Posted on 01/10/2021 5:01:25 PM PST by Twotone
I leave it to readers to decide whether this week's Song of the Week was selected as a plea for healing in a divided land or merely because sixty years ago - January 1960 - it was on the Billboard Number One album. The latter is verifiable, although to be precise one should clarify that it was on the Billboard Number One stereo album; the Number One mono album was the soundtrack to the Elvis film GI Blues. As to the healing balm, you'll have to hang on till our closing paragraph.
The stereo album in question was Frank Sinatra's Nice 'n' Easy. The track list included one new numbers and ballad treatments of songs of which Frank was fond - and, in the case of this week's song, very fond.
Introducing her old friend at the Royal Festival Hall in 1970, Princess Grace of Monaco marveled: "How many of us have a favorite Sinatra song! And how many of them are different songs!" Quite so: There are Sinatra fans who love just the hits, and Sinatra fans who loathe the hits - "My Way", "Strangers In The Night", "New York, New York". There are Sinatra fans who love the swingers but are bored by the ballads - and vice-versa. I once heard the BBC's venerable Hubert Gregg host a show on the unparalleled genius of Sinatra: He lingered lovingly over every aspect of the Harry James and Tommy Dorsey and Columbia days and then, just as I was looking forward to hearing what he had to say about Nelson Riddle and Billy May, the show ended. As Hubert saw it, Sinatra's voice began to deteriorate in 1953, and nothing thereafter was worth bothering with.
(Excerpt) Read more at steynonline.com ...
I like Sinatra for lots of things; but I liked Otis better on this song.
Me too.
Otis is the King as far as I’m concerned.
A better Sinatra:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iF8z5fJfvgM
(I had an old friend who died a few years ago; she told me that she was one of the girls screaming over Sinatra the same way girls screamed and fainted over the Beatles. I get that, seeing this song.)
The best. What a loss.
thank you
Indeed. Mom told me about the girls screaming for Sinatra when we watched the Beatles American Debut on the Ed Sullivan Show in Feb 1964. I was in the 6th grade and i started screaming too. It was weird!
I agree. You beat me to it.
Sorry, Mr. Steyn, but no one beats the Three Dog Night version. Not that Sinatra wasn't good, or Redding, or anyone else who did it. When you are young, some experiences imprint on you for life, and I was there in '70.
I was excited by the Beatles, too; I would have been 10 then, and we hadn’t really heard or seen anything quite like that. (In later years, I didn’t find them very interesting, and still don’t. But I did like ‘Blackbird’):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Man4Xw8Xypo
But I was fortunate to have been raised by very old people, and had exposure to lots of better, older stuff to mix-up with the new stuff.
I was always partial to the Nuke La Loosh version.
I was introduced to this by the Otis Redding version. The first time I heard the Val Rosling original, it knocked my socks off, so to speak. So much more moving, and sensual. I don’t much care for the Sinatra ‘71 version, either. The Sinatra ‘45 version is okay, but a little to thickly laid on for my tastes. Ditto for Sinatra ‘63.
great song. still playing my Sinatra vinyl from the 60’s!
and thx Mark for not going wobbly on us on the rally/protest—unlike many so called conservative media types—where We the Trump supporters were wronged ones! you are absolutely right on your piece on the lying media and uniparty ruling elites wrongly blaming the so called “storming/riot” on Trump marchers. right on as always.
My Dad loved Classical. It was my Mom who liked Frank. I played piano and guitar, and i was getting pretty bored with the folky pokey stuff. So the Beatles were magical to me!
“Blackbird” is fun and challenging to play on guitar, and a very satisfying achievement! :-)
Otis was the man!
Not bad for a White boy; but it’s basically a copy, and tribute to, Otis.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xu6DUq3QboI
Aretha did a version of it, too:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xjyr7l6FsfA
Sinatra was okay in Von Ryan’s Express.
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