Frank Sinatra: Adeste Fideles 💫👑👑👑

Songfacts: O Come All Ye Faithful

AoSHQ: Morning Report 01.03.20

Frank Sinatra: The Bells of Christmas 🔔🎄🎁

Songfacts: Frank Sinatra

AoSHQ: Morning Report 12.25.19

Happy Birthday Frank Sinatra! 🎄🎅🏻🎂☃️🎄

I wish Frank Sinatra happy birthday.

I also wish all of you a Merry Christmas and especially Sinatraphiles Pundette, Bob Belvedere, and Mark Steyn. 

Remembering uncle Frank Sinatra on his birthday! RIP 👼 pic.twitter.com/ZBWUnDvaPm

— Deana Martin (@DeanaMartin_) December 12, 2019

Happy heavenly birthday, Daddy. You made the world a much better place. pic.twitter.com/r097TXKWFC

— Nancy Sinatra (@NancySinatra) December 12, 2019

AoSHQ: Morning Report 12.13.19

What Are Doing New Year's Eve?

Mark Steyn brought up his song of the season and Frank Loesser's What Are You Doing New Year's Eve?

Dean and Frank do close this New Year's Eve set with another Frank Loesser song...

Rule 5 and FMJRA

Here is a bonus, Morgan James:

Mark Steyn: The Song Is You Episode 6

Frank Sinatra: O Come All Ye Faithful

Mark Steyn: The Song Is Yule
Pundette: It might as well be Spring
Bob Belveredere: #Sinatra100 and It's a Wonderful World
EBL: Sinatra Family 12 Days of Christmas and It Was A Very Good Year!

Don’t forget to also keep checking out
Pundette’s Sinatra 100 countdown,
Ms Evi’s Sinatra Celebration,
Dispatches from the Camp of the Saints Sinatra,
& Mark Steyn’s Sinatra Songs Of The Century.
It’s a swingin’ world.

Mark Steyn: Christmas as SteynOnline

Frank Sinatra: Little Drummer Boy

Mark Steyn: The Song Is Yule
Pundette: It might as well be Spring
Bob Belveredere: #Sinatra100 and It's a Wonderful World
EBL: Sinatra Family 12 Days of Christmas and It Was A Very Good Year!

Don’t forget to also keep checking out
Pundette’s Sinatra 100 countdown,
Ms Evi’s Sinatra Celebration,
Dispatches from the Camp of the Saints Sinatra,
& Mark Steyn’s Sinatra Songs Of The Century.
It’s a swingin’ world.

Mark Steyn: Christmas as SteynOnline

Nat King Cole and Frank Sinatra: The Christmas Song

I was listening to Siriusly Sinatra and Mel Tormé 's kids were telling the story how this song was written.  Mel went to Bob Wells house on a hot July day in LA and Wells was not there (although he left the door open).  Mel saw Bob's pad with the first four lines of The Christmas Song.  Bob came back and said he wrote that as a doodle to mentally cool off.  Mel thought that there was something to it and they finished the song in 40 minutes (although SongFacts says it was 35).  They drove to Nat King Cole's house to see if he was interested and he exclaimed "That's my song."

Mark Steyn: The Song Is Yule
Pundette: It might as well be Spring
Bob Belveredere: #Sinatra100 and It's a Wonderful World
EBL: Sinatra Family 12 Days of Christmas and It Was A Very Good Year!

Don’t forget to also keep checking out
Pundette’s Sinatra 100 countdown,
Ms Evi’s Sinatra Celebration,
Dispatches from the Camp of the Saints Sinatra,
& Mark Steyn’s Sinatra Songs Of The Century.
It’s a swingin’ world.

EBL: Bing Crosby and Frank Sinatra also sing The Christmas Song here

Frank Sinatra and Bing Crosby Christmas Special 1957

Mark Steyn: The Song Is Yule

Pundette: It might as well be Spring

Bob Belveredere: #Sinatra100 and It's a Wonderful World

EBL: Sinatra Family 12 Days of Christmas and It Was A Very Good Year!

Don’t forget to also keep checking out
Pundette’s Sinatra 100 countdown,
Ms Evi’s Sinatra Celebration,
Dispatches from the Camp of the Saints Sinatra,
& Mark Steyn’s Sinatra Songs Of The Century.
It’s a swingin’ world.

