Reviews

REVIEWS

BIOGRAPHY

Sinatra: Behind the Legend By J. Randy Taraborrelli, Birch Lane Press, 515 pages, $27.50 hardback

Sinatra! The Song Is You: A Singer's Art By Will Friedwald, Da Capo Press, 516 pages, $17.95 paperback

All Or Nothing At All: A Life of Frank Sinatra By Donald Clarke, Fromm, 264 pages, $25.95 hardback

The Way You Wear Your Hat: Frank Sinatra and the Lost Art of Livin' By Bill Zehme, HarperCollins, 244 pages, $23 hardback

By Michael C. Annderson Community Relations Director at Little Professor Book Co. & Adjunct English Lecturer at EMU

Maybe it's a part of this whole nostalgia thing, along with the lounge music, the martinis and the cigars that have reentered public life after years of disfavor. Or maybe it's a result of more and more baby boomers - and their children - discovering their current lives are more accurately reflected in "Wee Small Hours of the Morning" than in teen-centered rock'n'roll. Whatever the reason, there has been a resurgence of interest in the life and work of the 82-year-old saloon singer, Francis Albert Sinatra. For the novice Frankophile, a bewildering variety of Sinatra material abounds on CD, videotape and book shelves, with more being released (or repackaged and rereleased) each year: Where to begin?

As far as the music goes, I stand by the work with Nelson Riddle on Capital records. This is the work that resuscitated Sinatra's career after years of inept handIing by the legendarily clueless Mitch Miller at Columbia. The Capital recordings perform a function similar to what those Sun Records singles do for Elvis Presley : as needle hits vinyl, the scandal stories, the inflated egos, the overwrought corniness of later years - all disappear in puffs of steam. Doubters hear it and find themselves saying, "Oh, now I get it."

Sinatra in print is a harder call: choice depends on which facet of the Sinatra phenomenon piques your interest. What follows are brief comments on four Sinatra books released during the past year:

Sinatra: Behind the Legend by J. Randy Taraborrelli got in the news upon its release a couple months back as a result of its claim that Sinatra had a one-night romantic tryst with Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis in 1975. This revelation might lead you to think the book is another mean-spirited tattler in the Kitty Kelly mode, but it really isn't. It's a well-documented biography that, believe it or not, tries to be evenhanded n its treatment of a subject who, no secret, could be quite an ass. We are shown, for example, first wife Nancy Sinatra's anguish as the whole Ava Gardner affair develops, but also Frank's own anguish when Gardner later dumps him. To Taraborrelli's credit, the reader feels sympathy for both Sinatras in turn. As a biography of a man with foibles and friends as numerous as his talents, Sinatra: Behind the Legend works.

My own interest in Sinatra is less in the man and more in the recording artist, and while Taraborrelli dutifully details Sinatra's march through the various big bands and record labels, his aim is not to explore how these developments affected the music. For a full exploration of the music itself, one must turn to Will Friedwald's Sinatra! The Song Is You: A Singer's Art (released in hardcover in 1995 and now in paper).

Friedwald, the author of the earlier Jazz Singing, is an unabashed fan who writes with an enthusiasm that lies somewhere between Dave Marsh on Springsteen and St. Paul on Jesus. Unlike Marsh, Friedwald's praise is supported by critically precise analyses of Sinatra's evolving technique. Friedwald completely eschews biography except for how it affects the singer in front of the microphone, even putting straightforward chronology aside for a time in order to follow Sinatra's work as it grew under separate producers. We go through the '50s to the 70s with Nelson Riddle in one chapter, then through the same decades (but different recordings) in subsequent chapters with Billy May and Gordon Jenkins. Historically it's a bit confusing, but it makes sense. I can't say enough good things about this book as an examination of the craft that created the music.

One minor annoyance: Friedwald, a member of the Rock generation, has a convert's contempt of the faith of his childhood - he never misses an opportunity to sneer and spit venom at all who work in the rock idiom. In light of the fact that Sinatra himself has time for Springsteen, Dylan, George Harrison and Paul Simon (if not most of their peers), and in stark contrast with the rest of this study, these comments sound childish and petty.

Both of the above-mentioned titles clock in at over 500 pages: for readers interested in a briefer treatment of both Sinatra's life and artistry, there is All Or Nothing At All: A Life of Frank Sinatra by Donald Clarke. Clarke's writing is engaging because, like Friedwald, he brings a wealth of knowledge to the discussion of the music. His book, at less than half the length of those mentioned above, is by necessity less detailed. But his prose is clear and vigorous. He is particularly good at showing - in few words - the impact of changes in taste and technology on the music and its dissemination. And on the biographical material an endearing tone of disapproval - almost personal disappointment - enters his voice when he describes episodes wherein Sinatra cozies up to a gangster or a mistress. The overall effect is of listening, over beers, to an uncle as he describes a fascinating relative he grew up with but you never met. Clarke will whet your appetite for more detailed studies.

Finally we come to Esquire writer Bill Zehme's The Way You Wear Your Hat: Frank Sinatra and the Lost Art of Livin'. This is the book for those whose attraction to Sinatra is less for the creator of music or headlines and more for the inhabitor of a persona: the tough-talking, tenderhearted survivor with the trenchcoat over his shoulders and a smoke cupped in his hand.

In anecdote-laden chapters arranged thematically around such titles as "Ring a Ding Ding," "Drinking Again" and "Love & Marriage," Zehme presents Sinatra as the last of a breed, a holdover from a purer, less ambiguous era, when Frank and his Rat Pack could call each other "Pally," call women "Broads" and drink and smoke and stay up late without apology. A mythology for the fraternity set: Rat Pack as Round Table and Sinatra as their undisputed King. In other words, it's utter hagiography, coupled with escapist nostalgia. Zehme tries to write in the same slangy patois that he attributes to Sinatra, and while the effect is fun for a while, it becomes grating. Example: the term "broad" sounds natural coming from a Sinatra or a contemporary like Jilly Rizzo; Zehme's own repeated use of it is too self-consciously, gleefully, anti-PC. Its use, and the obvious calculation behind it, become an annoying distraction from the narrative.

All that being said, the anecdotes themselves - copiously collected from friends, family, employees and professional peers - are utterly irresistible. To read them is indeed to feel you are in a smoky bar with Frank and one bartender and, as the song goes, it's quarter-to-three. The other books are all better studies of the genuine man and artist but this book is about the Sinatra we want to believe in.