​James S. Hirsch opened his Washington Post review of Glenn Frankel’s book Shooting Midnight Cowboy[1] with the following:
​

​After reading the above, you could easily conclude that Midnight Cowboy was a happy movie accident. Indeed, it was. But what about “Everybody’s Talkin’,” the memorable Grammy-winning theme song not mentioned in Hirsch’s review? Did it come about in an improbable fashion like everything else in the movie? Was “Talkin’” a happy musical accident? Read on.

Director Schlesinger liked to edit his film dailies to music. From a pile of new albums, he selected Aerial Ballet by obscure LA singer-songwriter Harry Nilsson. One song, “Everybody’s Talkin’,” caught Schlesinger’s ear. An ideal track, he thought, to guide and pace his edits.
​

“Talkin’” was the only cut on the album that hadn’t been written by Nilsson. The song had been authored by yet another obscure singer-songwriter and recorded for his self-named album Fred Neil, interestingly, the last song recorded for the album.[3] This fact foretold a glorious future for the song, albeit unknown to everyone at the time and quite frankly to many even today.

​Turns out, more often than not, the last-recorded track is usually the album’s biggest hit. Think not? Check out these chart-topping caboose hits:

Coleman Hawkins “Body and Soul”
Frank Sinatra “I’ve Got You Under My Skin”
Deep Purple “Smoke on the Water”
Jerome Kern “Smoke Gets In Your Eyes”
Booker T. and the M. G. “Green Onions”
Rupert Homes “The Pina Colada Song”
John Lee Hooker “Boogie Chillun”
Bill Haley and the Comets “Rock Around the Clock”
Emerson, Lake, and Palmer “Lucky Man”

In the fall of 1969, “Talkin’” came to Nilsson’s attention from his recording producer at RCA, Rick Jarrard, who had heard it on his car radio while driving to the studio. Rick quickly purchased the Fred Neil album and played it for Harry, who gave it a thumbs-down; he wasn’t about to add someone else’s work to his Aerial Ballet album. Jarrard doubled down and argued vigorously for its inclusion. Harry finally capitulated, as a favor to his record producer.[4]

As a matter of interest, “Talkin’” was not the first song heard on the radio by a producer that eventually worked its way into a film and subsequent widespread fame. Say hello to “What a Wonderful World” and “Unchained Melody.”[5]

Moreover, talk about serendipity or synchronicity—this very same record producer, Rick Jarrard, working with Jefferson Airplane on their Surrealistic Pillow album, convinced reluctant guitarist Jorma Kaukonen to include his finger-picking acoustic solo “Embryonic Journey” on Airplane’s psychedelic-rock Surrealistic Pillow album. Jorma’s folky “Journey” would be as much a fan favorite as the group’s well-known surreal hits “Someone to Love” and “White Rabbit.” 

​“Talkin’” was not a shoe-in to be the picture’s theme song, despite Schlesinger’s intentions. Top-flight artists—Joni Mitchell, Leonard Cohen, Donavan, Bob Dylan—had submitted songs for consideration. Schlesinger stuck by his daily editing song. United Artist objected. They wanted an original song, one they could own and copyright, release as a single, and on the film soundtrack album. Harry Nilsson wanted UA to use a song of his, not one by Fred Neil! Still, the director tenaciously clung to his choice as the main theme and introduction to the film.

As for United Artists, the matter was finally resolved when producer Hellman and Director Schlesinger showed the nearly finished film to UA executives. Hearing the music as an integral part of the movie did the trick. Ownership rights be damned, what’s perfect is perfect.[6]

As for the question asked at the outset, “Talkin’” is indeed a happy musical accident, despite director Schlesinger’s unwavering devotion to the rightness of his choice, fighting off all attempts to replace it with something else.

The song came to him in an accidental fashion. An aide brought him a stack of new albums for him to use in his film-editing process. He selected Aerial Ballet at random and became enamored with its last track. He loved the sweetness of the melody and the wistful rebellious spirit of the lyrics that perfectly aligned with the Joe Buck character played by Jon Voight.

Imagine if he had selected any other 1967 release, like Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band or the Monkees' Headquarters or the Grateful Dead or the Moody Blues or Procol Harum or the Who?

Hard to imagine anything better than Aerial Ballet’s last track. When contemplating this, keep in mind that in 2004, “Everybody’s Talkin’” was listed number 20 in AFI’s top 100 movie songs of all time!

