Another excerpt from Between The Ground & God. I still hear Sinatra everywhere, like the eternal Voice of Eros. Of all the biographies, Readers and critical analyses of Sinatra's life & music (and there are as many as 150 published anew every year), the best writing is found in Pete Hamill's short, poignant Why Sinatra Matters and Will Friedwald's scholarly Sinatra: The Song Is You.

Hamill discusses the cultural importance of Sinatra and his times, now our times; Friedwald goes through the music and Frank's dominant trio of arrangers: Nelson Riddle, Gordon Jenkins & Billy May. But the albums, recorded quickly with enormous themes that alternate between heartache & loneliness and ballsy macho exuberance, really tell the tale. If you want to know what the enitre last half-century was like in America, listen to Frank's Capitol and Reprise work. Plain astonishing in its artistic consistency, song selection and reluctance to ever wallow in the ill-humored, embarrassing behavior the guy often displayed. As a singer, he never let us--or himself--down.


The House I Lived In: Frank Sinatra

Growing up in the 60s & 70s, Frank Sinatra’s music filled my house. As a boy I recall the presence of his voice being a symptom of high times--parties, Saturday nights, perfume and cigarettes, cuff links sweeping down to pat my hair. People briefly at the top of their game. Certain songs--"Fly Me To The Moon," "Tangerine," "Where Or When"--still evoke the fragile good fortune that comes with familial and social blessing.

In my adolescence Sinatra became all that was square and phony: anathema to the counterculture, actually now the dominant culture. When compared to rock’s songwriters, songwriters like Gershwin, Porter, Van Huesen, Cahn and Kern seemed like Tin Pan Alley irrelevance. It was not the only thing I was wrong about. I now know that the Sinatra songbook, particularly the songs of Cole Porter, represent stylized imagination at its most refined. Genius is often one word where there once were eight. And the currency of timeless work is in tackling the big subjects: Love, Death, Aging, Faith and Loneliness.

I’ve never attempted to write about Sinatra until now, primarily because it wasn’t timely or maybe because I wasn’t up to the subject. Sinatra is so laden with family emotion and generational demarcation that writing about him has seemed too hard.

Anyway, my father hated rock and I hated Frank. Our stalemate was beautifully balanced. I’m not entirely sure when the thaw came, but, to paraphrase Mark Twain, I can’t believe how much the old man has learned in the last few years. There are still some things that can put a young listener off on Sinatra--his mythical meanness, his ribbing of Sammy Davis in the Rat Pack days (which was extremely misleading; Sinatra was an ardent civil rights activist), his clumsy interpretation of rock songs (in George Harrison’s "Something" Frank sings, "You stick around, Jack, it may show"), his punchy sentimentality, his ultimate descent into self parody. (All of the greats, with their style once so powerfully fresh and seminal, seem to eventually erode into self parody.)

Like many of this century’s great artists Sinatra is highly enigmatic. James Isaacs points out in his liner notes to Sinatra In Paris that there’s an artistic schizophrenia attendant to Sinatra’s genius: There is Sinatra--an artist worthy of mention in the same breath as Picasso and Casals--and Frank--everybody’s Pal Joey, the King of the Ring-A-Ding-Ding, in Dave Marsh’s words "the original Gangsta rapper." It’s the difference between his singing voice, that cello-like instrument sustaining rosewood notes and romantic dreams of The Love, and his speaking voice, which is never more than a few short blocks from Hoboken via Las Vegas.

The cocky swagger fronts the bruised feelings. My father has always said that Sinatra achieved his tone from having his vocal cords stomped on, from getting kicked around. Sinatra was washed up a bit at 38, between recording contracts, singing poorly, not working as much as he had in his "Voice" period.

There’s little question that he went on to become the greatest interpretive singer we’ve ever heard. It was Frank who perpetrated the macho myth; Sinatra, on the other hand, lived to sing. He never condescended to his audience. Instead he increasingly valued his audience and moved closer to it as he aged. He eventually transcended popular contrivance completely and made age and enduring--rock’s great enemies--his most potent subject, save love.

