Sinatra 10 years Later: To Young Stars, Ol' Blue Eyes Is an 'All-Timer'
Feeling the phrasing
If that reverence isn't shared by all contemporary singers, it's clearly appreciated by some high-profile representatives. "You felt every word he said," Keys says. "I appreciate his phrasing the most." Mayer, too, cites Sinatra's rhythmic intuition: "When you sing along to a Frank Sinatra record, you're always a little early in singing the words, you know? His delivery was so soulful."
Pop baritone Josh Groban, 27, considers Sinatra "the ultimate song stylist. He was telling stories with songs. He showed it was OK to let different nuances come through. No one has sounded like him before or since, and that's something every young artist would want to strive for."
But Sinatra's enduring influence, as Bono suggested, isn't purely musical. Says Keys, "He definitely had an impact on contemporary artists well beyond music — from his fashion sense to his 'crew,' the Rat Pack."
Season 6 "Idol" runner-up Blake Lewis recalls watching that legendary crew — Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr. and a few other buddies who held court in Hollywood and Las Vegas in the 1950s and '60s — "in classic movies" as a child and admiring Sinatra for his "camaraderie with his chums" and "because he seemed to have fun every time he took the stage. This is what I try to emulate."
Indeed, despite Sinatra's disdain for rock — which didn't, incidentally, prevent him from performing songs by George Harrison or recording duets with Bono and Chrissie Hynde — he arguably created the prototype for the modern pop star. Years before Elvis Presley, Sinatra appropriated African-American music (jazz, in Sinatra's case) for mainstream audiences that included swarms of swooning girls. Decades before Madonna, Sinatra started his own record label, Reprise, which spawned numerous name artists.
Singer/songwriter Gavin DeGraw, 31, notes that another jazz-based icon, Bing Crosby — one of Sinatra's idols — already had "the album sales and movie sales" that are "the criteria for pop success."
But DeGraw concedes that Sinatra "carried Bing's torch further into our contemporary culture," helping to "portray the artist as a man with a lifestyle, not just a performer. Our pop stars' private lives and lifestyles have become the main ingredient in most of their careers."
And just as Sinatra's singing, particularly from the '50s on, conveyed greater depths of sensuality and experience, his public image became more complicated, and more controversial. By various accounts, he loved women and liquor lavishly, if not recklessly. "And of course, there were rumors of him being connected to the Mob," Legend points out.
