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Music: Dean Martin

I have grown up listening to the Rat Pack and especially Dean Martin. He was so cool and I love his music.

There is an index at the bottom of the page containing some of my favourite songs by him.

About Dean Martin

Dean Martin was an American singer, actor and comedian. One of the most popular and enduring American entertainers of the mid-20th century, Martin was nicknamed “The King of Cool.” Martin gained his career breakthrough together with comedian Jerry Lewis, billed as Martin & Lewis, in 1946. They performed in nightclubs and later had numerous appearances on radio, television and in films.

Following an acrimonious ending of the partnership in 1956, Martin pursued a solo career as a performer and actor. Martin established himself as a singer, recording numerous contemporary songs as well as standards from the Great American Songbook. He became one of the most popular acts in Las Vegas and was known for his friendship with fellow artists Frank Sinatra and Sammy Davis Jr., who together with several others formed the Rat Pack.

Starting in 1965, Martin was the host of the television variety program The Dean Martin Show, which centred on Martin’s singing and comedic talents and was characterized by his relaxed, easy-going demeanour. From 1974 to 1984, he was roastmaster on the popular Dean Martin Celebrity Roast, which drew celebrities, comedians and politicians. Throughout his career, Martin performed in concert stages, nightclubs, audio recordings and appeared in 85 film and television productions.

His best known songs include Ain’t That a Kick in the Head?, Memories Are Made of This, That’s Amore, Everybody Loves Somebody, You’re Nobody till Somebody Loves You, Sway, and Volare.

Dean Martin’s Early Life

Martin was born Dino Paul Crocetti on June 7, 1917, in Steubenville, Ohio, to Italian father Gaetano Alfonso Crocetti (1894 – 1967) and Italian-American mother Angela Crocetti (née Barra; 1899 – 1966). His father, who was a barber, was originally from Montesilvano, Abruzzo, and his mother’s origins are also believed to be from Abruzzo, although they are not clearly known. Martin had an older brother named William Alfonso Crocetti (1916 – 1968). His first language was Italian and he did not speak English until he started school at the age of five. He attended Grant Elementary School in Steubenville, where he was bullied for his broken English. As a teenager, he played the drums as a hobby. He dropped out of Steubenville High School in the tenth grade because, according to Martin, he thought he was smarter than his teachers. He bootlegged liquor, worked in a steel mill, served as a croupier at a speakeasy and a blackjack dealer, and was a welterweight boxer.

At 15 he billed himself as “Kid Crochet”. His prizefighting earned him a broken nose (later straightened), a scarred lip, many broken knuckles (a result of not being able to afford tape used to wrap boxers’ hands), and a bruised body. Of his 12 bouts, he said that he “won all but 11”. For a time, he shared a New York City apartment with Sonny King, who was also starting in show business and had little money. The two reportedly charged people to watch them bare-knuckle box each other in their apartment, fighting until one was knocked out. Martin knocked out King in the first round of an amateur boxing match. Martin gave up boxing to work as a roulette stickman and croupier in an illegal casino behind a tobacco shop, where he had started as a stock boy. At the same time, he sang with local bands, calling himself “Dino Martini” (after the Metropolitan Opera tenor Nino Martini). He got his break working for the Ernie McKay Orchestra. He sang in a crooning style influenced by Harry Mills of the Mills Brothers and Perry Como. By late 1940 he had begun singing for Cleveland bandleader Sammy Watkins, who suggested he change his name to Dean Martin. He stayed with Watkins until at least May 1943. By fall 1943 he had begun performing in New York. Martin was drafted into the military in World War II but after 14 months he was discharged due to a hernia.

In October 1941, Martin married Elizabeth “Betty” Anne McDonald in Cleveland, and the couple had an apartment in Cleveland Heights for a while. They eventually had four children before the marriage ended in 1949.

Dean Martin’s Career

Teaming With Jerry Lewis

Martin attracted the attention of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and Columbia Pictures, but a Hollywood contract was not forthcoming. He met comic Jerry Lewis at the Glass Hat Club in New York, where both were performing. Martin and Lewis formed a fast friendship which led to their participation in each other’s acts and the formation of a music-comedy team. Martin and Lewis’s debut together occurred at Atlantic City’s 500 Club on July 24, 1946, and they were not well received. The owner, Skinny D’Amato, warned them that if they did not come up with a better act for their second show that night, they would be fired. Huddling in the alley behind the club, Lewis and Martin agreed to “go for broke”, they divided their act between songs, skits, and ad-libbed material. Martin sang and Lewis dressed as a busboy, dropping plates and making a shambles of Martin’s performance and the club’s decorum until Lewis was chased from the room as Martin pelted him with bread rolls.