I have a bootleg of Frank, Dean and Sammy at Sam Giancana’s club in Chicago, the Villa Venice, in November of 1962. The height of their powers. It’s hilarious, poignant, utterly embarrassing and totally dated--great period piece farce. Any good singing, even any respect for the audience’s expectations, are secondary to boozing. Out of the blue a woman, a fan from Milwaukee, hesitantly approaches the stage. Says she drove all night and can’t she please hear a serious song? Martin tells her to buy an album. Much laughter. Frank, meaner, mockingly offers her bus fare home. When she insists on hearing "Nancy" there’s an enormous sea change: Frank becomes Sinatra. Along with "Night and Day," "Nancy (With The Laughing Face)" was something of a charmed talisman for Sinatra; he would eventually record it four times before retiring. But on this night he becomes contrite, shuts Dean and the crowd up, calls her request "fair and reasonable" and proceeds to kill the song. Not a dry eye in the house. Frank knew where his bread was buttered; Sinatra loved his audience and had the goods to reach both their hearts and souls.

For some reason I’m not much interested in Sinatra’s early career with Harry James & Tommy Dorsey, nor am I a big fan of his Columbia/Axel Stordahl years (1943-1952). Ironically, Sinatra actually hurried the demise of the big bands he loved so much by ensuring that the front man was the focal point of the performance. It’s what he did with the projection of language that kills me, even after much hard-headed analysis. Instead of using melisma or even "sung" syllables, Sinatra developed a legato conversational quality that emphasized meaning as much, if not more, than melody. In another irony, it was this quality of Sinatra’s that then paved the way for rock’s great lyrical expressionists--Dylan, Lennon and Joni Mitchell. When they first showed up, Frank hated ‘em. Same with Elvis. By the 60s he was doing TV with Elvis and regularly recording rock related material.

Every singer--really anybody who sings--marvels at Sinatra’s physical gifts. It’s been said that his jaw has a certain shape that accounts for some unusual projection of sound, etc. One thing is true. When he sings, nothing but sound comes from his mouth; that is, very little breath or forced vibrato accompanies the full voice. In this sense his instrument is much like a cello--a brandy soaked tone reflected from wood and string.

Sinatra also did much to invent the concept album, an innovation usually associated with Sgt. Pepper or Tommy. While at Capitol in the 50s he alternated humongous concoctions of swing--Songs For Young Lovers (1954) Come Dance With Me (1959)--with sad song cycles like In The Wee Small Hours and Where Are You? 1958's Frank Sinatra Sings For Only The Lonely is simply one of the finest collection of mood songs ever recorded. "What’s New," "Angel Eyes," "One For My Baby" and "Blues In The Night" all on one record. Of course much credit goes to a trio of brilliant arrangers--Billy May, Gordon Jenkins and the unmatched Nelson Riddle--for this amazing emotional range over the years.

After starting Reprise Records in 1961, Sinatra had one unqualified triumph, 1965's September Of My Years, and a late 60s string of very interesting failures. These experiments (there’s little doubt that the ubiquity of rock seriously messed Frank’s head up)---My Way, A Man Alone and Watertown--were remarkable musical theater, an attempt to catalogue aging, loss, spiritual ambivalence and existential isolation in the confining terms of popular song. Sinatra was never susceptible to the dilution of artistic merit in order to cater to the lowest common denominator. In fact he was one of those few greats who created high art for a mass audience. He’d stretch and grow and retain a core audience.

Watertown is Sinatra’s most unusual album. Written by Four Seasons producers Bob Gaudio and Jake Holmes, it predates the bleak small town narratives of Bruce Springsteen and John Mellencamp by 20 years. Watertown is, in fact, almost rock. It spoke of a terrible beauty hidden in the vibrancy of suburban American expectations; it ushered in the post-romantic notions we’re living with today.

But it’s the love songs we’ll forever expect--no, need--from Sinatra. Love songs are becoming a scarce commodity today. And no one sings of the Big Love anymore, that nostalgic notion that says that action is larger than intent.

