Informed Speculation

Health reform is going to pass the Senate after all, as Harry Reid bought off Ben Nelson by guaranteeing that the Feds will pay for Nebraska’s new Medicaid enrollees for ever and ever amen.  Of course, when the time comes, all the other states will rightly demand the same treatment, and this mockery of a [...]

In 1958, Capitol Records released Frank Sinatra Sings for Only the Lonely. Arranged by the great Nelson Riddle, and conducted by Felix Slatkin, the album is viewed by many as the artistic peak of the Sinatra catalog (though my own person favorite is “In The Wee Small Hours”). Like most of the great Sinatra albums, [...]

I posted this little bit of weekend fun before, but YouTube knocked the old link down.  They’ll probably get this one, too, but in the meantime, let’s revisit once more the smoothest of the smooth, as the incomparable Frank Sinatra just kills this medley with Antonio Carlos Jobim from a 1967 television special.   This [...]

Every album Frank Sinatra made with Nelson Riddle is a gem, and they all have their fans who will say this one or that one is the best.  For my money, the greatest Sinatra album is In The Wee Small Hours, 1955′s masterpiece of melancholy.  Named in the Top 100 Albums of All Time by [...]

When you get Sinatra on the brain, it’s hard to shake – I’m about five years into an almost complete immersion in Sinatra’s music (and I’m also catching up on his early films).  Though I sometimes mix it up (you can’t eat pizza every meal), I never stray too far. Another of my favorites, the [...]

….the election is merely days away.  But I’ve got to get a Sinatra post in.  Listening to the underrated My Way album from 1969 (the album is underrated, not the song), I was struck once again by the desolation of the lyrics of the beautiful “If You Go Away”, an English translation by Rod McKuen [...]

I don’t know about you, but I’m bickered out for the moment…time to recharge the best way I know how: the Chairman of the Board, backed by the great Tony Mottola on guitar, from Brazil, in 1981…and the song is a timeless classic that we all know and love…but enough yacking – click on play [...]

The great Francis Albert Sinatra died on May 14, 1998, ending the most accomplished career any entertainer has ever seen. With 1,800 recordings (I own about 1,650 of them – I’m getting VERY close to a complete collection), 58 movies, 10 Grammys (personally – his albums won 21), and 3 Oscars, Sinatra stood atop the [...]

…well, it’s a little late.  But if you want to know the most romantic song you can possibly play for your chosen one, it’s Moonlight In Vermont.  But it has to be one of the Frank Sinatra versions, and preferably the one from the Sinatra Vegas box set, from 1961 at the Sands, where Frank [...]

I present to you the great Frank Sinatra, performing Lerner and Loewe’s I’m Getting Married In The Morning, backed by the Count Basie band at Kiel Opera House in St. Louis, Mo., 06/20/65, at a benefit for the Teamster’s favorite charity (!) and introduced by one Johnny Carson (!!)…fantastic stuff…

Ladies and gentleman, this is the dictionary definition of smooth, and an amazing clip to boot – Antonio Carlos Jobim, the greatest practictioner of bossa nova, and the Entertainer of the Century, Francis Albert Sinatra…great, great stuff…

I defy anyone, anywhere, to come up with a definition of ‘smooth’ that tops the sound of Francis Albert Sinatra & Antonio Carlos Jobim. It simply can’t be done… Because love is the saddest thing when it goes away…

Alright, I’ve already done a ‘In Praise Of’ on Ol’ Blue Eyes, but the man is (was) amazing. Today, I had a few minutes to kill while getting ready for the wedding of an old work acquaintance, so I dropped by Circuit City, and just for grins, picked up a copy of The Ultimate Rat [...]

Nobody knows this but my beagle and I, but I have a secret. I can sing. I can sing really, really well. The catch is, I can only sing well to a Frank Sinatra record. Sinatra has that effect on you – his phrasing is not only impeccably tasteful, it is also instructive. By the [...]