Frank Sinatra, The #39 Artist of the Rock Era, Part Five

 

(Continued from Part Four)

 

In 1965, Frank released another great album, September of My Years, which captured Album of the Year at the Grammy Awards and also earned Sinatra another award for Best Vocal Performance, Male for "It Was A Very Good Year", which went to #1 on the Adult chart.  Sinatra also received a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.

 Frank released the compilation Sinatra '65:  The Singer Today, which contained "My Kind Of Town",  a song included in the movie Robin and the 7 Hoods.  It was nominated for Best Original Song at the Academy Awards.

He also released the album My Kind of Broadway.  Sinatra also found time to star in the movie Von Ryan's Express and directed None but the Brave.  

Sinatra released the double compilation A Man and His Music, which sold over one million copies and won Album of the Year at the Grammy Awards in 1966.

 

The single "Strangers In The Night" from the album of the same name dominated the Adult chart for seven weeks and also went to #1 overall.  "Strangers In The Night" won Record of the Year and Best Vocal Performance, Male at the Grammy Awards.

  
 "Summer Wind" kept up the momentum by also going to #1 on the EL chart.  It's a story about a summer love that is now gone but wistfully remembered by the crooning Sinatra.  We can almost feel the breeze blow when he sings it.

 

One of Frank's biggest hits, "That's Life", also topped the Easy Listening chart for three weeks.  Despite life's ups and downs, one should keep trying for soon they will be "back on top".  It is the title track from his Gold album released late in 1966.

Sinatra first heard O.C. Smith's version in 1965.  He stopped the car, called his daughter Nancy and asked her to find out who the publisher of the song was.  She did, and Frank first performed it on his television special A Man and His Music - Part II in 1966, with the arrangement from Nelson Riddle.

Sinatra won an Emmy Award for his TV special.  Frank released the live album Sinatra at the Sands, recorded at the Sand Hotel and casino in Las Vegas with Count Basie.

In 1967, he returned with the collaborative albums Francis Albert Sinatra & Antonio Carlos Jobim and Francis A. & Edward K., the latter recorded with Duke Ellington.  The former, one of the best-selling albums of the year, was nominated for Album of the Year and Best Vocal Performance, Male at the Grammy Awards.  In between those two collaborations, Sinatra released the album The World We Knew.

 Sinatra sang a duet with daughter Nancy which went to #1 for four weeks on the Popular chart and led the way on the Adult chart for nine weeks.  "Somethin' Stupid" was nominated for Record of the Year at the Grammy Awards and sold over one million copies.  

 Sinatra made it five Adult #1's in a row with "The World We Knew (Over And Over)".

Sinatra continued his work on the big screen in the movie Tony Rome in 1967 and its sequel Lady in Cement as well as the 1968 movie The Detective.

 

  

In 1968, Sinatra released the album Cycles, followed by the 1969 album My Way.  The title song from Cycles reached #2 for three weeks on the Adult chart.

"My Way Of Life" reached #3 among adults.

 

Paul Anka wrote "My Way" for Sinatra, which became one of Frank's signature songs.  It rose to #2 for three weeks on the Adult chart and was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Vocal Performance, Male.   

 Frank recorded "Didn't We" for the album, written by Jimmy Webb.

Frank Sinatra's Greatest Hits, released in 1968, sold over two million copies.

Later in the year, Sinatra released the album A Man Alone.  In 1970, Sinatra starred in the western Dirty Dingus Magee. 

In 1970, Frank released the album Watertown and recorded another album with Jobim called Sinatra & Company in 1971.

Sinatra announced his retirement in 1971, but returned two years later for the album 'Ol Blue Eyes Is Back.  Meanwhile, Frank Sinatra's Greatest Hits, Vol. 2 went Platinum.  A television special, Magnavox Presents Frank Sinatra, featured Frank with actor Gene Kelly.  

The next year, Frank released the album Some Nice Things I've Missed.  Missing the live audiences, Sinatra also began performing again at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, and went on a worldwide tour of the United States, Europe, the Far East and Australia.

In 1975, Sinatra performed with Count Basie and Ella Fitzgerald in concerts in New York City and with Basie and Sarah Vaughan at the London Palladium, giving 140 performances in 105 days.  He appeared with John Denver in Lake Tahoe, Nevada.  On Labor Day, 1976, Sinatra organized a reunion of comedy partners Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis for the first time in almost 20 years for the "Jerry Lewis MDA Telethon".