Happy Birthday Frank Sinatra

December 12, 1915 (ok, this picture was probably a few months later)

EBL: A Hundred Years From Today

Mark Steyn: Sinatra Centenary Weekend at Steyn On Line , The Song Is You, Episode Two, and Put Your Dreams Away.  The Pundette has almost completed her own Sinatra Hot 100 and at Number Two, deservedly, is "I've Got You Under My Skin". Bob Belvedere, meanwhile, puts Ruth Lowe's other great Frank hit, "I'll Never Smile Again", at Hit Sound #77.

Pundette's #1 is Gershwin's Our Love Is Here To Stay.

 

Mark Steyn: One For My Baby is his #100 Sinatra Song of the Century.

Don’t forget to also keep checking out
Pundette’s Sinatra 100 countdown,
Ms Evi’s Sinatra Celebration,
Dispatches from the Camp of the Saints Sinatra,
& Mark Steyn’s Sinatra Songs Of The Century.
It’s a swingin’ world.

Instapundit: How to drink like Frank Sinatra (here is another link How to drink like Frank Sinatra)
Darleen Click: Happy Birthday Frank

Frank Sinatra: A Hundred Years From Today

Quincy, Count Basie, and Frank

A Quincy Jones arrangement (written by Victor Young, Ned Washington and Joe Young) to close out this celebratory year of Sinatra. Happy Birthday Frank. May we all live to be 100 and may the last thing we hear be on of your songs.

Natalie Wood with birthday cake on her and Frank going for the icing...

Pundette has Ned Washington and Hoagy Carmichael's The Nearness of You and this swingin song too.  Mark has a lot of Quincy Jones, but this is one of the best and for Bob it was the best. I had Sinatra, Basie and Quincy at the Sands.

Frank on set of Young at Heart

Thank you to Pundette, Mark and Bob for all the good Sinatra. Thank you Frank and all the artists he worked with.

It's been a blast

Mark Steyn: The Song Is You, Episode Two

Mark Steyn: One For My Baby is his #100 Sinatra Song of the Century.

Don’t forget to also keep checking out

Pundette’s Sinatra 100 countdown,
Ms Evi’s Sinatra Celebration,
Dispatches from the Camp of the Saints Sinatra,
& Mark Steyn’s Sinatra Songs Of The Century.
It’s a swingin’ world.

Frank getting cake from Ginger Rogers

Rule 5 and FMJRA

Frank Sinatra: Put Your Dreams Away and The Best Is Yet To Come

The 12 days of Sinatra are coming to a close...

Put Your Dreams Away was the song they closed Frank Sinatra's funeral with.  It was a song written by Ruth Lowe, Paul Mann, and Stephan Weiss. Frank first recorded it in 1944-45, Sinatra used it as a closing theme song for his radio shows, and recorded it several more times in his career. While Frank's birthday tomorrow is intended to be a celebration, this Sinatra Century Celebration coming to an end is a bit sad too. But I am pretty sure Mark, Bob, Pundette and myself are not done posting Sinatra songs.

Ruth Lowe also wrote I'll Never Smile Again which Mark had as his Song of the Century #26.

Ok, enough of that sad stuff (as Frank would have been apt to say after brooding a while), let's get over it...

The Best Is Yet To Come, by Cy Coleman and Carolyn Leigh. It was the last song Frank sang in public before he died (and the words the best is yet to come are on his grave memorial).  And here is Redbank, New Jersey's own Count Basie backing the kid from Hoboken (and arranged by Quincy Jones).  Mark had this song as #75 Song of the Century and Bob had it as #13 on his song list.  I had Sinatra, Basie and Quincy at the Sands.

Mark's Sinatra Song of the Century #98 is That's Life.
Don’t forget to also keep checking out

Pundette’s Sinatra 100 countdown,
Ms Evi’s Sinatra Celebration,
Dispatches from the Camp of the Saints Sinatra,
& Mark Steyn’s Sinatra Songs Of The Century.
It’s a swingin’ world.

Frank Sinatra and Natalie Wood

Mark Steyn has Judy Garland and Sinatra with Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas. And as Mark notes: Bob Belvedere has grabbed a mip-map-mop and a brim-bram-broom and is clim-clam-cleaning the rim-ram-room. Meanwhile, the Pundette is counting down her own Sinatra Hot 100: Go savor them all as she trembles on the brink of her Top Three.