They performed slapstick, reeled off old vaudeville jokes and did whatever else popped into their heads. The audience laughed. This success led to a series of well-paying engagements on the Eastern seaboard, culminating in a run at New York’s Copacabana. The act consisted of Lewis interrupting and heckling Martin while he was trying to sing, with the two ultimately chasing each other around the stage. The secret, both said, is that they ignored the audience and played to each other. The team made its TV debut on the first broadcast of CBS-TV network’s The Ed Sullivan Show (then called The Toast Of The Town) on June 20, 1948, with composers Rodgers and Hammerstein also appearing. Hoping to improve their act, the two hired young comedy writers Norman Lear and Ed Simmons to write their bits. With the assistance of both Lear and Simmons, the two would take their act beyond nightclubs.

A radio series began in 1949, the year Martin and Lewis signed with Paramount producer Hal B. Wallis as comedy relief for the movie My Friend Irma. Their agent, Abby Greshler, negotiated one of Hollywood’s best deals: although they received only $75,000 between them for their films with Wallis, Martin and Lewis were free to do one outside film a year, which they would co-produce through their own York Productions.

They also controlled their club, record, radio, and television appearances, and through these, they earned millions of dollars. In Dean & Me, Lewis calls Martin one of the great comic geniuses of all time. They were friends, as well, with Lewis acting as best man when Martin remarried in 1949. But harsh comments from critics, as well as frustration with the similarity of Martin and Lewis movies, which producer Hal Wallis refused to change, led to Martin’s dissatisfaction. He put less enthusiasm into the work, leading to escalating arguments with Lewis. Martin told his partner he was “nothing to me but a dollar sign”. The act broke up in 1956, ten years to the day from the first teaming.

Solo Career

Martin’s first solo film, Ten Thousand Bedrooms (1957), was a box-office failure. Although Volare reached number fifteen in the U.S. and number 2 in the UK, the era of the pop crooner was waning with the advent of rock and roll. Martin wanted to become a dramatic actor, known for more than slapstick comedy films. Though offered a fraction of his former salary to co-star in a war drama, The Young Lions (1958), his part would be with Marlon Brando and Montgomery Clift. Tony Randall already had the part, but talent agency MCA realized that with this film, Martin would become a triple threat: they could make money from his work in nightclubs, films, and records. Randall was paid off to relinquish the role, Martin replaced him and the film turned out to be the beginning of Martin’s comeback. Martin starred alongside Frank Sinatra for the first time in the Vincente Minnelli drama, Some Came Running (1958). By the mid-1960s, Martin was a movie, recording, television, and nightclub star. Martin was acclaimed as Dude in Rio Bravo (1959), directed by Howard Hawks and also starring John Wayne and singer Ricky Nelson. He teamed again with Wayne in The Sons of Katie Elder (1965), cast as brothers. In 1960, Martin was cast in the film version of the Judy Holliday stage musical comedy Bells Are Ringing. He won a Golden Globe nomination for his performance in the 1960 film comedy Who Was That Lady? but continued to seek dramatic roles, portraying a Southern politician in 1961’s Ada, and starring in 1963’s screen adaptation of an intense stage drama, Toys in the Attic, opposite Geraldine Page, as well as in 1970’s drama Airport, a huge box-office success.

Sinatra and he teamed up for several more movies, the crime caper Ocean’s 11, the musical Robin and the 7 Hoods, and the Western comedies Sergeants 3 and 4 for Texas, often with their Rat Pack pals such as Sammy Davis, Jr., Peter Lawford, and Joey Bishop, as well as a romantic comedy, Marriage on the Rocks. Martin also co-starred with Shirley MacLaine in a number of films, including Some Came Running, Artists and Models, Career, All in a Night’s Work, and What a Way to Go! He played a satiric variation of his own womanizing persona as Las Vegas singer “Dino” in Billy Wilder’s comedy Kiss Me, Stupid (1964) with Kim Novak, and he poked fun at his image in films such as the Matt Helm spy spoofs of the 1960’s, in which he was a co-producer. In the third Matt Helm film The Ambushers (1967), Helm, about to be executed, receives a last cigarette and tells the provider, “I’ll remember you from the great beyond,” continuing sotto voce, “somewhere around Steubenville, I hope.”

