Frank Sinatra’s Las Vegas

There were no bright lights illuminating Nevada’s Arrowhead Highway in the 1940s, just a long dark stretch of road that passed through the desert on the way from Salt Lake City to Los Angeles. The place that would become known as Las Vegas was a stolid Western town like any other, replete with cowboy hats and Levi’s jeans, two dude ranches and a couple of casinos, known as “chuck wagons.” If you’re imagining tumbleweed, you aren’t far off.
Meanwhile, a 20-something Frank Sinatra had just started out as a solo artist. Even as most young men his age went off to fight in World War II, Sinatra—exempt from service because of a damaged eardrum, a souvenir from the traumatic forceps birth that permanently scarred the left side of his face and neck—made his name as a crooner amongst bobby-sock-wearing female fans.
Despite a somewhat hardscrabble upbringing, the blue-eyed boy from Hoboken, New Jersey, dreamed big, idolizing Bing Crosby and utilizing his charge account at a Hoboken department store so extensively that his top-shelf wardrobe earned him the nickname, “Slacksey O’Brien.” Sinatra’s early style sense would come to define his on-stage persona and ultimately the city of Las Vegas during the four decades he headlined there, beginning in 1951.
“Frank wouldn’t go out after dark without a sport jacket on, let alone perform out of a tuxedo,” says former Lieutenant Governor and 50-year Nevada resident, Lorraine Hunt-Bono, who remembers Sinatra from his early performances. “He was the spark that changed Vegas from a dusty Western town into something glamorous.”

Frank Sinatra comparisons in stride

Singer Steve Lippia takes Frank Sinatra comparisons in stride

In previous seasons, the Louisville Orchestra has focused the music in its opening concert on classical repertoire. This season, the lineup is a bit different, with part of the evening featuring singer Steve Lippia, who sang with the orchestra in early 2011.

This time, Lippia is back to be part of a celebration of Bob Bernhardt’s 30th anniversary with the orchestra. Lippia, whose voice is often compared to Frank Sinatra’s, talked recently about how he got into singing, launched his professional career and interprets how people compare him to Sinatra.

What did you sing when you were growing up?

I sang in glee clubs and choruses and then was into music that my peers were into, rock ’n’ roll. But I sang a lot of liturgical and classical music in the church choir, and I went to a Catholic high school with a very robust choral program.

We sang contemporary music, but it was mostly Bach and Mozart and contemporary classical artists. I think it was good for me from ear-training, and being confident in one area of music can always help in another. Singing classical music requires a certain technique and that helped me, even though I never really studied music professionally. It was a good foundation for me.

When was the first time you sang solo onstage?

I did some solos with the chorus, but my junior year I performed in the school variety show. Until then I had been singing choral or rock music, but had decided to sing an American standard. I got a great response. It was 1973. My friends were shocked because I was more known as an athlete. I also got a great write-up in the local newspaper.

When do you remember first becoming aware of music known as the American songbook?

I was always aware of it because my mother was a professional singer for a few years before she met my dad. She still sang that music around the house, and so it was always there. It was good music, I thought. I wasn’t really in this musical family, but even when I was 2 or 3, she would teach me some of these songs. So, I’d sometimes be walking around the house, snapping my fingers and singing Bobby Darin tunes.

Frank Sinatra

Frank Sinatra Jr. - Seminole Casino Coconut Creek - July 12 

 

Frank Sinatra Jr.
Seminole Casino Coconut Creek
July 12 

Last night at the Seminole Casino in Coconut Creek, about 1,200 people filed into the Pavilion Theater to get a good look at the offspring of Ol' Blue Eyes, Frank Sinatra Jr.

Some, like Irene Brenner and Iris Rosenstrauss, both 81, had to settle for a squint. "I wish they would install some TV monitors in here," said Rosenstrauss of Fort Lauderdale. "We can't see a thing."

Complaints aside, it was hard not to notice that the average age at the concert last night was probably somewhere in the mid-60s. But these things you come to expect in South Florida, especially at a concert featuring music that hasn't been played on the radio for half a decade.

But for the people who came to see him last night, Sinatra Jr. isn't just another toupee-wearing Sinatra impersonator to catch after the early-bird buffet. He's a link to the real deal, a corporeal relic with ties back to that Golden Age of American Song when dance bands traveled to cities around the world, when men wore fedoras and smoked indoors, when pictures of Sinatra lined the walls of every girl's bedroom.
And so, as Frank Sinatra Jr. walked onto the stage last night singing the first few lyrics of "That Face," the audience prepared itself for a trip back in time. And Sinatra certainly took them there, recreating the aura of his father's generation down to the smallest details. Unlike other Sinatra impersonators, who have to learn to walk and talk like the Chairman of the Board, Jr's mannerisms were the real deal, encoded into his DNA.

As he crooned his way through classics like "Love Is Just Around the Corner" and "Don'cha Go 'Way Mad," you got the impression that his voice had been crafted by nature to sound like his father's. But what most people don't know is that Sinatra Jr is a trained musician. He even went to music school for a little while and was the musical director of his father's band. Being the son of Frank Sinatra might have endowed him with some natural talent, but it took years of study and hard work to become the musician he is today. 

And for a man who is famous for championing live music (and condemning all things digital), he certainly brought the band to back his statements up. His musicians were superb, with trumpet players who screeched into the stratosphere on "I Wanna Be Around" and sax players who cried through their instruments on "More than You Know."

And even though you might think a man with such negative opinions of modern music would be as dry as burnt toast, he is actually quite funny. His "resurrection" of a Dean Martin lounge act, complete with a nasally, radio-voiced introduction and a few sips from a glass of scotch, was one of the lighter moments of the show. And when he began the first few bars of "When You're Smiling" with the lyrics "When you're drinking," the audience appreciated the subtle jab. It was like watching a younger brother tease his older brother out of love.

Moments like those were the highlights of his show. His stories about Dean Martin and Sammy Davis Jr. just seem truer than everyone else's. They're not being read out of some cheesy biography or looked up online. They're not rumors or anecdotes he picked up second hand. They're experiences he actually lived, and he simply has to remember them.

But Sinatra Jr. wasn't the only one reminiscing in the theater last night. As he belted out tunes like "I've Got the World on a String" and "Strangers in the Night," the audience became visibly nostalgic, clapping along before the first four bars had been played, before a single word had even been sung.
And by the time the show concluded with "New York, New York," the audience, it seemed, was fully immersed in the past. A few ladies crowded the front of the stage, fawning at Sinatra's feet like the teenagers they were fifty years ago. There was even one couple swing dancing in the aisles. Sure, their leg kicks and twirls might have been a little slower and lower, but the feeling was still the same.

"I saw his father do this number in Carnegie Hall," Brenner shouted as the familiar brass introduction blared from the front of the theater. Her face was beaming. And while the faces onstage might have been blurry to her, the memories were as clear as ever. 

Of course, it was impossible not to draw some parallels between Sinatra Jr and his father. The two men are, after all, bound by blood and name. But Sinatra Sr was in a class by himself, untouchable. There is no one who could follow in his footsteps.

His son, however, did an admirable job. His voice isn't quite as rich as his father's, and his eyes will never be as blue. But if you cock your head and squint just the right way, you'll see he's the closest thing we have.