1. ​​Glenn Frankel, Shooting Midnight Cowboy: Art, Sex, Loneliness, Liberation, and the Making of a Dark Classic (New York: Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 2021).
2. James S. Hirsch, “‘Midnight Cowboy’ Was a Masterpiece Made of Desperation,” Washington Post, Sunday, April 4, 2021.
3. Frankel, Shooting Midnight Cowboy, 246–48.
4. Frankel, Shooting Midnight Cowboy, 249.
5. Edward Allan Faine, Serendipity Doo-Dah: True Stories of Happy Musical Accidents, Book One (Takoma Park, MD: IM Press, 2017), 107; Ray Padgett, Cover Me: The Stories Behind the Greatest Songs of All Time (New York: Sterling, 2007), 42–43.
6. Frankel, Shooting Midnight Cowboy, 250–51.

​As we learned in part 1 of this blog, director Francis Ford Coppola put the score for the Heart musical in Tom Waits’s hands. The “beyond” singer-songwriter then tapped former collaborator Bones Howe, and together they assembled an all-star cast of Hollywood musicians, mostly jazz guys, notably trumpeter Jack Sheldon, tenor saxophonist Teddy Edwards, and drummer Shelley Manne. 

None of the film’s stars—Terry Garr and Frederick Forrest, who play uncertain lovers Frannie and Hank, or Nastassja Kinski and Raul Julia, who play their prospective lures—sing. Instead, like a Greek chorus of sorts, Waits voices Hank (as does trumpeter Sheldon) and surprising choice Crystal Gayle voices Frannie (tenor sax man Edwards does as well, instrumentally). 

Here are the songs, start to finish.

“Opening Montage: Once upon a Town/The Wages of Love”
After a piano intro, Crystal and Tom trade vocal statements on the establishing “Once upon a Town.” They harmonize the closing line, and against expectations, their sweet-and-sour, honey-and-sandpaper voices blend perfectly. Arranger/conductor Alcivar had taken advantage of his Hollywood budget to hire more musicians (than he would have on a typical Waits project) to create a Nelson Riddle–like lush string ambient to surround the singers. 

Tom and Crystal pair again with this advice—“Don’t Spend Your Wages on Love”—backed by a big swing band (orchestrated by Alcivar) that features a driving sax solo by Teddy Edwards. This contrasting medley of Gayle/Waits duets sets the film’s story in motion.

“Is There Any Way out of This Dream?”
Next up, a lovely waltz, a song form Waits had used several times before. This infectious jazz quartet waltz features great brushwork by drummer Manne. Crystal reflects upon the ways in which Frannie’s life has fallen short of expectations and captures the vague discontent that suffuses the film. “Summer is draping its feet / I feel so incomplete / Is there any way out of this dream?”  

​“Picking Up After You” 
​Waits biographer Jacobs succinctly stated:
​

As the love combatants express their growing disdain for each other, trumpeter Sheldon pokes musical fun–a trumpet growl here, a mocking wah wah there—before both singers triumphantly conclude: “Someone I’ll Pick Up After You.”

“Old Boyfriends” 
This lament, piercingly sung by Crystal, and backed by good electric guitar work by Dennis Budimer with bass and drums, makes romantic disappointment palpable. Waits originally wrote it for himself, but sung by a woman, it takes on more power. “In a drawer where I keep my old boyfriends.”

“Broken Bicycles”
Tom, backed only by piano and drums, reminisces about the discarded accoutrements of youth, asking, “Somebody must have an orphanage for all these things nobody wants anymore,” like broken hearts and busted relationships. Tom has said that Coppola shot a separate scene with despondent Hank in the junkyard. They tried “Bicycles” against the scene, and it worked and stayed in the film. Sounds of chirping crickets and a distant train whistle enhance the song’s nostalgic pull. 

“I Beg Your Pardon”
Tom’s lovers’ plea for forgiveness and reconciliation is set in an expanded combo with vibes and harp, on top of an orchestral string cushion. “I’ll give you Boardwalk and Park Place and all of my hotels.” This time the horns are allocated significant solo space, and Sheldon and Edwards admirably exploit the resource.

Both solos are gems, with Teddy effectively using his tenor’s high register to sound alto-like. The horn men improvise simultaneous phrases as the song fade.

