Why Sinatra Matters

Why Sinatra Matters

Author: Pete Hamill
Category: General
ISBN: 9780316347969
Format : Hardcover
Publisher : Xlibris Corp

  

Pete Hamill's evocation of Frank Sinatra begins in the archetypal Sinatra milieu of a New York City bar after midnight, rain outside, Sinatra and a few pals discussing sports and Hemingway. Within the space of a few paragraphs, Hamill manages to evoke the singer's greatness, intelligence, and humanity, and the respect and even awe he has always engendered among lesser mortals, as well as the gnawing melancholy in his soul. The fusion of Hamill's deft prose and Sinatra's almost mystical aura sustains a book that, more than mere biography, cuts to the core of the artist's meaning in both a musical and a human sense. Hamill's many years as a New York newspaperman combine with his personal experience of growing up with the Sinatra phenomenon to provide a visceral account of the singer's life and times, the effects he produced on fans and detractors alike, and the model he became for a certain kind of after-hours contemplation of the vagaries of life. WHY SINATRA MATTERS is a perceptive meditation on the spirit of an American icon, the city conjured by his greatest musical period, and the timeless community of the lovelorn, lost, and lonely whose hopes and dreams he came to represent.