July 20, 2007

Saloon song singer

I believe this is from Frank Sinatra's 1973 comeback special, Magnavox Presents Frank Sinatra (a.k.a. Frank Sinatra: Ol' Blue Eyes Is Back):


It's a nice medley of some of the saloon songs he'd recorded. The medley consists of:

  • "Last Night When We Were Young" - its verses are used as a musical link between the other two songs in the medley (recorded in 1954 for In the Wee Small Hours, then again in 1965 for September of My Years)
  • "Violets for Your Furs" (recorded in 1941 with Tommy Dorsey's big band and in 1953 on Songs for Young Lovers)
  • "Here's That Rainy Day" - it was used as the musical link holding together another saloon song medley from another TV special, 1968's Francis Albert Sinatra Does His Thing (it was done on the No One Cares album in 1959)

    Sinatra must have been happy with the medley as arranged, because he repeated it for an April 1974 performance at Carnegie Hall.

    The saloon song medley was a mainstay of the numerous television specials Sinatra did during his long career. Typically the medley was performed on a set, this one appropriately being a saloon. What's up with the plate of sandwiches and the bowl full of eggs on the bar?? I was a little distracted by that - I mean, there's Sinatra pouring himself into the medley, the camera angle changes, and we're peaking at the singer over a stack of sandwiches and a bowl of two dozen eggs.
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