My father used to tell me, once a day it seems like now, to get a hair cut, put on a tux and make a livin’ singing Sinatra songs on cruise ships. And my buddies and I would drag our ass into the garage, strap on guitars and laugh at how short sighted and unhip he was. Now I call up the old man and he’s blaring my own record in the background. I’ve been trying to get him to listen to the Sinatra 80th Birthday Live collection for almost six months. I describe it using all the old Sinatra-ese that used to make me cringe. "It’s mahvalous ." I can’t get him to listen, can’t get him to talk about how great Frank is. He wants to talk about rock & roll or my music, of all things. Our stalemate remains beautifully balanced.
posted by Stewart Francke at 8:28 PM

Beginning again/More book excerpts...

This time of year can seem like rebirth to me; both my kids were born in early April, so there's celebration and renewal goin on. Add the Easter holiday and it's a good time, a hopeful time for us after the last few years of trouble, pain & loss. These are further excerpts from the book I recently released, Between The Ground & God.

The first excerpt is an epistolary essay written on the night my daughter was born. The second, Mayday, is about Spring, finding real emotional change in nature. The last thing here in this post seems to be one of the more popular things in the book, based on readers' response so far; it's an interview with the late, great Johnny Cash. Johnny seems more ubiquitously alive than ever right now.


A New Night In An Old Town

Dear Tess,You showed up on Easter morning, just shy of noon, a pink squall shining in the white light of the hospital room. You carry with you many of the things said of Easter: faith in the workings of faith, a chance to address this world with a fresh heart, deliverance for a time from all those things we know to be unavoidable. Count me among your rarest of companions. You're the most unforgettable character I've yet to meet here. And I've met a few. You've come at a good time. Many people think the world to be in moral disrepair and physical decay, but to me it's still a world alive with decency, hope and reason. It's a world still washed at dusk by a rusty evening light, a world dotted with lighted windows and people smiling for no reason--a world still full of music. And as reluctant as you were to enter, you'll be even more stubborn upon departure.

The love I feel for you comes from many, many things. One of them is the fear of losing love. Love this deep is an extravagant counterpunch thrown against the presence of grief, evil and loss. Parent, sister, brother, lover, friend: who doesn't live with this? It’s at the bottom of things to be afraid of the fragility of this whole thing. Why should I be offered the luxury of permanence? A guy named James Brown once said this is a man's world. But I tend to think that in its vapors, in its invisible essence, this is a woman's world. Men look a certain way just for women; women do the same for other women. In its fragrances and details, in its balance of passion and reason, this is a woman's world. Men stumble through this delicate structure as if we’re in a fog, bent on making their mark, only occasionally getting it right.
As your eyes open, I'll work on my own. Your birth has given me a renewed sense of connection. Every transgression against another is also against my sense of what it is to live freely; every cry of every child is somehow the cry of my own child. Every little victory--all those humble aspirations, good intentions and futile aggregations--they now speak to me, about you.

There's a funny story about the night you were born, a story I'm sure we'll bore you with for years. On the way to the hospital, I said to your mother (who was in labor and not open to bad radio on her best days), "We've got to check and see what song is on. Something to remember this ride." I don't recall the station, but we both immediately knew the song: Elton John's "The Bitch Is Back." God's truth. I'm still not sure if this was a quick description of your mother in her pre-epidural condition or a prophetic sign that you were you, a girl. And that's a joke about your mother; she delivered you with the same graceful intensity she shines into every corner of her life. You'll see.

I wish these things for you: courage, love, sensuality, forgiveness, a healthy sense of self and your own idea of God. You've already lent me a more defined sense of who it is I might be. I now belong to that watchful and hopeful collection of people that consider the passing of time to be an enemy and eagerly awaits nightfall–to count all the heads in the beds, finally away from the uncertain world and in the safety of our sanctuary. I think, for the first time in years (and possibly for the first time in happy terms), of schools. I wonder if Barney is really evil. I think of Disney films and county fairs and stick figure drawings of Pilgrims. But that's just tonight. What a night it is--flushed with blinking stars and brittle cold, the western sky out my window bearing the bluish dark of an early spring snow. Welcome to it, honey. It's a new night in an old town.

