LESSON TWO: Being Frank

BE A RAT: Lauren Bacall dubbed her husband Humphrey Bogart’s Vegas friends “a goddamn rat pack.” With Bogey’s death, Sinatra and company carried on the name, at least in the media, and the tradition of cavorting in the desert. Members like Frank, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr., and Joey Bishop would appear unannounced at each-others shows, yucking it up with topped-off high balls and off-color jokes. For a taste check out Sammy, Dean, and Frank at a charity show in St. Louis. No Joey Bishop? No problem for the Pack. Johnny Carson fills in admirably . Yep, that Johnny Carson. 

GET SWINGING: What would the soundtrack to a Sinatra retrospective sound like? Well it might sound a lot like Songs for Swinging Lovers (1956) or Come Fly with Me (1957). Or perhaps a live performance like The Main Event (1974) from Madison Square Garden? My Way is only featured on the last of those. Heck, go All the Way and listen to all three. 

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GET SIRIUS: Satellite radio subscribers can tune in to Channel 71, Siriusly Sinatra and hear the Chairmen all day and night. Three days a week, his daughter Nancy plays her favorites. But it’s not just Frank here, the American standard songbook is open to all comers including Tony Bennett, Bobby Darin, and Nat King Cole. 

Siriusly Sinatra - Frank Sinatra Music Hits & Greatest Singers

Listen to top music hits from Frank Sinatra & the other great artists including Tony Bennett, Ella Fitzgerald, Peggy Lee, Dean Martin, Nat King Cole & more

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GET JACKED: Frank was known to imbibe a bit and Jack Daniels was his beverage of choice. With a special bottling in 2015, you can help Jack celebrate Frank’s 100th year for about $179. Blended from one hundred hand-selected barrels, this whiskey is like Frank, mellow and refined with a hard edge that shows itself late at night. Take a shot at: . Not a tippler? You have Frank’s eternal pity, because when you wake up in the morning that’s the best you’re going to feel all day. 

Sinatra Century

are registered trademarks of Jack Daniel's. © 2018.

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GET BACK: A bit of music and video whet your whistle for more? Then get your black tie and tails or that strapless number in the back of your closet ready to go. It’s time to head for the desert in a time machine set for 1963. The Rat Pack is Back, baby! Or, at least, some passable parodies. The live show at the Tuscany Suites & Casino in beautiful Las Vegas will have you swilling champagne cocktails and humming One for My Baby ‘til quarter to three. 

Home - Rat Pack is Back

Relive the days of the Rat Pack with Las Vegas' most famous Entertainers and their live big band as they appeared live in the Sands Hotel Copa Room. The only Vegas based show with national touring companies and an award from the "Congress of the United States".

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​BE POETIC: Pick up a copy of Sinatra’s Century: One Hundred Notes on the Man and His World (2015), By David Lehman. The poet and literary critic offers a note for each year on the 100th anniversary of the birth of Old Blue Eyes. Is one hundred too many notes? Not for me, I can’t get enough of Frank. And not for Lehman who once published an anthology of poems culled from his writing a poem a day for five years. That may seem excessive, but hey, he did it his way.