“Little Boy Blue”
The spell of sadness is broken by a medium up-tempo jazz romp, organ by Ronnie Barron, finger snapping by someone, as Waits (as Hank’s conscious) prods the moping Hank to get off his ass and get out in the world. Accept it. She’s gone. 

“Instrumental Montage: The Tango/Circus Girl”
Thrilled at the opportunity to do a tango, Waits (or his piano sub Pete Jolly) pounds out some heavy, weird Elton John chords on piano, drummer Larry Bunker kicks the hesitant Latin rhythm as Gene Cipriano on tenor sax raucously boils away in dramatic Argentine fashion. A good time was had by all.

The tango fades off into what can only be described as a circus oom-pah band complete with accordion, harmonica, brass, and reeds. If Coppola wanted a break from the film’s sustained plaintive mood, he certainly got it.

“You Can’t Unring a Bell”
This spoken- word chant, with grunts and throaty laughs, over a walking bass and wildly played tympani by Victor Feldman, reminds one of Tom’s earlier word jazz raps. Yet, in retrospect, this might be Tom’s first step into the percussive, odd instrument realm of his second period. Surprisingly, it comes smack dab in the middle of the most sentimental music he has ever recorded.

“This One’s from the Heart”
This one’s simply gorgeous. Tom and Crystal muse on the splendor and the suffering the character’s relationship encompasses; they know that without each other, life is mundane and colorless and needs to be tempered with the occasional stiff drink.

​Sheldon’s trumpet shadows Tom’s vocal offerings while Teddy’s sax accompanies Crystal’s. Sheldon’s insinuating trumpet reminds one of Harry “Sweets “ Edison, whose Harmon-muted trumpet commentary was so prevalent on classic Sinatra records. Producer Howe remembered:

Howe had it absolutely right. “This One’s from the Heart” was recorded at the last session along with the score’s other centerpiece “Picking Up After You.”  

“Take Me Home” 
​During that final session, Waits recalled: 
​

The song is a gentle call for reconciliation, an acknowledgment that no one is perfect and that only through the eyes of love do our flaws become invisible. Coppola got more than he bargained for. Backed sparingly by Waits’s piano, Crystal movingly sings, “Take me home, you silly boy / Put your arms around me / I’m so sorry that I broke your heart.” 
 
“Presents”
This is a pretty little thing, a coda of sorts, an instrumental paraphrase of “Take Me Home” that features celeste, glockenspiel, harp and bass, only a minute long. The musical story has come full circle.

Despite its considerable charm, Heart was unable to overcome its wafer-thin story and less-than-magnetic appeal of its male leads, sinking at the box office and taking Coppola’s American Zoetrope studio with it. While the film itself was almost universally panned, few had a bad word to say about the soundtrack. An Oscar nomination in 1982 proved the point, but Waits’s score lost out to that year’s box office sensation Victor/Victoria. 

The soundtrack LP was released in 1982 (over Tom’s objection that it was too “commercial Hollywood”) as Tom Waits and Crystal Gayle Sing Music from One from the Heart (Sony), and on CD in 1989, neither release causing much excitement. Finally, in conjunction with a new DVD release of the movie in 2004, the soundtrack was returned to the stores, complete with a couple of never-released bonus tracks.  

The ultimate tribute to the score is the number of times Heart’s songs have been recorded by others. As of 2019, “Broken Bicycles” had been covered nine times; “Take Me Home,” six; “Little Boy Blue,” four; “Is There Anyway out of This Dream?” and “Old Boyfriends,” each twice; and “I Beg Your Pardon,” You Can’t Unring a Bell,” and “This One’s from the Heart,” once.

​Listen to the new CD/DVD, and maybe you’ll agree that nobody can write a more heartbreaking ballad than Tom Waits.

1. Jay S. Jacobs, Wild Years: The Music and Myth of Tom Waits (Toronto: ECW Press, 2006), 107.
2. Ibid., 108.
3. Ibid., 109.​​​
   

Tom Waits is an American trans-genre original, a category unto himself, neither pop folk nor alternative contemporary nor rock (although he has won Grammys in all three). Maybe he’s jazz. The arc of his career suggests as much—always experimenting. DownBeat magazine deposits him in the beyond category—that sounds about right.

The voice alone is beyond category and, despite best efforts by journalists over the years, beyond accurate description. It has been variously characterized as a scabrous rasp, garbage crusher, low growl (like Satchmo without the joy), smashed foghorn, bullfrog croak, hungover whisper, hemorrhage, cross between a mellifluous baritone and a heavy equipment breakdown, and born old smoking. 