Mayday

Two nights ago we had our first real spring thunder storm, the lightning a sullen backlight to the still stark treeline, flashing in the sky like some cosmic camera, with the extended freeze-frames that cameras have these days. The lightning illuminated the barren trees like a Kipniss painting, with its lonely world of cloudless skies and yellow dawns. I sat and watched it, taking it in like a blessing. Age will do that, make the formerly mundane very extraordinary. Instead of it being the rapid west-to-east moving front, the storm lingered from midnight til dawn, with intermittent hard rain and frequent lightning, followed quickly by thunder of varied tone and volume. A thunderstorm is comforting, with its muted noise and serpentine array of electrified fingers slicing through the silver rain. A spring storm gives you a sense of renewal, waitin’ on a washed up world where you can begin again. My infant daughter slept through it all, and I slept beside her in a nursing rocker, watching her on and off ‘til dawn.

The Real Noise: Johnny Cash

Johnny Cash dreamed our dreams for us. His songs were huge, unfettered visions that cascaded down through the halls of American history. As they rumbled, these dreams gathered our shared symbolic debris: fire and damnation, a solitary train whistle, soldiers limping by, prayers unfolding, marriages lasting, marriages imploding, working men hanging on to their work, larger than life men on their knees, contending with a lingering psychic titter from too many drinks or too many pills or too many whores or too many wars.

Cash carried with him that necessary American schizophrenia; he's the quintessential man with two faces. There are evil songs from a God-fearing man ("Delia's Gone"), or impossibly good songs from a man aware of the shadow that stretches across his heart ("I Walk The Line"). And all those wonderful story songs ("The Ballad of Ira Hayes," "Don't Take Your Guns To Town") where the narrator's morality was never shadowed, and finally, revealed when you least expected.

It's ironic that Johnny was embraced by a young alternative audience after the 90s country boom ignored him. Here's a man who remained on the inside flap of American culture and politics for the better part of 30 years. He hosted a number one television show (1968-71), befriended presidents and preachers, even turned in the most menacing Columbo cameo ever. Even after his death in 2004, Cash defines cool for a generation that can't seem to come up with its own icons.

His voice was as dry as dust, a dolorous rumble that laid bare 50 years of stone hard desire. He best made his case with just that voice and stark guitar playing, yet how he jostled a world awake with this simplicity. Cash made a song vivid via the inexplicable and mysterious qualities we can only call the "grain" of the voice. As they tumbled out of his mouth, lines like "I fell in to a burning ring of fire" or "Delia's gone, one more round, Delia's gone" sound as if they'd grown out of the land beneath his feet.

His songs echoed a lifetime's worth of arcane fables and common folklore. Yet out of Cash's voice something small and resolute often escaped, leaving us with an intuitive sense of the beauty in life we can never define. All that--and he was Rosanne's old man to boot.

Once he called my house as I was assigned do a Q&A with him. And he said IT..."Hi, this is Johnny Cash." I couldn't speak for 15 seconds. We all knew Johnny Cash, in a way. I'll miss that voice, the sense of the man...the resolute morality he brought to music, just knowing he was in the world. Damn, life, unforgiving. This interview is from the mid-90s.

You've been famous for so long and in so many different ways. What does this new wave of popularity feel like?

It makes me pretty happy. I don't think I've had so much press on anything in my life and most of it's been good. It's like the biggest fulfillment of all, from all the work I've done all these years, has come to me. It's like a blessing from God.

Can you come to terms with the fact that you've sold 55 million records?

It's not possible, no. That always surprises me to hear that. I don't know if I believe it, but it sure sounds good.

In addition to being one of rock and roll's caretakers, you're an American icon of sorts. What does it mean to you to be an American today?

Well I've been everywhere and I still love this country, above all. But I'm so disappointed in a lot of things that are going on, politically. The way we're involving ourselves in world affairs--it's like throwing rocks in the dark. My country scares me. The politicians of my country scare me.

But is the American spirit, as you helped define it, still alive? Does it still mean `I'm not going to live on another man's terms'?

The young people are saying that and I think that's healthy. I really don't know if anything new is being said that wasn't said when I was 18. I looked around at the farm, at my people, and said, `I love ya, but I ain't gonna stay around here. I'm gonna do something myself, the way I want to do it.' I still see a lot of that. The so called X generation--I don't think they're `X'; I think they know what they're about.

What is the advantage to the voice and guitar only approach?

