Sinatra On My Kindle

I haven’t written much about my Kindle lately, even though I’m as happy as can be with it. One reason I haven’t mentioned it is that I mostly try to write about musical things, and even though it does play MP3 files I’m not sure if that counts as music related. But I do know of at least one definite musical connection — Sinatra is on my Kindle. No, not MP3 files of his singing (although I could do that). I’m talking about a book I mentioned in a previous post, James Kaplan’s FRANK: The Voice.

Although I love to read, I have to admit that I don’t actually buy a lot of books. Not only am I frugal — OK, cheap — but I lean mostly toward sci-fi or mysteries, and usually just get them from the library. However, I do occasionally purchase a book if I think it’s one I’ll want to re-read or refer to in the future, and that would certainly be the case with the Sinatra book.

It’s a huge and comprehensive work, one that not only includes just about everything you’d ever want to know — good and bad — about Ol’ Blue Eyes, but also a lot of information about the many people he encountered during his long career. Included among them were just about every major or minor celebrity around, and one of the guilty pleasures of the book is reading scandalous tidbits about those people too.

But it is first and foremost the story of Sinatra himself, and is filled with the stories behind memorable times in his life. A couple of examples are below. First is the song that became Sinatra’s first big solo hit, made in 1940 while he was working for Harry James (although it didn’t become a top seller until reissued later). Below that is a short film the young singer made near the end of the war as both a public service and to help his own image a little — not unlike many of today’s celebrities. (Later: video removed at source.)

Frank Sinatra w/ Harry James Orchestra – “All Or Nothing At All”