Frank Sinatra, Jr.
When I was a young person, they used to refer to it as Christmas time. Course now it has to be politically correct and call it the holidays.Collection: Christmas
Before the State of Israel became a reality, Sinatra was a strong supporter, knowing that Jews were being denied access to the Holy Land. Sinatra met and had a friendship with Israel's first Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion. Ben-Gurion gave Sinatra a beautiful Old Testament bible that was a proud possession that my father kept all his life.Collection: Friendship
In the impetuousness of youth, when you're 21 years old, you want results yesterday.
The Beatles never got through to all ages, nor did Elvis Presley, or any of the other monuments of mediocrity that we've had.
For a thoroughbred to age is never a graceful process.
I like the Suncoast so much. It is miles from the Strip. It reminds me of the old Vegas atmosphere when things were a little more personal.
We went through rock 'n' roll, which then became just rock, then punk rock, then the worst disease of all - rap music. It's an oxymoron, because rap is not music.
The first time people come to see me, it's usually because they're curious. Then maybe some of them return. I look out in the audience and see the same faces, the same wonderful, loyal faces.
I've been hanging around movie sets and recording studios since I can remember.
When I work a nightclub, I dress up in evening wear. There's a certain elegance to it all and I like that.
Sinatra was bothered with issues of anti-Semitism and racism all his life. The song and film he made 'The House I Live In,' was a deep message against prejudice and he was very proud to have recorded the song.
I never felt that it was in anyone's best interest to be looked at differently by other people because of a name. I kept to myself a lot.
Over all these years, I have never had a hit movie, never had a hit television programme and never had a hit record. To my way of thinking, that means success has not been achieved. I have made no mark of my own creation. This is something to be considered.
When I was younger, sure, I wanted to have some degree of, shall we say, identity. But it never came.
The way I see it, before I can sell an audience Frank Sr, I have to sell them Frank Jr first.
By the end of Pop's life I wanted to give something back and when I came on board as his musical director he needed me. I wasn't the greatest conductor of the orchestra, but I was hired to conduct Frank Sinatra. He was slowing down, his memory wasn't what it had been. But his audience never stopped loving him. He had teleprompters.
My son has no interest in music other than as a listener. He teaches English to Japanese students.
If you don't work your brain turns to cheese.
I wanted to be a composer.
It pleases me that Frank Sinatra's music still has an audience, because many people who have come into the music world and then passed out of the music world are long since forgotten. He has been able to enjoy this great longevity.
The idea of the duets albums was the people who joined Frank Sinatra in each song were themselves successful record artists, I never was. I felt a certain apprehension at the time that some people thought my being there was pure nepotism. I felt kind of out of place about that.
I have to do what I have to do like everyone does.
It's amazing the number of young people who are interested in Frank Sinatra.
When I was working at the Flamingo I took slides of people standing in front of the Flamingo with the highway behind them. Across the street you can see these tumbleweeds. That is now Caesars Palace.
KKJZ is a very famous jazz station and there aren't many more around like them.
I'm very happy to have people say I sound like Frank Sinatra.
I mean, Frank Sinatra is one of the great performers in pop music history. Why shouldn't I be delighted to carry on his tradition?
It's OK if people say I sound like Frank Sinatra. I just don't want them to think I am Frank Sinatra.
Heidi Fleiss I befriended because she and I went through something of the same nature. And when word reached the tabloids, bless their little hearts, they decided here was something they could make money with.
Sinatra had deep loyalties to his friends for years.
Growing up in California, my best friend was Morris Rabinowitz and we often went to the Yiddish Theater.
Rap is the pulsation given by some, usually an electronic rhythm section, without any tonality, and you have someone reading high-school poetry.
Very few people rise that high, to be a performer known as only one name. Caruso... Valentino... Hitchcock... Garbo.
I always loved the motion picture scores and the great film composers like Elmer Bernstein.
I studied music from the time I was 5.
I just hope that people remember what I did well, that I gave it everything I had.
I think in my generation, when I came along in the early '60s, the type of music that was in vogue in society in those days had moved on to another kind of music. I was trying to sell antiques in a modern appliance store.
Rock 'n' roll, for me, is another award for underachievers. It is nothing but a testament to mediocrity.
Elvis Presley was rock 'n' roll, I thought that was pretty mediocre. But since that time, the succeeding steps in music has been down, just more degradation. Then we got into punk rock, and now we are into rap music, which is a total oxymoron.
Jimmy Van Heusen was a top security test pilot in World War II as well as being a great songwriter. He was absolutely incredible. Van Heusen inspired me to write music.
There is no demand for Frank Sinatra Jr. records. There never has been.
Nelson Riddle was really something. Just something else.
A lotta years I was out there on the road pulling one-nighters. Then I got hired to sing in Sam Donahue's band in 1963. I was 19 years old.
Life is not positive or negative; it's a mixture.
Look, as a child growing up it occurred to me that I had everything I could have wanted: a roof over my head, education, food. All of it because my father provided... My way of giving back was being that invisible guy. Giving something back from a lifetime of taking.
I'm an individual.
My father was the kind of man who liked to hang out.
It depends on the material. Sometimes I sound like him, sometimes not. There are certain tunes we do that are so familiar to the audience that to perform them without making them sound like Frank Sinatra would be wrong.
The recording companies are continuing to look at ways to buy short and sell long. So now they give recording deals to groups of people who we refer to as 'garage bands' - they are amateurs who are bought for nothing and it's really a shame.
I envy guys who can write funny.