The Rat Pack

As Martin’s solo career grew, he and Frank Sinatra became friends. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, Martin and Sinatra, along with friends Joey Bishop, Peter Lawford, and Sammy Davis Jr. formed the Rat Pack, so-called after an earlier group of social friends, the Holmby Hills Rat Pack centred on Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall, of which Sinatra had been a member. The Martin-Sinatra-Davis-Lawford-Bishop group referred to themselves as “The Summit” or “The Clan” and never as “The Rat Pack”, although this has remained their identity in popular imagination. The men made films together, formed part of the Hollywood social scene, and were politically influential (through Lawford’s marriage to Patricia Kennedy, sister of President John F. Kennedy).

The Rat Pack was legendary for its Las Vegas Strip performances. For example, the marquee at the Sands Hotel might read “DEAN MARTIN—MAYBE FRANK—MAYBE SAMMY.” Their appearances were valuable because the city would flood with wealthy gamblers. Their act (always in tuxedo) consisted of each singing individual numbers, duets and trios, along with seemingly improvised slapstick and chatter. In the socially charged 1960s, their jokes revolved around adult themes, such as Sinatra’s womanizing and Martin’s drinking, as well as Davis’s race and religion. Sinatra and Martin supported the civil rights movement and refused to perform in clubs that would not allow African-American or Jewish performers. Posthumously, the Rat Pack has experienced a popular revival, inspiring the George Clooney / Brad Pitt Ocean’s Trilogy.

The Dean Martin Show

In 1965, Martin launched his weekly NBC comedy-variety series, The Dean Martin Show, which ran for 264 episodes until 1974. He won a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Television Series Musical or Comedy in 1966 and was nominated again the following three years. The show exploited his image as a carefree boozer. Martin capitalized on his laid-back persona of the half-drunk crooner, hitting on women with remarks that would get anyone else slapped, and making snappy if slurred remarks about fellow celebrities during his roasts. During an interview on the British TV documentary Wine, Women and Song, aired in 1983, he stated, perhaps tongue-in-cheek, that he had someone record them on cassette tape so he could listen to them. His TV show was a success. The show’s loose format featured quick-witted improvisation from Martin and his weekly guests. This prompted a battle between Martin and NBC censors, who insisted on more scrutiny of the content. He later had trouble with NBC for his off-the-cuff use of obscene Italian phrases, which brought complaints from viewers who spoke the language. The show was often in the Top Ten. Martin, appreciative of the show’s producer, his friend Greg Garrison, made a handshake deal giving Garrison, a pioneer TV producer in the 1950s, 50% of the show. However, the validity of that ownership is the subject of a lawsuit brought by NBCUniversal.

Despite Martin’s reputation as a drinker—perpetuated via his vanity license plate “DRUNKY”—his alcohol use was quite disciplined. He was often the first to call it a night, and when not on tour or on a film location, liked to go home to see his wife and children. He borrowed the lovable-drunk shtick from Joe E. Lewis, but his convincing portrayals of heavy boozers in Some Came Running and Howard Hawks’ Rio Bravo led to unsubstantiated claims of alcoholism. Martin starred in and co-produced four Matt Helm superspy comedy adventures during this time, as well as a number of Westerns. By the early 1970s, The Dean Martin Show was still earning solid ratings, and although he was no longer a Top 40 hitmaker, his record albums continued to sell. He found a way to make his passion for golf profitable by offering a signature line of golf balls and the Dean Martin Tucson Open was an event on golf’s PGA Tour from 1972 to 1975. At his death, Martin was reportedly the single largest minority shareholder of RCA stock.

Now comfortable financially, Martin began reducing his schedule. The final (1973 – 1974) season of his variety show was retooled into one of celebrity roasts, requiring less involvement. In the roasts, Martin and his panel of pals made fun of a variety of popular entertainment, athletic, and political figures. After the show’s cancellation, NBC continued to air The Dean Martin Celebrity Roast as a series of TV specials through 1984.

Later Career

For nearly a decade, Martin had recorded as many as four albums a year for Reprise Records. Martin recorded his final Reprise album, Once in a While in 1974, which was not issued until 1978. His final recordings were made for Warner Bros. Records. The Nashville Sessions was released in 1983, from which he had a hit with “(I Think That I Just Wrote) My First Country Song”, which was recorded with Conway Twitty and made a respectable showing on the country charts. A follow-up single, “L.A. Is My Home” / “Drinking Champagne”, came in 1985. The 1974 film drama Mr. Ricco marked Martin’s final starring role, in which he played a criminal defence lawyer. He played a featured role in the 1981 comedy The Cannonball Run and its sequel, both starring Burt Reynolds.