Don’t forget to also keep checking out
Pundette’s Sinatra 100 countdown,
Ms Evi’s Sinatra Celebration,
Dispatches from the Camp of the Saints Sinatra,
& Mark Steyn’s Sinatra Songs Of The Century.
It’s a swingin’ world.

Rule 5 and FMJRA

Kim Novak, Rita Hayworth, and Frank Sinatra: Man With The Golden Arm and Pal Joey

Kim Novak was Frank Sinatra's costar in the films Man With The Golden Arm (1955) and Pal Joey (1957).

Frank, Rita Hayworth, and Kim Novak in Pal Joey

Rita Hayworth singing Rogers and Hart's Bewitched

EBL: Sinatra doing Bewitched and Witchcraft

Sinatra's Witchcraft was released to coincide with the movie Pal Joey

Frank and Kim in Man With The Golden Arm

Rita, Frank, and Kim in Pal Joey

Happy Birthday: Lauren Bacall, Frank Sinatra, and Kim Novak

Mark has The Lady Is A Tramp as his Song of the Century #91.

Mark Steyn has Judy Garland and Sinatra with Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas. And as Mark notes: Bob Belvedere has grabbed a mip-map-mop and a brim-bram-broom and is clim-clam-cleaning the rim-ram-room. Meanwhile, the Pundette is counting down her own Sinatra Hot 100: Go savor them all as she trembles on the brink of her Top Three.

Don’t forget to also keep checking out
Pundette’s Sinatra 100 countdown,
Ms Evi’s Sinatra Celebration,
Dispatches from the Camp of the Saints Sinatra,
& Mark Steyn’s Sinatra Songs Of The Century.
It’s a swingin’ world.

EBL: Judy Garland and Johnny Mercer did love trains and here is Judy singing Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas

Rule 5 and FMJRA

Kim Novak with Dean Martin and Sammy Davis Jr.

Frank Sinatra: All My Tomorrows with bonus High Hopes

The 12 Days of Sinatra continue...

All My Tomorrows is not one of the great immediately recognized Frank Sinatra standards (I do not believe Mark, Bob, or Pundette ever featured it this year) but this Sammy Cahn and Jimmy Van Heusen written and Nelson Riddle arranged song is very good and seems appropriate as we close in on the big day.

Mark Steyn has Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas as his Sinatra Song of the Century #97, Mark has Body and Soul as his Song of the Century #96. Pundette #4 is The Summer Wind. Bob's top Sinatra Album right now is Songs for Swingin' Lovers and he has the curious case of Bim Bam Baby.

Don’t forget to also keep checking out
Pundette’s Sinatra 100 countdown,
Ms Evi’s Sinatra Celebration,
Dispatches from the Camp of the Saints Sinatra,
& Mark Steyn’s Sinatra Songs Of The Century.
It’s a swingin’ world.

Update Bonus:

Sammy and Jimmy did High Hopes too...

I love "All My Tomorrows," will include it in my 2nd 100 #Sinatra faves. @MsEBL @franksinatra @BobBelvedere @MarkSteynOnline @NancySinatra

— Pundette (@pundette) December 11, 2015

We got to have some more sad Frank Sinatra torch songs for the 12 days of Sinatra

A few more sad torch songs are needed in the 12 Days of Sinatra, many of the great ones have been addressed already, but there are still some gems out there...

All Alone is an Irving Berlin song recorded by Sinatra in 1960 and released in 1962. The All Alone album was arranged by Gordon Jenkins.  Bob has this as his #4 Sinatra album.

The biblical line "fools rush in," which was addressed in that Mercer song the other day, gets used in Glad To Be Unhappy by Richard Rogers and Lorenz Hart.  In the Wee Small Hours album, was arranged by Nelson Riddle, and came out in 1955.

Another gem from Wee Small Hours, Duke Ellington, Barney Bigard and Irving Mills' Mood Indigo.

A subtle but sublime song by Ann Ronell, which is on the 1958 Riddle masterpiece album Only The Lonely.

Bob Belvedere holds this Gordon Jenkins album in high regard too, as his #7 Sinatra album.  And I'm A Fool To Want You is song that obviously comes from Frank's heart, since he helped write it along with Jack Wolf and Joel Herron.  Mark had this as his Song of the Century #23.

