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His father had not wished for his only son the lonely life of a professional entertainer. Much less, the Herculean challenge of becoming established as a crooner in the style -- and with the name -- of his old man.
In fact, according to Frank Sinatra Jr., while music had understandably been a passion from an early age, the now 62-year-old performer, who will be paying tribute to his late father at the Lac Leamy Casino this weekend, had no intention of following in the man he calls Sinatra's gargantuan footsteps.
"When I was a kid," Sinatra says in a typically slow, deliberate fashion over the phone from his Los Angeles home, "I wanted to be a composer and a pianist. I studied piano as a boy, but things began to happen after that and I discovered I couldn't work unless I was to do vocals.
"I really had no desire to do the vocals, but it started when I was in college and I've had to live with it ever since."
The fact he will be in the area to perform a set of material associated with Sinatra Sr. is a reminder of the commitment the singer with more than 40 years of touring under his belt has to the legacy he reluctantly adopted.
Sinatra Jr. conducted and served as musical director for his father, and has throughout his career worked alongside some of the greatest musicians and arrangers of the modern age. But only now, in the wake of the release of That Face!, his first new studio album in a decade, does he sound fully comfortable within his own skin.
"It's been a process of gradual growth," he explains, emphasizing the point with an anecdote. "I once asked a man I know who was a D.C.-10 captain for American Airlines before he retired, 'How do you take that responsibility? You're flying a 350,000-lb. airliner with all kinds of people aboard and you're responsible for their lives and the lives of everybody underneath that airplane.' And he said, 'You have to grow into it, Frank.' "
For someone who hit his teens during rock 'n' roll's first rebellious flush of youth, Sinatra Jr. began his gradual growth into the smooth sound of the standards sooner than most of his contemporaries. Surely, to a child of the 1950s, those rebels without a cause held some appeal, no?
No.
"I was a boy when Elvis Presley occurred, and that began the degeneration of the music that we have," Sinatra laments. "With Elvis, it was fairly simple; it was nothing more than constant 12-bar blues with different riffs on it. Nothing but 12-bar blues -- over and over and over and over again.
"That was one thing, but then we got into the British Invasion and after that we had punk rock and then we had rap music -- which is an oxymoron. And it's all due to the influence of the recording companies. They can make a whole album for $10,000. So if they have 20 failures at a rate of $10,000 each, they're only out $200,000.
"And somewhere in their number of failures they suddenly hit with that one group that comes in with a big hit and realize millions. That wipes out any debt and it makes them great big wealthy record producers. This is what has happened to the industry, and it's really rather unfortunate."
He applauds the efforts of performers such as Linda Ronstadt, Rod Stewart and Michael Bolton to bring back "better music." And the veteran crooner expresses optimism that, "As long as we live in a world with Michel Legrand, Leslie Bricusse, Alan and Marilyn Bergman, Rupert Holmes and to some extent Andrew Lloyd Webber," we will continue to have better songs.
Even if they are endangered in the mainstream.
"Yes," Sinatra says of that last sentiment. "Then there's Paris Hilton."
There certainly is. For now. But oh for a world with more Sinatras.
"Oh no," the junior Voice swiftly responds. "I think we need more Paris Hilton."
Spoken like a Sinatra.
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