In 1972, he filed for divorce from his second wife, Jeanne. A week later, his business partnership with the Riviera hotel in Las Vegas dissolved amid reports of the casino’s refusal to agree to Martin’s request to perform only once a night. He joined the MGM Grand Hotel and Casino, where he was the featured performer on the hotel’s opening night of December 23, 1973, and his contract required him to star in a film (Mr. Ricco) for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studios. Less than a month after his second marriage had dissolved, Martin was 55 when he married 26-year-old Catherine Hawn, on April 25, 1973. Hawn had been the receptionist at the chic Gene Shacove hair salon in Beverly Hills. They divorced on November 10, 1976. He was also briefly engaged to Gail Renshaw, Miss World–U.S.A. 1969. Eventually, Martin reconciled with Jeanne, though they never remarried.

Martin also made a public reconciliation with Lewis on his partner’s Labor Day telethon, benefiting the Muscular Dystrophy Association, in September 1976. Sinatra shocked Lewis by bringing Martin out on stage and as the two men embraced, the audience gave them a standing ovation and the phones lit up, resulting in one of the telethon’s most profitable years up to that time. Lewis later reported the event was one of the three most memorable of his life. Lewis quipped, “So, you working?” Martin, playing drunk, replied that he was appearing “at the ‘Meggum'” (meaning the MGM Grand Hotel). This, with the death of Martin’s son Dean Paul Martin more than a decade later, helped bring the two men together. They maintained a quiet friendship, but only performed again once, in 1989, on Martin’s 72nd birthday.

Martin returned to films briefly with appearances in the star-laden, critically panned but commercially successful The Cannonball Run and its sequel Cannonball Run II. He also had a minor hit single with Since I Met You Baby and made his first music video, which appeared on MTV and was created by Martin’s youngest son, Ricci. On March 21, 1987, Martin’s son, actor Dean Paul Martin (formerly Dino of the 1960s “teeny-bopper” rock group Dino, Desi & Billy), died when his F-4 Phantom II jet fighter crashed while flying with the California Air National Guard. Martin’s grief over his son’s death left him depressed and demoralized. Later, a tour with Davis and Sinatra in 1988, undertaken in part to help Martin recover, sputtered.

Martin, who responded best to a club audience, felt lost in the huge stadiums they were performing in at Sinatra’s insistence, and he was not interested in drinking until dawn after performances. His final Vegas shows were at Bally’s Hotel in 1991. At Bally’s, he had his final reunion with Lewis on his 72nd birthday. Martin’s last two TV appearances involved tributes to his former Rat Pack members. On December 8, 1989, he joined stars in Sammy Davis Jr’s 60th anniversary celebration, which aired a few weeks before Davis died from throat cancer. In December 1990, Martin congratulated Sinatra on his 75th birthday special.

Favourite Dean Martin Songs Index

This list does not contain Christmas songs. You can find Christmas music from Dean Martin here.

The links below will take you to YouTube.

Ain’t That A Kick In The Head.

Everybody Loves Somebody.

Mambo Italiano.

Memories Are Made Of This.

Standing On The Corner.

Sway.

That’s Amore.

Volare.

Walkin’ My Baby Back Home.

When You’re Smiling.

You’re Nobody Till Somebody Loves You.

Blog Posts

Music: The Rat Pack.

Music: Frank Sinatra.

Notes And Links

The image shown at the top of this page is in the Public Domain via Wikipedia.

Music: Frank Sinatra

I have grown up listening to the Rat Pack and especially Frank Sinatra. He was so cool and I love his music.

There is an index at the bottom of the page containing some of my favourite songs by him.

About Frank Sinatra

Francis Albert Sinatra was an American singer and actor who is generally viewed as one of the greatest musical artists of the 20th century. He is one of the best-selling music artists of all time, having sold an estimated 150 million records worldwide.