Waits himself has said, “My voice is still a barking dog at best.”

As his fans know only too well, Waits career comes in two parts: the early years (the “complacent years,” as Tom has called them) through 1982 and everything thereafter (the “adventurous years”). No one would disagree with Tom here. Critics have called this later music disembodied ham-radio, savage-yard symphonies, lunatic cabaret, taxonomically confounding vaudeville, and stone-age blues. 

But the early years—the years when we first got to know him—were anything but complacent. Sorry, Tom, but many of your fans respectfully disagree. Except for the first album, Closing Time (Elektra, 1973), the music from this period is a mélange of jazz, heart-throbbing ballads, and neo-beat poetry. 

As the New Yorker magazine said in 1976, his soulful serenades reflected a Kerouac/Bukowski–like landscape

Almost all of his songs relied on pretty melodies, and some were unabashedly romantic. Go back and listen to his early albums, The Heart of Saturday Night (Elektra, 1974) through to Heartattack and Vine (Asylum, 1982). There are one or two love songs on each and every one—songs that wife Kathleen Brennan would call grand weepers (as opposed to grim reapers, the flip side of the Waits coin). 

One from the Heart corked the early-period bottle in 1982. This movie and soundtrack album, like no other in the Waits oeuvre, illuminates the romantic facet of the Waits diamond. Tom got a huge assist from two unlikely sources—film director Francis Ford Coppola and the serendipitous, genre-busting addition of country singer Crystal Gayle, who, with her pure country voice, limned Waits melodies better than he could himself and, in duets with Tom, wedded that tear in her throat with the gravel in his.  

In the spring of 1980, Waits learned that director Coppola, who had just released Apocalypse Now, wanted him to score his latest film, a romantic trifle about Hank (Frederick Forrest) and Frannie (Terri Garr), a couple whose relationship had soured. They drift apart and wind up in the arms of exotic new partners (played by Nastassja Kinski and Raul Julia), but of course get back together again. 

This lover’s tango is set against the glowing backdrop of a Las Vegas Strip that Coppola had constructed on a studio soundstage at a horrendous cost (the same studio where Michael Powell had shot his fantasy The Thief of Baghdad—Coppola’s favorite film—40 years before). Francis did not conceive of Heart as a traditional Hollywood musical; none of the stars would actually sing. 

He wanted a kind of running lyrical explanation to move the story forward. Waits would write songs that expressed the inner feelings of the characters; Tom would sing Hank and (initially) Bette Midler would sing Frannie. It was Waits’s duet with Midler on Foreign Affairs (Elektra, 1977) that inspired Coppola’s vision: a lounge operetta with piano, bass, drums, strings, jazz horns, and vocal commentary.

Waits had contributed songs to films before, Stallone’s Paradise Alley and Altman’s A Wedding among them, but Heart was an offer he couldn’t refuse. Coppola had put the entire score in his hands and told him: “Anything you write that deals with the subjects of love, romance, jealousy, breakups can find its way into the film.”

​Waits elaborated:

Waits first enlisted long-term collaborator Bones Howe, who had produced and managed sound on his first six albums. Together they assembled an all-star cast of Hollywood musicians, mostly jazz guys they had worked with before—notably, trumpeter Jack Sheldon, tenor saxophonist Teddy Edwards, and drummer Shelley Manne. 

Today “legendary” often appears before Sheldon’s name; due in part to his prominent long-running gig on the Merv Griffith Show and his own network TV show, Run Buddy Run. But it is his signature trumpet sound—lyrical, mid-range, striving—that has brought him accolades. His playing is sometimes mistaken for the early-career, romantic excursions of trumpeter Miles Davis. 

Teddy Edwards, a saxophonist in the mold of Dexter Gordon (but mellower) simply got better as he got older, and was playing at his peak at the time of the Waits recording. 

Widely admired for his crisp, precise sound and his ability to create a colorful tonal palette from his drum kit, Shelly Manne was a favorite of Waits, particularly for his drum work behind Peggy Lee on “Fever.” Manne played drums on two previous Waits albums, and their collaboration on “Pasties and a G-String” and “Barber Shop” are word-jazz classics. 

