Frank Sinatra
My Way/Live at the Meadowlands
Rating: 2.5/3.0
Label: Concord Records
For younger generations, Francis Albert Sinatra exists much more as a legend, myth and persona than as a singer and performer. An informal polling of friends elicited the following responses: ring-a-ding ding, Rat Pack, womanizing, drinking, Ava Gardner, mob ties, Kennedy, From Here to Eternity, Vegas, Phil Hartman's impression. Those who did mention his songs mentioned the later hits, like "My Way" or "Strangers in the Night."
It's easy to lose Sinatra in the myth or to see him as a relic of a vanished, cocktail-soaked era. To do so overlooks his great work in the 1950s, particularly on albums like In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning, a thematically unified album at a time when most pop LPs were hastily assembled collections of singles and filler. Still, Sinatra's greatest strength - that extraordinary voice - was also his pitfall, as it was too easy for him to just coast on. This is evident throughout Concord Records' reissued versions of 1969's My Way and Live at the Meadowlands, taken from a 1986 concert.
Though Sinatra was famously anti-rock and never felt the need to cater to youth culture - unless you count marrying Mia Farrow - My Way contains some concessions to prevailing trends, with ill-advised covers of songs by the Beatles, Simon & Garfunkel, Ray Charles and Jacques Brel. The semi-autobiographical title track, co-written by Paul Anka and later desecrated by Sid Vicious, may have become Sinatra's signature song, but it's hardly his best. The music is somewhat bombastic and Sinatra comes across as unpleasantly arrogant: "And may I say - not in a shy way/ No, oh not me/ I did it my way." Then again, he didn't get to the top by being humble. Then again, he does follow this blast of old school egotism with a song called "A Day in the Life of a Fool."
Sinatra's take on "Yesterday" is sappier than the original and he drains much of the exuberance and bounce out of "For Once in My Life," made famous by Stevie Wonder. Then there's "Mrs. Robinson." It's a pure cheeseball performance, with Sinatra sounding like a sloshed lounge singer who can't quite remember the words. For some reason, he messes with the lyrics, dropping the references to Joe DiMaggio and Jesus (Jilly now loves her more than she will know) and adding excruciating lines like "How's your bird Mrs. Robinson?" The paltry extras include just two bonus tracks.
There's nothing surprising about the Meadowlands show, but Sinatra, even if he was past his prime, remains a consummate showman and he's enthusiastic and genial for the warm home state crowd. Backed by a tight, swinging band, he sounds great, but the set list is somewhat erratic, favoring obvious songs ("New York, New York") over his best. The slower, more subtle performances, while perhaps out of place at a huge sports arena, are the better ones, such as the Gershwins' "Someone to Watch Over Me," one of the loveliest songs ever written.
Sinatra's impressive body of work includes almost 60 studio albums and nearly 300 singles. Though these reissues are occasionally entertaining, neither are an essential part of that body of work and are clearly not intended for a new audience.
by Lukas Sherman