Born to Italian immigrants in Hoboken, New Jersey, Sinatra was greatly influenced by the intimate, easy-listening vocal style of Bing Crosby and began his musical career in the swing era with bandleaders Harry James and Tommy Dorsey. Sinatra found success as a solo artist after he signed with Columbia Records in 1943, becoming the idol of the “bobby soxers”. Sinatra released his debut album, The Voice of Frank Sinatra, in 1946. However, by the early 1950s, his professional career had stalled and he turned to Las Vegas, where he became one of its best-known residency performers as part of the Rat Pack. His career was reborn in 1953 with the success of the film From Here to Eternity, his performance subsequently earning him an Academy Award, and a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor. Sinatra then released several critically lauded albums, some of which are retrospectively noted as being among the first “concept albums”, including In the Wee Small Hours (1955), Songs for Swingin’ Lovers! (1956), Come Fly with Me (1958), Only the Lonely (1958), No One Cares (1959), and Nice ‘n’ Easy (1960).

Sinatra left Capitol in 1960 to start his own record label, Reprise Records and released a string of successful albums. In 1965, he recorded the retrospective album September of My Years and starred in the Emmy-winning television special Frank Sinatra: A Man and His Music. After releasing Sinatra at the Sands, recorded at the Sands Hotel and Casino in Vegas with frequent collaborator Count Basie in early 1966, the following year he recorded one of his most famous collaborations with Tom Jobim, the album Francis Albert Sinatra & Antonio Carlos Jobim. It was followed by 1968’s Francis A. & Edward K. with Duke Ellington. Sinatra retired for the first time in 1971 but came out of retirement two years later. He recorded several albums and resumed performing at Caesars Palace, and released “New York, New York” in 1980. Using his Las Vegas shows as a home base, he toured both within the United States and internationally until shortly before his death in 1998.

Sinatra forged a highly successful career as a film actor. After winning an Academy Award for From Here to Eternity, he starred in The Man with the Golden Arm (1955), and in The Manchurian Candidate (1962). He appeared in various musicals such as On the Town (1949), Guys and Dolls (1955), High Society (1956), and Pal Joey (1957), winning another Golden Globe for the latter. Toward the end of his career, he frequently played detectives, including the title character in Tony Rome (1967). Sinatra would later receive the Golden Globe Cecil B. DeMille Award in 1971. On television, The Frank Sinatra Show began on ABC in 1950, and he continued to make appearances on television throughout the 1950s and 1960s. Sinatra was also heavily involved with politics from the mid-1940s and actively campaigned for presidents such as Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry S. Truman, John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan. He was investigated by the FBI for his alleged relationship with the Mafia.

While Sinatra never learned how to read music, he worked very hard from a young age to improve his abilities in all aspects of music. A perfectionist, renowned for his dress sense and performing presence, he always insisted on recording live with his band. His bright blue eyes earned him the popular nickname “Ol’ Blue Eyes”. He led a colourful personal life and was often involved in turbulent affairs with women, such as with his second wife Ava Gardner. He later married Mia Farrow in 1966 and Barbara Marx in 1976. Sinatra had several violent confrontations, usually with journalists he felt had crossed him, or work bosses with whom he had disagreements. He was honoured at the Kennedy Center Honors in 1983, was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by Ronald Reagan in 1985, and the Congressional Gold Medal in 1997. Sinatra was also the recipient of eleven Grammy Awards, including the Grammy Trustees Award, Grammy Legend Award and the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. He was included in Time magazine’s compilation of the 20th century’s 100 most influential people. After Sinatra’s death, American music critic Robert Christgau called him “the greatest singer of the 20th century”, and he continues to be seen as an iconic figure.

Frank Sinatra’s Early Life

Francis Albert Sinatra was born on December 12, 1915, in an upstairs tenement at 415 Monroe Street in Hoboken, New Jersey, the only child of Italian immigrants Natalina “Dolly” Garaventa and Antonino Martino “Marty” Sinatra. Sinatra weighed 13.5 pounds (6.1 kg) at birth and had to be delivered with the aid of forceps, which caused severe scarring to his left cheek, neck, and ear, and perforated his eardrum—damage that remained for life. Due to his injuries at birth, his baptism at St. Francis Church in Hoboken was delayed until April 2, 1916. A childhood operation on his mastoid bone left major scarring on his neck, and during adolescence, he suffered from cystic acne that further scarred his face and neck. Sinatra was raised in the Roman Catholic church.

Sinatra’s mother was energetic and driven, and biographers believe that she was the dominant factor in the development of her son’s personality traits and self-confidence. Sinatra’s fourth wife Barbara would later claim that Dolly was abusive to him when he was a child, and “knocked him around a lot”. Dolly became influential in Hoboken and in local Democratic Party circles. She worked as a midwife, earning $50 for each delivery, and according to Sinatra biographer Kitty Kelley, also ran an illegal abortion service that catered to Italian Catholic girls, for which she was nicknamed “Hatpin Dolly”. She also had a gift for languages and served as a local interpreter.