And one bonus selection from Bob's #2 favorite Sinatra Album. And a song composed by Pyotr Il’yich Tchaikovsky and lyrics Bill Westbrook.

Mark had Baubles, Bangles and Beads as his Song of the Century #54

Don’t forget to also keep checking out
Pundette’s Sinatra 100 countdown,
Ms Evi’s Sinatra Celebration,
Dispatches from the Camp of the Saints Sinatra,
& Mark Steyn’s Sinatra Songs Of The Century.

It’s a swingin’ world.

Postmodern Jukebox: Haley Reinhart, Sinatra, Morgan James

Haley's performance is sort of Sinatra inspired

This is an improvised mashup that Scott Bradlee does from shout outs from the audience...

Rule 5 and FMJRA

Sammy Davis Junior and Frank Sinatra: 12 Days of Sinatra

As part of the Sinatra 100th Year, it is only fitting to remember his friend and brother Sammy Davis Junior (today is also Sammy's birthday). You can see why Sinatra described him as a force.

Mark Steyn has Me and My Shadow

Here is a link to Johnny Carson hosting Frank, Sam, and the Pack in 1965

Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr., Frank Sinatra at the Sands 1960

Pundette has Jerome Kern's The Way You Look Tonight at #5 on her list

Bob Belvedere has Cole Porter's I've Got You Under My Skin at his #3 Sinatra song

Mark Steyn has Cole Porter's You'd Be So Easy To Love at #94

Mark is at #95 with Mack The Knife. Pundette #5 is The Summer Wind. Bob's top Sinatra Album is Songs for Swingin' Lovers and the curious case of Bim Bam Baby

Don’t forget to also keep checking out

Pundette’s Sinatra 100 countdown,
Ms Evi’s Sinatra Celebration,
Dispatches from the Camp of the Saints Sinatra,
& Mark Steyn’s Sinatra Songs Of The Century.
It’s a swingin’ world.

EBL: Second Night of Hanukkah: Sammy Davis Jr. 

Frank Sintara: One For My Baby, Johnny Mercer, P.J. Clarke's...

For the 12 Days of Sinatra, I did a post on Frank Sinatra homes. Here is one of Frank Sinatra's bars that deserves special mention because of a song Frank Sinatra sang his entire career...

P.J. Clarke's, Upper East Side, 3rd Avenue and 55th Street (Frank's table was #20).

One For My Baby is one of Johnny Mercer's best songs and he wrote it at this bar on a napkin sometime in 1943.

Bob featured a great TV version of One For My Baby at #9 of his Sinatra song list and Mark wrote about it in his Angel Eyes post

Pundette has another great Johnny Mercer saloon song

Here it is performed in the film Young At Heart, which starts as an Angel Eyes crowded bar setting and then transforms to something more intimate between Frank and Doris Day.

Here is the 1958 version arranged by Nelson Riddle with Bill Miller on the piano.

Bill Miller played One For My Baby at Frank Sinatra's funeral

Frank was once on Catalina Island years ago at a place called Christian's Hut, and Duke Wayne was at the bar. Suddenly, on the jukebox comes Frank's recording of 'One For My Baby,' and John Wayne turned to Frank and says, 'What the hell do you listen to when you're alone at three o'clock in the morning?"

Jilly Rizzo and Frank Sinatra, Jilly is buried in the Sinatra family plot

How Sicilian-Italian is that!

P.J. Clarke's was just one of a few places Frank ate and drank at regularly in New York. Frank had a select list of restaurants and bars he frequented, Patsy's (which is still there) opened for him special on Thanksgiving so he wouldn't eat alone (and Frank only found out about that many years later), but his favorite of all was Jilly's. 

A video reading of Frank Sinatra Has A Cold-Jilly's (here is the famous Gay Talese's Frank Sinatra Has A Cold article).

Mark Steyn has Time After Time as his Song of the Century #93.  It really is one of Frank's (and Cahn and Styne's) most terrific (yet under appreciated) songs. I had this song too  referencing It Happened In Brooklyn.

Mark Steyn: One For My Baby is his #100 Sinatra Song of the Century.

Don’t forget to also keep checking out

Pundette’s Sinatra 100 countdown,

Ms Evi’s Sinatra Celebration,

Dispatches from the Camp of the Saints Sinatra,

& Mark Steyn’s Sinatra Songs Of The Century.

It’s a swingin’ world.