Jazz pianist/vibist Victor Feldman and organist Ronnie Barron, who had appeared on Waits most recent album, came along for the ride, as did Waits newcomers—jazzmen all—vibraphonist Emil Richards, drummer Larry Bunker, and pianist Pete Jolly, who would man the piano chair so Tom could concentrate on his singing. Lastly, as he did on two recent Waits albums, Bob Alcivar arranged and conducted the string orchestra.    

But Heart’s female voice proved to be elusive. Midler wasn’t available. Then God intervened. Kathleen Brennan (who later became Waits's wife) suggested country singer Crystal Gayle, the younger sister of Nashville legend Loretta Lynn. Crystal had 10 albums to her credit and had broken out nationally with her crossover mega hit in 1978: “Don’t It Make My Brown Eyes Blue” (eventually, astonishingly, one of the 10 most performed songs of the 20th century).

Her voice was undeniably sumptuous (but soulless some said) and seemingly at odds with Waits's grizzled growl and the urban squalor of his whiskey-soaked compositions. 

This didn’t faze Kathleen. She’d recently heard Crystal’s rendition of the Julie London standard “Cry Me a River” off her 1978 release When I Dream (United Artists Records) and was impressed with the strength and purity of the young singer’s voice. 

Check out next month’s blog—part 2—for a list of Waits’s 12 songs in this most underappreciated movie soundtrack, along with the reasons for the film’s disappointing failure at the box office.
​

1. James Stevenson, “Blues,” The New Yorker, December 27, 1976, anthologized in Mac Montandon, Innocent When You Dream: The Tom Waits Reader (New York: Thunder’s Mouth Press, 2005), 20.
2. Jay S. Jacobs, Wild Years: The Music and Myth of Tom Waits (Toronto: ECW Press, 2006), 105.
   
   

​In my book The Best Gig in Town, I chronicled the long road that Frank Sinatra traveled to land his best gig at the White House for President Nixon in 1973. As his first step, Sinatra changed his national politics from Democrat to Republican. No easy task since he was deeply embedded with John F. Kennedy’s campaign for the presidency, as indicated by the following excerpt:
​

And now, thanks to a recently released documentary, JFK: The Lost Inaugural Gala, we have visual confirmation of “the most stunning assembly of theatrical talent ever.” [2] The Gala was held at the old Armory in Washington, DC, on the eve—one could say the day—of the inauguration because it ended at 1:30 in the morning.

NBC filmed the extravaganza for future broadcast but Mother Nature had her say, blanketing the nation’s capital with a massive snowstorm that limited rehearsal time and the performers’ ability to return to their hotels for evening wear.
​
​NBC deemed the resultant film not ready for prime time TV—that is, until 2017, when the “lost” gala was “found” at the JFK Presidential Library, restored, and broadcast on PBS stations around the country, appropriately on the 100th anniversary of John F. Kennedy’s birth.​

In retrospect, NBC brass made a big mistake. The armory setting, the informal staging, the “let’s put on a show” ambience lent a relaxed charm to the whole affair that it would not otherwise have had, eliciting quality performances from nearly everyone.

Frank Sinatra kicked off the show with a buoyant “You Make Me Feel So Young,” the Myers/Gordon song that was his standard concert opener at the time. After a hesitant start, and once synched in with the Nelson Riddle Orchestra, he teased and twisted his vocal line to a swinging climax.

Atop a splendid arrangement from long-term collaborator Nelson Riddle, “the first lady of song” Ella Fitzgerald followed with a finger-snapping version of “Give Me the Simple Life.” Whether she was aware of it or not, she shared the same birth year as the president-elect.

Another long-term Riddle collaborator, Nat King Cole took center stage to offer an up-tempo version of “Surrey with the Fringe on Top” from the Broadway hit show and then recent movie Oklahoma by Rodgers and Hammerstein.

Next up snippets of topical humor from era comics Milton Berle, Joey Bishop, Alan King, Bill Dana, and a somewhat out-of-place Leonard Bernstein.

Ethel Merman walked on wearing a plaid coat (she didn’t have a chance to dress for the show because of the storm) and, in her distinctive powerful voice, belted out “Everything’s Coming Up Roses” from the Jule Styne and Frank Loesser Broadway smash Gypsy (closed for the night so she could sing for the president-elect.)

And if you are thinking that producer Sinatra’s show sounded like a 1950s TV variety show, you’d be right. For the next skit, the designated producer had his favorite composer team Jimmy van Huesen and Sammy Cahn write parody lyrics to popular songs all related to different aspects of the president-elect and wife Jackie, who were both in attendance.