Sinatra’s illiterate father was a bantamweight boxer who fought under the name Marty O’Brien. He later worked for 24 years at the Hoboken Fire Department, working his way up to captain. Sinatra spent much time at his parents’ tavern in Hoboken, working on his homework and occasionally singing a song on top of the player piano for spare change. During the Great Depression, Dolly provided money to her son for outings with friends and to buy expensive clothes, resulting in neighbours describing him as the “best-dressed kid in the neighbourhood”. Excessively thin and small as a child and young man, Sinatra’s skinny frame later became a staple of jokes during stage shows.

Sinatra developed an interest in music, particularly big band jazz, at a young age. He listened to Gene Austin, Rudy Vallée, Russ Colombo, and Bob Eberly, and idolized Bing Crosby. Sinatra’s maternal uncle, Domenico, gave him a ukulele for his 15th birthday, and he began performing at family gatherings. Sinatra attended David E. Rue Jr. High School from 1928, and A. J. Demarest High School (since renamed Hoboken High School) in 1931, where he arranged bands for school dances. He left without graduating, having attended only 47 days before being expelled for “general rowdiness”. To please his mother, he enrolled at Drake Business School but departed after 11 months. Dolly found Sinatra work as a delivery boy at the Jersey Observer newspaper, where his godfather Frank Garrick worked, and after that, Sinatra was a riveter at the Tietjen and Lang shipyard. He performed in local Hoboken social clubs such as The Cat’s Meow and The Comedy Club and sang for free on radio stations such as WAAT in Jersey City. In New York, Sinatra found jobs singing for his supper or for cigarettes. To improve his speech, he began taking elocution lessons for a dollar each from vocal coach John Quinlan, who was one of the first people to notice his impressive vocal range.

Frank Sinatra’s Music Career

Hoboken Four, Harry James, And Tommy Dorsey (1935 – 1939)

Sinatra began singing professionally as a teenager, but he learned music by ear and never learned to read music. He got his first break in 1935 when his mother persuaded a local singing group, the 3 Flashes, to let him join. Fred Tamburro, the group’s baritone, stated that “Frank hung around us like we were gods or something”, admitting that they only took him on board because he owned a car and could chauffeur the group around. Sinatra soon learned they were auditioning for the Major Bowes Amateur Hour show, and “begged” the group to let him in on the act. With Sinatra, the group became known as the Hoboken Four, and passed an audition from Edward Bowes to appear on the Major Bowes Amateur Hour show. They each earned $12.50 for the appearance, and ended up attracting 40,000 votes and won first prize—a six-month contract to perform on stage and radio across the United States. Sinatra quickly became the group’s lead singer, and, much to the jealousy of his fellow group members, garnered most of the attention from girls. Due to the success of the group, Bowes kept asking for them to return, disguised under different names, varying from “The Secaucus Cockamamies” to “The Bayonne Bacalas”.

In 1938, Sinatra found employment as a singing waiter at a roadhouse called “The Rustic Cabin” in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, for which he was paid $15 a week. The roadhouse was connected to the WNEW radio station in New York City, and he began performing with a group live during the Dance Parade show. Despite the low salary, Sinatra felt that this was the break he was looking for, and boasted to friends that he was going to “become so big that no one could ever touch him”. In March 1939, saxophone player Frank Mane, who knew Sinatra from Jersey City radio station WAAT where both performed on live broadcasts, arranged for him to audition and record “Our Love”, his first solo studio recording. In June, bandleader Harry James, who had heard Sinatra sing on “Dance Parade”, signed a two-year contract of $75 a week one evening after a show at the Paramount Theatre in New York. It was with the James band that Sinatra released his first commercial record “From the Bottom of My Heart” in July. No more than 8,000 copies of the record were sold, and further records released with James through 1939, such as “All or Nothing at All”, also had weak sales on their initial release. Thanks to his vocal training, Sinatra could now sing two tones higher, and developed a repertoire that included songs such as “My Buddy”, “Willow Weep for Me”, “It’s Funny to Everyone but Me”, “Here Comes the Night”, “On a Little Street in Singapore”, “Ciribiribin”, and “Every Day of My Life”.

