Bostworld

Blogging is more often than not about social networking, breast beating and sharing criminally neglected tips and tricks. But sometimes it’s about people helping people. Take the case of my friend who runs the (Unofficial) Frank Sinatra Jr. Website. After an obscure dispute with members of a certain celebrity family, my friend’s site was suddenly buried in the Google rankings. The odd thing is, his site used to be the first thing to come up when one did a search for “Frank Sinatra Jr.” Now the official Sinatra Family site is number one, and my friend’s is nowhere to be found.

Well, I have a little notoriety of my own to squander, and recently I’ve noticed that it doesn’t matter what sort of crap I blog about; it eventually shows up pretty high in the rankings. So I’m hoping to kill two birds with one stone: helping a friend regain his hit count and paying tribute to a great entertainer at the same time.

Of course, with a site like the (Unofficial) Frank Sinatra Jr. Website at the ready for all your FSJ info needs, you hardly need me to rehash the pertinents. So with no further ado, I present what is perhaps Mr. Junior’s greatest effort, his 1971 album, “Spice.”

This album came at a high point in Frankie’s career. After spending most of the sixties making non-stop personal appearances, his efforts were finally paying off. By decade’s end, he had a recording contract with RCA records and had netted a hosting slot on the television program “Dean Martin Presents The Golddiggers,” as well as his own special, “Frank Sinatra Jr. With Friends And Family.”

Never a fan of rock, Frankie nevertheless had one foot in the contemporary popular music scene and one foot in the world of the big bands. “Spice” and it’s follow-up, 1972’s “His Way,” both show off his dual passions. Hits of the day like “Everybody’s Talking,” and “We’ve Only Just Begun” rub shoulders seamlessly with updated standards like “Fun To be Fooled” and “Our Love is Here To Stay.” FSJ turns in a wistful performance of the Free Design’s “Tomorrow Is The First Day Of The Rest Of My Life,” while the album’s classic closing track, “Indiscrete” is a rousing tribute to the lounge singing Rat Pack culture that comprised his roots.

Despite the wealth of material on the album, its true high points are two tracks penned by Sinatra himself. “Spice” and “Black Night” represent the yin and the yang of the Junior sensibility — the one is upbeat, carefree and gay, while the other broods with hopelessness and regret. Taken together, they offer a shallow yet complete view of the bubblegum-jazz vision of the Sinatra clan’s thinking member.

“Spice” is an album from an artist who has truly come of age. We haven’t heard the last of Frank Sinatra Jr. I think we can expect great things from this young man.


Add this fabulous album to your collection today

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