Esquire: Frank Sinatra's Favorite Haunts

Frank Sinatra: Fools Rush In with bonus The Song is You

The 12 days of Sinatra continue...

Mark Steyn had this Rube Bloom and Johnny Mercer song back as Song of the Century #27

Bob had Nice and Easy (album) at #9 on his countdown of Sinatra Albums

And Pundette has plenty of Mercer on her list!

And I got triggered by a cookie

Johnny Mercer may have played a bigger role in Frank Sinatra's revitalization of his career than people may know, as Julius La Rosa notes:

I don't know this with certainty, but I suspect that Johnny Mercer was the force in the restoration of Sinatra's career. In addition to being a great lyricist — some think he was our greatest of all — Mercer was an astute gentleman. He was also president of Capitol records, which he had founded with fellow songwriter Buddy De Sylva. Mercer was one record-company head who really knew what he was hearing. 

And I think Mercer recognized Sinatra's as-yet untapped . . . genius. I don't think the word is an exaggeration. What John Gielgud was to Shakespeare, Sinatra was to the American song. We discovered him with Dorsey, he proved we were right about him at Columbia, and from his very first recordings for Capitol we realized, if we hadn't done so already, that we had a giant on our hands. Nelson Riddle recognized it. Songs for Young Lovers is still my favorite album. Riddle is credited rightly for recognizing the depth of Sinatra's musical instincts. He appreciated Sinatra's intelligence and, I guess, understood his temperament. His arrangements for those early Capitol albums are masterpieces, one after another. And the mature Sinatra was revealed. The ballads are touching, heartbreaking even, and the sense of identification is incomparable. In the reprise of My Funny Valentine when he sings "But donnnnn't change a hair for me ..." oh, the pain. And rhythm songs now were fun. "I get a kick . . . mmmm, you give me a boot!" Cole Porter may not (I would assume) have liked the interpolation, but everyone else did.

La Rosa also mentions in the article above that the only time he heard Frank go falsetto in a song is in Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II's The Song Is You recorded on Bluebird in 1942 and arranged by Alex Stordahl. I will throw it in as a bonus.

EBL: Sinatra and Fitzgerald: The Song Is You medley (there are some great links to Pundette, Mark and Bob) And this great medley is the one Mark Steyn describes in his The Lady Is A Tramp post.

Mark Steyn has Kern's Pick Yourself Up as Song of the Century #92. For a century's worth of Sinatra songs Mark has listed see here. For Mark's podcast with longtime Sinatra conductor Vincent Falcone, you can find Part One here and Part Two here. For Steyn's take on Sinatra at the movies see here. Mark and Celeste Holm recall Sinatra & Co in the film High Society here. And for Mark's original 1998 obituary of Frank, "The Voice", can be found in the anthology Mark Steyn From Head To Toe, while you can read the stories behind many other Sinatra songs in Mark Steyn's American Songbook. Personally autographed copies of both books are exclusively available from the SteynOnline bookstore.

Don’t forget to also keep checking out

Pundette’s Sinatra 100 countdown,
Ms Evi’s Sinatra Celebration,
Dispatches from the Camp of the Saints Sinatra,
& Mark Steyn’s Sinatra Songs Of The Century.

It’s a swingin’ world.

Sinatra Fans Rule 5

The big 100 is December 12

The 12 days of Sinatra continue until the big day on December 12! Before Elvis and the Beatles, it was Sinatra who had throngs of girls following him...

Frank Sinatra in 1943 in Pasadena, California

Sinatra Fans once threaten to kill a Sinatra heckler...
Don't insult the Voice or else!

Obviously not bobbysoxers, it is Frank Sinatra at the Poodle Lounge but I like the photo

Hollywood Reporter

Sinatra on TV when and where to watch

Sinatra Grammy Special on CBS on December 6

22 things to do to celebrate Sinatra (although the best thing you could do is listen to his music)

EBL: Frank Sinatra San Bernardino Home and National Cookie Day Sinatra's Way (I am guessing he might prefer a Sicilian cookie to sugar ones, but they are still fun).

Don’t forget to also keep checking out
Pundette’s Sinatra 100 countdown,
Ms Evi’s Sinatra Celebration,
Dispatches from the Camp of the Saints Sinatra,
& Mark Steyn’s Sinatra Songs Of The Century.
It’s a swingin’ world.


Rule 5 and FMJRA