Sinatra became increasingly frustrated with the status of the Harry James band, feeling that he was not achieving the major success and acclaim he was looking for. His pianist and close friend Hank Sanicola persuaded him to stay with the group, but in November 1939 he left James to replace Jack Leonard as the lead singer of the Tommy Dorsey band. Sinatra earned $125 a week, appearing at the Palmer House in Chicago, and James released Sinatra from his contract. On January 26, 1940, he made his first public appearance with the band at the Coronado Theatre in Rockford, Illinois, opening the show with “Stardust”. Dorsey recalled: “You could almost feel the excitement coming up out of the crowds when the kid stood up to sing. Remember, he was no matinée idol. He was just a skinny kid with big ears. I used to stand there so amazed I’d almost forget to take my own solos”. Dorsey was a major influence on Sinatra and became a father figure. Sinatra copied Dorsey’s mannerisms and traits, becoming a demanding perfectionist like him, even adopting his hobby of toy trains. He asked Dorsey to be godfather to his daughter Nancy in June 1940. Sinatra later said that “The only two people I’ve ever been afraid of are my mother and Tommy Dorsey”. Though Kelley says that Sinatra and drummer Buddy Rich were bitter rivals, other authors state that they were friends and even roommates when the band was on the road, but professional jealousy surfaced as both men wanted to be considered the star of Dorsey’s band. Later, Sinatra helped Rich form his own band with a $25,000 loan and provided financial help to Rich during times of the drummer’s serious illness.

Read more about Hoboken Four, Harry James, And Tommy Dorsey (1935 – 1939) here.

Onset Of Sinatramania And Role In World War II (1942 – 1945)

“Perfectly simple: It was the war years and there was a great loneliness, and I was the boy in every corner drugstore, the boy who’d gone off drafted to the war. That’s all.” – Frank Sinatra on his popularity with young women.

By May 1941, Sinatra topped the male singer polls in Billboard and DownBeat magazines. His appeal to bobby soxers, as teenage girls of that time were called, revealed a whole new audience for popular music, which had been recorded mainly for adults up to that time. The phenomenon became officially known as “Sinatramania” after his “legendary opening” at the Paramount Theatre in New York on December 30, 1942. According to Nancy Sinatra, Jack Benny later said, “I thought the goddamned building was going to cave in. I never heard such a commotion… All this for a fellow I never heard of.” Sinatra performed for four weeks at the theatre, his act following the Benny Goodman orchestra, after which his contract was renewed for another four weeks by Bob Weitman due to his popularity. He became known as “Swoonatra” or “The Voice”, and his fans “Sinatratics”. They organized meetings and sent masses of letters of adoration, and within a few weeks of the show, some 1000 Sinatra fan clubs had been reported across the US. Sinatra’s publicist, George Evans, encouraged interviews and photographs with fans and was the man responsible for depicting Sinatra as a vulnerable, shy, Italian–American with a rough childhood who made good. When Sinatra returned to the Paramount in October 1944 only 250 persons left the first show, and 35,000 fans left outside caused a near riot, known as the Columbus Day Riot, outside the venue because they were not allowed in. Such was the bobby soxer devotion to Sinatra that they were known to write Sinatra’s song titles on their clothing, bribe hotel maids for an opportunity to touch his bed, and accost his person in the form of stealing clothing he was wearing, most commonly his bow-tie.

Sinatra signed with Columbia Records as a solo artist on June 1, 1943, during the 1942–44 musicians’ strike. Columbia Records re-released Harry James and Sinatra’s August 1939 version of “All or Nothing at All”, which reached number 2 on June 2 and was on the best-selling list for 18 weeks. He initially had great success and performed on the radio on Your Hit Parade from February 1943 until December 1944, and on stage. Columbia wanted new recordings of their growing star as quickly as possible, so Alec Wilder was hired as an arranger and conductor for several sessions with a vocal group called the Bobby Tucker Singers. These first sessions were on June 7, June 22, August 5, and November 10, 1943. Of the nine songs recorded during these sessions, seven charted on the best-selling list. That year he also made his first solo nightclub appearance at New York’s Riobamba, and a successful concert in the Wedgewood Room of the prestigious Waldorf-Astoria New York that year secured his popularity in New York high society. Sinatra released “You’ll Never Know”, “Close to You”, “Sunday, Monday, or Always” and “People Will Say We’re In Love” as singles. By the end of 1943, he was more popular in a DownBeat poll than Bing Crosby, Perry Como, Bob Eberly, and Dick Haymes.