The Friars Club honored Sinatra as the Top Box Office Name of the Century, and Sinatra received an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters from the University of Nevada.

In 1977, Sinatra performed before Princess Margaret at the Royal Albert Hall in London in a charity concert.  In 1979, Frank received the Grammy Trustees Award while celebrating 40 years in show business.  Also that year, former U.S. President Gerald Ford presented Sinatra with the International Man of the Year Award.

Sinatra released the album Trilogy:  Past Present Future in 1980.  One of the songs Sinatra became best known for was "Theme From New York, New York", #10 on the Adult Contemporary chart and #32 overall.

 

The album went Gold and received Grammy Award nominations for Record of the Year and Best Pop Vocal Performance, Male (for "Theme from New York, New York") and Album of the Year.   Carole Bayer Sager and Peter Allen wrote this one that Frank included in the compilation--"You And Me (We Wanted It All)".

Frank's last major motion picture was The Last Deadly Sin. 

The next year, Frank released the album She Shot Me Down and the LP L.A. Is My Lady in 1984.  In 1982, Sinatra inked a $16 million three-year contract with the Golden Nugget in Las Vegas.  He performed at the White House for the Italian Prime Minister and joined Luciano Pavarotti and George Shearing at Radio City Music Hall in New York City.

In 1983, Sinatra received the Kennedy Center Honors.  U.S. President Ronald Reagan sad that "art was the shadow of humanity, and Sinatra had spent his life casting a magnificent and powerful shadow."

Sinatra received an Honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts from Loyola Marymount University in 1984 and an Honorary Doctorate of Engineering from the Stevens Institute of Technology in 1985.

In 1986, Sinatra collapsed while performing on stage in Atlantic City, New Jersey and was hospitalized with diverticulitis.  Two years later, Sinatra, Dean Martin and Sammy Davis, Jr. performed in several large arenas billed as the Rat Pack Reunion Tour.

He released two final studio albums of duets and toured regularly in the 1990's.  The album Duets in 1993 became his best-selling album and was nominated for Best Traditional Pop Vocal Performance at the Grammy Awards.  Sinatra also received the Legend award at the Grammys.  Duets II was released the following year, earning Frank another Grammy Award for Best Traditional Pop Vocal Performance.

In 1994, Frank received the Legend Award at the Grammy Awards.  Sinatra continued to tour the United States and around the world until his final concerts at the Fukuoka Dome in Japan on December 19-20 in 1994.  

In 1995, the Empire State Building in New York City was lit in blue to honor Frank's 80th birthday.  

On May 14, 1998, Sinatra died after a heart attack at the age of 82.  The night after his death, lights on the Empire State Building were once again turned blue in his honor.  Lights on the Las Vegas Strip were dimmed and the casinos stopped for a full minute.

Sinatra has three stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for his success in movies, music and television.  In Frank's native city of Hoboken in New Jersey, Frank Sinatra Park, the Hoboken Post Office and a residence hall at Montclair State University were named in his honor.  The Frank Sinatra School of the Arts in Queens, New York and the USC School of Cinematic Arts in Los Angeles and a road near the Las Vegas Strip were named for him.  The United States Postal Service issued a postage stamp in honor of Sinatra in 2008 to commemorate the 10th anniversary of his death.

Some people might think a guy like Sinatra peaked in the '40's before the Rock Era began.  But a star of Frank's magnitude doesn't just go away, and he continued to enjoy tremendous success with his loyal followers--after Elvis, after the Beatles, and into the '80s.  Sinatra accumulated 68 hits after the Rock Era began to go along with his many hits (over 125) prior to 1955.  Nine of those hits reached the Top 10 on the Popular chart, dominated by teenagers, and he posted three #1's.   Sinatra scored 48 Adult hits from 1955-1984, with 20 of those reaching the Top 10 and six #1's.

According to the newspaper The Las Vegas Sun, Sinatra has sold over 150 million albums.

Sinatra won three Academy Awards from four nominations and four Golden Globe Awards out of five nominations, including the Cecil B. DeMille Award, for his acting ability.  Three of his six songs nominated for Best Original Song at the Academy Awards won the Oscar.  Frank won 11 Grammy Awards out of 32 nominations.