When I do concerts now, even when I'm doing the family show, I'll do songs from the 50s and 60s--"Folsom Prison Blues," "Ring Of Fire," "Orange Blossom Special,"--but then I'll stop and do songs with just my guitar. Then I'll go back to the tempo things and it all feels comfortable to me. The audiences get a look at the real me. They get to hear all my mistakes, all the flat and sharp notes, rather than cover them up with other noise. They get to hear the real noise.

Does the new album accomplish that, present you as you without impediments?

Yea it does. It's really honest I think. It's intimate, too. It's me singing a song to you. That's the whole concept. If it sounded like I was performing, we'd do them over, until I focused in on the idea that I was just singing the song to one person.

Is there good and true evil in every man and woman, or are these external concepts?

I think there is good and true evil in every man and woman. It reveals itself very visibly in their works.

When it comes to music, then, are you holding out not how you are but how you'd like to be or could be?

Oh I'm still a dreamer. I don't know any songwriter that doesn't (dream). Some of these songs are slices of life, some are fantasies.

Your music has simply been about what people go through. Does that hold true to the country music of today?

Well, it's an industry today. It's not very long on tradition, which is the thing that bothers me about it. I just wrote a book called The Illustrated History of Country Music, published by Country Music magazine, and I got into the tradition established by the early singers--the solo artists that started recording with just their guitar. Jimmy Rodgers, Gene Autry, The Carter Family. Country fans today are cheated out of all that lore.

The American Recordings were released 38 years after "I Walk The Line." How have you, as an artist, stayed hungry? It's one thing being a singer and running down good material, but you're still writing great songs.

Thank you. I'm working on a couple songs right now. But it isn't hunger, to get that out of me that needs to speak. There's so much in me that I still want to say. I wasn't conscious, for instance, of writing "Redemption." I don't know where it came from. I'd like to say inspiration. I'm really getting into metaphors, like in "Redemption." It's the blood covenant of Abraham made complete through Jesus Christ--that's what the song basically is to me. But there are metaphors of common life there. There are other great subjects. The story in the song I'm trying to write right now is about a fortune teller in New Orleans. I go to her seeking wisdom. But she realizes I'm also seeking other things. The song says, "Death and hell are never full and neither are the eyes of men." She then says, "You've come to the wrong place to get what you want." In other words, go to the right place for the right thing. With this album, and the different directions from which the songs came, it really sparked my imagination. There's so many more songs I want to write, and in so many different ways.

When I was a kid I loved your TV show. You always seemed to be able to balance entertainment and making it mean something. Has the entertainment factor diminished as you've gotten older?

Well with this album we completely discarded the idea of airplay. As it turns out, a little of it is being played. But I don't think about entertainment much, especially when I'm writing. Once I've written it and take it to a studio, the producers and musicians will start workin' on, you know, the way it oughta be done. Sometimes I go along with all that, sometimes I don't.

All of the mythic elements have always been in your work. Were you naturally attracted to that, or did you install those symbols once you found out they worked?

I always liked story songs. I've always loved the lore and history of this country. And of course a fact...Davy Crockett, for instance. The myth and the legend have overshadowed the fact that he was a politician. Sometimes when I examine a myth I realize, well it doesn't hurt anybody when the legend is a whole lot more interesting than the fact. I'll go ahead and write it that way.

What's the best song you've ever recorded?

The best one for me has been "I Walk The Line."

I've got two votes, if I can tell you.

What's that?

"I Walk The Line" and "Busted," by Harlan Howard.

Isn't that song somethin'? I still play it occasionally.

At this point in your life, can you prioritize the things that really matter?

Well, my faith, my family and home are all wrapped up together. And peace and privacy. I'm a very public person but when I draw back I fiercely guard my privacy. That's a priority--self preservation. After a tour I'll go off to a log house in a rural county of Tennessee. I like to keep it quiet. Then comes my music, a natural thing that comes from having all of the above in order.

From "Folsom Prison Blues" to "Delia's Gone," there's been a preoccupation with death in your work. Do you fear dying?

No, no I don't. And I don't believe it's a preoccupation with death. Murder ballads and songs about death are what country music is about; it's steeped in that tradition. One of the biggest songs of the 19th century was "The Ballad of Jesse James"--robbery and murder. Some of the biggest songs of this century have been about death and murder, especially in country music: "Grave On The Green Hillside," "Bury Me Beneath The Willow,"...

