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On Mon, 27 Dec 2004 21:44:20 GMT, "Doc" <docsavage20@xhotmail.com>
wrote:
>His fellow Rat-Packer Sammy Davis had more singing talent in his glass eye
>than Sinatra ever dreamed of. <snip>
Agreed.
>Dunno about that but I think he was overrated as a singer. <snip>
Even Astaire said he couldn't sing!
>Sorry, I've never gotten excited about Sinatra, even in his so-called prime.
>Anything after about the mid 50's I find unlistenable. He was the most
>slickly packaged singer of his era but far from the most talented. <snip>
Well, to be fair, his Dorsey days showed he COULD sell a song, as
witnessed by the mobs at the Brooklyn Paramount would attest, but by
'49 or so, he was more interested in screwing Ava Gardner than he was
in singing.
>Ray
>Eberle, Ed Ames, Dick Haymes, Dino, Billy Eckstine, Jack Jones, Sammy Davis,
>Vaughn Monroe, the young Tony Bennett before his pipes turned to leather,
>among others were all far better singers. <snip>
Dick Haymes was probably one of the most underrated male vocalists of
all time. Vaughn Monroe really held his own in the late '40s (he was
EVERYWHERE on radio) but there's only so much you can do with a
baritone in pop music...but a great set of pipes and a superior
talent.
>As is always the case, I have no
>doubt there were legions of unheralded coulda-beens that never garnered
>great fame who were also better. Sinatra had at best a passable timbre
>without much power when he was very young and when that was gone, he had
>nothing left but mob connections, good marketing, hype and excellent bands
>full of musicians he was mostly qualified to serve coffee to, to keep his
>name alive. <snip>
Sinatra always had a weak voice...no power, limited range...Sammy
could sing rings around him in the rat pack days. What he DID have
was 1.) interpretive ability, which someone like a Vaughn Monroe
completely lacked, 2.) a very unusual timbre that emerged making his
voice, as weak as it was, instantly recognizable (as was Crosby's),
and as you said, 3.) Lucky Luciano and his pals. The Feebs under
Hoover tried desperately to indict Sinatra and amassed the biggest FBI
file ever kept on an entertainer
http
/foia.fbi.gov/sinatra.htm , but
Sinatra wisely had friends in very high places, like JFK and later,
Ronnie RayGun, himself a crook.
You have to look at Sinatra as an entire package, not just as a
vocalist. Public fascination with the mob, the glitter of Vegas and
his self-described "ring-a-ding" attitude all combined to offset his
vocal failings. I have to agree that anything he did after "Come Fly
With Me" in '57 was pretty marginal, altough I must admit I listen to
these albums probably more to hear the likes of Billy May, Nelson
Riddle (a genius with a score), Don Costa and others...those were some
SUPERB charts played by some SUPERB guys, and as well engineered as
any recordings ever have been...thus, propping Sinatra up all the
more.
>
>Well, let me modify that. I do think he had talent as an actor. I enjoy him
>far more in movies than as a singer. <snip>
Like I said, Sinatra was a total package...he could "sorta sing," but
it wasn't the vocal quality, it was the same interpretive abilities
probably brought about by his life's experience that made him a
powerful figure in the mind of the public. It was that same
experience that gave him such powerful credibility as an actor.
dB
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