THE LAST YEARS OF FRANK SINATRA
EPISODE 14
by Mahnuel Muñoz
“I first heard Sinatra’s voice on a jukebox in a dark bar one Sunday night while my mother and I were looking for my father, and I remember him saying to me, “Listen to that, it’s Frank Sinatra.” “He’s from New Jersey.” He was a voice full of bad attitude, life, beauty, excitement, a haunting sense of freedom, sex, and a sad wisdom about how the world works. Each word seemed to have as a postscript “and if you don’t like it, here’s a punch in the mouth.” But it was the deep sadness in Frank’s voice that affected me most, and while his music became synonymous with elegance, the good life, the best drinks, women, sophistication, his sad voice was always the sound of bad luck. and of men late at night with the last ten dollars in their pockets trying to find a way out. On behalf of New Jersey, Frank, I want to say, ‘Cheers, brother, you gave a voice to our soul.’”
The author of these words is Bruce Springsteen, one of the most prominent singer-songwriters in American popular music and a native of New Jersey, like Frank. He has been in charge of welcoming the large audience of celebrities who fill every corner of the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles and who would not have missed this historic moment for the world. It is the night of November 19, 1995, and the television special “Frank Sinatra: 80 Years My Way” is being taped. The rest of the world will have to wait until December 14 to enjoy the gala by tuning into ABC on their televisions. After his emotional speech, Springsteen performs a moving version of “Angel Eyes” (immortalized by Frank in 1958 for the album “Frank Sinatra Sings For Only The Lonely”) with voice and guitar, turning it into a somber country lament.
A brilliant and emotional show begins in which five generations of artists come together, confirming the scope of Sinatra’s influence on all strata of popular music. From the class and sober elegance of figures of the stature of Tony Bennett, Natalie Cole and Ray Charles to the sparkling youth of the singer and dancer Paula Abdul and the hip hop trio Salt-N-Peppa, passing through the power of the pinero of the rock and roll Little Richard and the Godmother of Soul Patti Labelle, all the stars that ennoble the stage provide a very personal vision of the work and figure of Francis Albert Sinatra.
However, the most revealing moments of the night are starring two musical figures whose sociocultural relevance for their respective generations is comparable to that of Sinatra himself for the youth born in the interwar period. Maybe that’s why they knew how to understand Old Blue Eyes better than anyone else.
The group U2 and Bob Dylan choose two songs that do not belong to Frank’s repertoire but that summarize the essence of the honoree, as an artist and human being.
From the huge screen on the stage, Bono and The Edge, accompanied by a large orchestra from a studio in London, share a piece written expressly for the Voice, “Two Shots Of Happy, One Shot Of Sad.” happiness, one of sadness”) a saloon song and at the same time a compendium of achievements and failures devoid of the triumphalism of the classic “My Way”. Frank won’t get to record it, but Bono’s stark lyrics, almost an obituary, find their home in the coordinates of the Hoboken Nightingale:
“I’m just a singer, some say a sinner
Rolling the dice, not always a winner
You say I’ve been lucky, well hell, I’ve earned it
“I’m not part of the crowd, but I don’t feel alone.”
But the moment that stops time comes from the hand of Dylan, who extracts from the bottom of his backpack an old song that closed his album “The Times They Are A-Changing” from 1964. “Restless Farewell” “) was obviously not written with Sinatra in mind, but the passing of the decades has been, mysteriously, sculpting the lyrical landscape until it becomes a vivid statue of the man who today, dressed in a tuxedo and broken memories, sees his life pass by on the wings of other voices.(1)
And he says like this:
“All the money I’ve spent in life
Whether it was mine honestly or wickedly
I gladly put it in the hands of my friends.
So that they would bind time more tightly.
But the bottles are empty,
We have finished with them all,
And the table is full,
And the sign on the corner
He says it’s time to close,
So I’ll say goodbye and continue on my way.
Every girl I’ve touched
It wasn’t to hurt him,
And every girl I hurt
It was not intentional,
But to stay as friends
and make peace
You need time and step aside,
And how my feet now move forward
And they point away from the past,
I’ll say goodbye and continue on my way.
In each of my disputes
The reason was there before I arrived,
And every cause I fought for
I did it without regret or shame.
But the darkness dies
When the curtain is drawn
And the sight meets the dawn,
And if the day comes
I would just have to stay,
So I’ll say goodbye at night and leave.
Every thought that has tied a knot in my mind
I would go crazy if I couldn’t sprout.
But I’m not going to stay naked in front of unknown eyes,
I sing my stories for myself and my friends,
But time is not arduous, even if you depend on it,
And no word belongs to any particular friend,
And although the line is cut,
It’s not the end.
So I’ll say goodbye until we meet again.
A fake clock tries to mark my time,
Disgrace me, distract me and bother me,
And the dirt of gossip hits me in the face,
And the dust of rumors covers me,
But if the arrow is straight
And the accurate aim,
It can pass through dust regardless of its thickness.
So I will defend myself
And I will remain the same,
And I’ll say goodbye and I won’t care.”
To end the show, a good part of the cast takes the stage to sing “New York, New York.” Frank himself is in charge of singing the last phrases of the song, also the last ones he will sing in public (2).
Despite the good intentions of everyone involved in the show, and some especially emotional moments in which Frank looks genuinely happy, the singer doesn’t enjoy the experience too much. He would have preferred to stay home watching television and scarfing down a can of pork and beans. Tony Oppedisano took Frank out of the auditorium during the projection of retrospective videos so that he could smoke a cigarette and disconnect for a few minutes, and he had on hand a small portable refrigerator with water, ice and two bottles of Jack Daniels, the drink Sinatra’s favorite. When the recording concludes, the group consisting of Frank, Barbara, Gregory Peck and his wife Veronique, Steve Lawrence, Eydie Gorme, Robert Wagner and Jill Saint John meet for drinks in a private dining room of the Four Seasons hotel.
- 1* Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen had met Sinatra before the recording of the special, during a dinner at Frank’s house in Beverly Hills. They drank, had fun and sang, and Frank wanted to invite them more often.
- 2* In his book “Sinatra and I. Until the Wee Hours” of 2021, Tony Oppedisano claims that the last time Frank Sinatra sang in public was in February 1996, during the annually organized charity golf tournament named after the singer. According to Oppedisano, Frank went up to sing the last bars of “New York, New York” with the rest of the singers invited to the gala, but I have not found any information that confirms this in any of the books or sources of information that I have.
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