Why Sinatra Matters

by Pete Hamill Narrated by Joe Knezevich

Overview

In honor of Sinatra's 100th birthday, Pete Hamill's classic tribute returns with a new introduction by the author.

In this unique homage to an American icon, journalist and award-winning author Pete Hamill evokes the essence of Sinatra--examining his art and his legend from the inside, as only a friend of many years could do. Shaped by Prohibition, the Depression, and war, Francis Albert Sinatra became the troubadour of urban loneliness. With his songs, he enabled millions of others to tell their own stories, providing an entire generation with a sense of tradition and pride belonging distinctly to them.

With a new look and a new introduction by Hamill, this is a rich and touching portrait that lingers like a beautiful song.

Editorial Reviews

bn.com

Pete Hamill knew Frank Sinatra well—so well, in fact, that he almost coauthored the singer's autobiography. In preparing for that never-to-be-written volume, Hamill and Sinatra spent many hours discussing the singer's long, successful career, and it is on those conversations that Hamill based the book-length essay that is Why Sinatra Matters.

Terry Teachout

A graceful reminiscence of Sinatra.
—New York Times Book Review

Christopher Lehmann-Haupt

If [Hamill] fails to make you feel the same amount of affection for Sinatra [as he does], he certainly conveys his hero's rough charm. . . .[And] his book does admirably convey why Sinatra's music has been so much a part of the lives of so many generations. . . .his music keeps floating, sustained by memory. — The New York Times

Megan Harlan

. . .[T]he most intimate and thoughtful eulogy for 'the Voice' yet. . . .leave[s] you wanting . . .to listen again to Sinatra's best songs.
—Entertainment Weekly

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Like a musical Elements of Style, Hamill's slim meditation on Frank Sinatra is confident, smart and seamless. Since (and immediately before) Sinatra's death in May 1998, countless tributes have been made to the singer; Hamill (A Drinking Life) seems to be writing to set the record straight, for he knew Sinatra and, before that, knew the singer's music. But Hamill doesn't fawn over Sinatra the way other, younger writers have recently done. Rather, he elegantly tells the Sinatra story, dwelling on the singer's best recordings, dismissing "the Rat Pack, the swagger, the arrogance, the growing fortune, the courtiers," because in the end, he writes, they are "of little relevance." What matters, according to Hamill, is the music, chiefly that of Sinatra's early mature years, when the singer released his celebrated albums on the Capitol label. Where a starry-eyed author might vaguely praise these albums for their pathos and vulnerability, Hamill points out that, before the singer's Capitol comeback years, Sinatra's fans were almost exclusively young women. The stubborn, post-Ava Gardner heartache of Sinatra's later records, however, with their lack of self-pity, gained Sinatra a chiefly male audience. Of this, perhaps the singer's greatest musical period, Hamill writes that Sinatra "perfected the role of the Tender Tough Guy.... Before him, that archetype did not exist in American popular culture." That may be true, but Hamill sets his book apart from the many others about Old Blue Eyes by tempering intelligent superlatives with the retelling of touching, revelatory moments the two men shared. Hamill's is a definitive introduction to Sinatra's work. (Oct.)

Library Journal

The barrage of recent Frank Sinatra books has resulted in his being the most written-about celebrity in the world after Monroe and Presley. Hamill's slim essay is distinguished from other recent works by its objective focus on the components of the late singer's enduring musical legacy. Veteran writer Hamill (e.g., A Drinking Life, LJ 1/94) is comfortable in the New York City milieu of late nights, saloons, and prizefighters, and he has captured the essence of Sinatra, who created something that was not there before he arrived: an urban American voice. The book's strength is its insight into and evocation of the Italian American immigrant experience that had such a strong influence on Sinatra. Minor weaknesses are an oversimplified examination of prejudice and an underdeveloped 1974 vignette about Ava Gardner that fails to make its point. Recommended for public and academic libraries.--Bruce Henson, Georgia Inst. of Technology, Atlanta

Kirkus Reviews

What a perfect match: the world's greatest 'saloon singer' eulogized superbly by the author of The Drinking Life. Hamill knew Sinatra, nearly co-authored the singer's autobiography, and in preparation for that never-to-be-written volume, the duo had many long conversations. But this slender volume, an essay really, is not the collection of revelations and self-justifications that a ghosted autobiography might have been. Rather, it's an unusually thoughtful contribution to the growing body of literature of appreciation of Sinatra as an artist, a supreme interpreter of the great American popular song. Hamill has a good journalist's finely tuned antenna for the Zeitgeist. In his recounting of Sinatra's career (the author limits himself tellingly to the rise to stardom, the disastrous fall in the early '50s and the comeback shortly after), Hamill's antennae get a useful workout. More than almost any other of Sinatra's critics, he understands the centrality of the immigrant experience (both Sinatra's parents were born in Italy), Prohibition, and the Second World War to Sinatra's career and his meaning as an icon. At the same time, Hamill is savvy enough to know what he doesn't know; like any good reporter, he relies on well-chosen expert testimony to fill in the blanks, here mostly in technical matters of music-making. And while Hamill is clearly not an entirely objective observer, a point he addresses with candor, this is anything but a bronzing. The essay touches on Sinatra's failings with frankness (no pun intended), and if the author dismisses the stories about Sinatra's Mob ties a little too quickly to satisfy some carpers, he does so with a deft intelligence that brings usback to the most important point: 'In the end only the work matters. Sinatra's finest work was making music.' Despite its brevity, Why Sinatra Matters belongs in any collection of important books on American popular music of the 20th Century.

From the Publisher

"The most intimate and thoughtful eulogy for 'the Voice'....It leaves you wanting to listen again to Sinatra's best songs."—Entertainment Weekly

"As succinct and laconically classy as its title."
—Adam Woog, Seattle Times

"Hamill's illuminations are considerable without ever stooping to facile psychologizing....He does a better job of placing Sinatra's saga in a social and political context than any of his biographers have....Why Sinatra Matters is most valuable in its explication of how Sinatra came to formulate a musical style that was a sound track to urban American life."
—Dan DeLuca, Philadelphia Inquirer

"A graceful reminiscence of Sinatra after hours serves as the frame for shrewd reflections on the singer's art, his personality, his audience, and—most interesting—his ethnicity, a subject about which Hamill, against all odds, contrives to say fresh and persuasive things."
—Terry Teachout, New York Times Book Review

"A brief but eloquent homage....Hamill succeeds—convincingly, with natty aplomb—in explaining why Sinatra, even now, matters."
—Tom Chaffin, LA Weekly

Product Details

BN ID:	2940170060153
Publisher:	Hachette Audio
Publication date:	10/20/2015
Edition description:	Unabridged

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