The Frank Sinatra-Milton Berle duo started off the parody song medley, then in quick order Alan King, Gene Kelly, Nat King Cole, Joey Bishop, Harry Belafonte, Sinatra again (“Old Jack Magic” to the tune of “Old Black Magic”), and Ella Fitzgerald.

Dancer Gene Kelly took the stage for an impressionistic Irish jig in honor of the Kennedy family heritage, his lengthy, athletic performance dispelling all doubts about Kelly being one of the better, if not the best show dancer of the era.

Next up, Harry Belafonte singing “When the Saints Go Marching In”—a somewhat surprising choice, most definitely not a showcase for his talents.

Sinatra returned with “That’s America to Me,” a patriotic anthem originally titled “The House I Live In,” in which he sang in an award-winning film of the same name back in 1945. The “House” is a metaphor for the country, and the lyrics written by Abe Meeropol, are a plea for racial and ethnic tolerance.

Nat King Cole took another bow, singing an absolutely gorgeous version of Hoagland Carmichaels’s “Stardust,” a song he had recorded many times, including with Nelson Riddle, but none likely better than here.

Jimmy Durante in his inimitable talk-sing rendered a touching version of Weill and Anderson’s “September Song,” before opera star Helen Trauble closed the entertainment portion of the show with the patriotic warhorse “Battle Hymn of the Republic.”

The documentary weaves the gala performances around memorable filmed events in JFK’s life and career: family football games, sailing junkets, Jackie marriage, Democratic convention and presidential campaign, and inaugural speech—a way, after all, to place the inaugural eve festivities in context and to celebrate the centennial birthday of John F. Kennedy.

But it is the film’s star performances—Gene Kelly’s outstanding dance routine, Fitzgerald’s, Sinatra’s, Merman’s and especially King Cole’s singing of classic songs of the era—that linger. 

Coda
​As mentioned in the May, 2017, blog, some 12 years later, after his conversion from Democrat to Republican, Sinatra again performed for a president, this time Richard Milhous Nixon at a State Dinner for Prime Minister Andreotti of Italy on April 17, 1973. After the banquet, in the East Room, Ol’ Blue Eyes opened his 10-song set with “You Make Me Feel So Young” and closed with “That’s America to Me”—the two songs he’d sung to Kennedy 12 years before. [3]
​

1. Edward Allan Faine, The Best Gig in Town: Jazz Artists at the White House, 1969–1974 (Takoma Park, MD: IM Press, 2015), 133.
2. JFK: The Lost Inaugural Gala, Creative Retrospectives: John Paulson Productions, 2017, DVD.
3. Edward Allan Faine, Best Gig, 141–63.

As someone who has read all the available books on one of the most popular singers of the twentieth century, I was disappointed in the recent two-part HBO documentary Sinatra: All or Nothing at All. I give it three stars (out of five) just for the making of it and maybe another one (but not two) for the adequate portrayal of his up-down-up career. 

The film needed to place a greater emphasis on Sinatra’s music, especially his critically acclaimed classic period, 1953–1963, when he separated himself from all other vocalists to become the greatest interpretive male singer of the twentieth century. A few examples from the classic Capitol albums would have helped, such as “Moonlight in Vermont” and “You Make Me Feel So Young,” drawing attention to his ability to sing six to eight bars (versus three to four) without taking a noticeable breath, giving his voice a flowing quality. He slipped around bar lines like a sax player and bent notes as Billie Holiday taught him, all the while focusing on the lyrics, telling the story. It was during this period when musicians and critics—not all, mind you—​dared to call him a jazz singer.

His outsized ambitions, his rabid vindictiveness, his my way come hell or high water, his quiet generosity, and his triumphs and failures in and out of the bedroom are all fascinating, but that’s not why Sinatra matters, that’s not why a documentary was made about him on his hundredth birthday anniversary. To borrow from James Carville, “It’s the music, stupid.”

To tell Sinatra’s life story, the film’s narrative is shaped by Ol’ Blue Eyes’ song choices for his 1971 “Retirement Concert.” Frank sang seven of those songs at the Nixon White House State Dinner for Prime Minister Andreotti of Italy on April 17, 1973. It’s odd that the HBO documentary makes no mention of Frank’s first appearance as an entertainer at the White House—​detailed in my book The Best Gig in Town. 
​