and Tina by his first wife Nancy Barbato. He married three more times, to the actresses Ava Gardner and Mia Farrow, and finally to Barbara Marx, to whom he remained married until his death.

After suffering a second heart attack, he died at 10:50 pm on May 14, 1998, at the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles with wife Barbara and daughter Nancy by his side. He was 82.

Legend has it that Sinatra was buried in a blue suit with a flask of Jack Daniel's and a roll of ten dimes which was a gift from his daughter, Tina, along with a card that said "Sleep warm, Poppa — look for me." The ten dimes were a habit dating back to the kidnapping of his son, Frank Sinatra, Jr., due to the kidnappers' demands that negotiations be made via pay phone. A Zippo lighter (which some take to be a reference to his mob connections) is purported to be buried with him as is a pack of Camel cigarettes. The words "The Best Is Yet to Come" are imprinted on his tombstone. He remains one of my favorite recording artist of all time. When I think of swing music I think of Sinatra and Holiday because they were what Swing was all about. Find out more at: http://www.franksinatra.com/

Research info provided by: www.wikipedia.org


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