"Long Black Veil?"

Oh yea, "Long Black Veil." A lot of them are classics. A preoccupation with death? No.

Do you have a favorite period in your career?

My favorite period is right now. It's total fulfillment after 40 years in this business. I started out with just a guitar in the barracks in Germany and now I'm getting a lot of attention doing it the same simple way.

Can the person behind the songwriter, the human behind the artist's public face--can that person become a better person through music?

I think so, yea I really think so. Some of these songs really set you to thinkin'.
posted by Stewart Francke at 7:53 PM

Reading & Listening List #1:

Much like the consistency found in seasons' changing, I always turn back to one of my main musical loves or influences every few weeks. Since I first heard "Livin For The City" at 15, it's once again to Stevie.

I love many of the cuts on the new A Time To Love but can't every really quit his brilliant self contained mid-70s work. Think of it--In four years time he wrote, produced, sang and played every instrument on Innervisions, Fulfillingness' First FInale & Songs In The Key Of Life. 65 career Top Ten Billboard singles and artistry of the highest kind. Songs In The Key Of Life may be the ultimate achievement in pop/soul record making.

So many critics and Stevie lovers miss the coming-out-of-jazz quality innate to Stevie's writing & records, particularly his drumming. Like some funky cross between Philly Jo Jones and Al Jackson, Stevie is like no other drummer. He plays accents and shifts time signatures to accomodate his songs' movements, never simply holding a monotonous groove like so much of today's neo-soul. Fills, flams, ritarded quarter note walks--even when he accidently hits his sticks together it works. He's a busy drummer--usually a session killer--but it's fantastic.

1. At The Close Of A Century (4 cd compilation)--Stevie 1998
2. Live at the Jazz Cafe In London--D'Angelo 1995
3. Heart Of Gold--Johnathon Demme's concert film/retrospective of Neil Young. 2006
4. Both Sides Of The Gun--Ben Harper...downloaded this new one in my nearly exhausted attempt at "getting" Ben. No luck so far but people I respect rave about him. Maybe this one's the charm. 2006
5. itunes imixes--just surf, listen & load as it hits me. Is there a better invention in the history of mankind? Itunes, the ipod & everybody's imixes? You can get lost, totally gone...ultimate user friendly community radio. I found one compiled from 70s radio hits and realized I'm just like my old man with Big Band music.

I know every word to every song from that time, good & bad, for better or worse. One imix had 225 songs on it and I knew every word of every song I swear. The music we come of age to is the music we grow old with I guess...by '78 I was 20 and deeply into R&B, Chicago blues and Mississippi Delta blues/rural country blues. Howlin Wolf to Leadbelly. Under the tutelage of the Boogster. Goin backwards through the influences--going from The Beatles to The Everlys to the Blue Sky Boys. From Marvin backward to Sam Cooke to The Soul Stirrers to The Pilgrim Travelers, from Van back to John Lee Hooker. So I lost my ear to the radio a bit.

But look at a few of the artists that came of age in that period: Van, Stevie, Marvin, Al Green, Eagles, Bruce, Jackson Browne, Joni Mitchell, Paul Simon, Petty, Rickie Lee, Steely Dan, Elton John, Carole King, Rod Stewart, Billy Joel, Bee Gees (if you think they're shitty, go write 100 melodic hits then talk to me), CSN, Neil Young, Patti Smith, Warren Zevon, Talking Heads, P-Funk, on and on endlessly. Yea there's wonderful music being made today, but no center, nothing most of us can agree on...will Fiona Apple still be makin records and filling theaters in 2036? Hard to tell these days.

6. The Ginger Man by JP Donleavy (originally published 1958)...great comic novel of an American college student-womanizer-richy swell fop in Dublin. His name is Sebastian Dangerfield and he drinks, steals, spends and screws himself either in or out of something important. I'll find out just what soon.

7. The Year Of Magical Thinking...Joan Didion. 20005. Chronicle of losing her husband, John Gregory Dunne, and her daughter in the space of about a year. Brutal but beautiful. Trying to make some sense--any sense--of death as it applies to living.

8. The Sopranos. Maybe the only invention better than the ipod. Certainly better than Christmas.





posted by Stewart Francke at 7:00 PM