Sinatra did not serve in the military during World War II. On December 11, 1943, he was officially classified 4-F (“Registrant not acceptable for military service”) by his draft board because of a perforated eardrum. However, U.S. Army files reported that Sinatra was “not acceptable material from a psychiatric viewpoint”, but his emotional instability was hidden to avoid “undue unpleasantness for both the selectee and the induction service”. Briefly, there were rumours reported by columnist Walter Winchell that Sinatra paid $40,000 to avoid the service, but the FBI found this to be without merit.

Toward the end of the war, Sinatra entertained the troops during several successful overseas USO tours with comedian Phil Silvers. During one trip to Rome, he met the Pope, who asked him if he was an operatic tenor. Sinatra worked frequently with the popular Andrews Sisters in radio in the 1940s, and many USO shows were broadcast to troops via the Armed Forces Radio Service (AFRS). In 1944 Sinatra released “I Couldn’t Sleep a Wink Last Night” as a single and recorded his own version of Crosby’s “White Christmas”, and the following year he released “I Dream of You (More Than You Dream I Do)”, “Saturday Night (Is the Loneliest Night of the Week)”, “Dream”, and “Nancy (With the Laughing Face)” as singles.

Columbia Years And Career Slump (1946 – 1952)

Despite being heavily involved in political activity in 1945 and 1946, in those two years, Sinatra sang on 160 radio shows, recorded 36 times, and shot four films. By 1946 he was performing on stage up to 45 times a week, singing up to 100 songs daily, and earning up to $93,000 a week.

In 1946 Sinatra released “Oh! What it Seemed to Be”, “Day by Day”, “They Say It’s Wonderful”, “Five Minutes More”, and “The Coffee Song” as singles, and launched his first album, The Voice of Frank Sinatra, which reached No. 1 on the Billboard chart. William Ruhlmann of AllMusic wrote that Sinatra “took the material very seriously, singing the love lyrics with utter seriousness”, and that his “singing and the classically influenced settings gave the songs unusual depth of meaning”. He was soon selling 10 million records a year. Such was Sinatra’s command at Columbia that his love of conducting was indulged with the release of the set Frank Sinatra Conducts the Music of Alec Wilder, an offering unlikely to appeal to Sinatra’s core fanbase at the time, which consisted of teenage girls. The following year he released his second album, Songs by Sinatra, featuring songs of a similar mood and tempo such as Irving Berlin’s “How Deep is the Ocean?” and Harold Arlen’s and Jerome Kern’s “All The Things You Are”. “Mam’selle”, composed by Edmund Goulding with lyrics by Mack Gordon for the film The Razor’s Edge (1946), was released as a single. Sinatra had competition; versions by Art Lund, Dick Haymes, Dennis Day, and The Pied Pipers also reached the top ten of the Billboard charts. In December he recorded “Sweet Lorraine” with the Metronome All-Stars, featuring talented jazz musicians such as Coleman Hawkins, Harry Carney and Charlie Shavers, with Nat King Cole on piano, in what Charles L. Granata describes as “one of the highlights of Sinatra’s Columbia epoch”.

Sinatra’s third album, Christmas Songs by Sinatra, was originally released in 1948 as a 78 rpm album set, and a 10″ LP record was released two years later. When Sinatra was featured as a priest in The Miracle of the Bells, due to press negativity surrounding his alleged Mafia connections at the time, it was announced to the public that Sinatra would donate his $100,000 in wages from the film to the Catholic Church. By the end of 1948, Sinatra had slipped to fourth on DownBeat‘s annual poll of most popular singers (behind Billy Eckstine, Frankie Laine, and Bing Crosby). In the following year he was pushed out of the top spots in polls for the first time since 1943. Frankly Sentimental (1949) was panned by DownBeat, who commented that “for all his talent, it seldom comes to life”.

Though “The Hucklebuck” reached the top ten, it was his last single release under the Columbia label. Sinatra’s last two albums with Columbia, Dedicated to You and Sing and Dance with Frank Sinatra, were released in 1950. Sinatra would later feature a number of the Sing and Dance with Frank Sinatra album’s songs, including “Lover”, “It’s Only a Paper Moon”, “It All Depends on You”, on his 1961 Capitol release, Sinatra’s Swingin’ Session!!!

Read more about Columbia Years And Career Slump (1946 – 1952) here.

Career Revival And The Capitol Years (1953 – 1962)

The release of the film From Here to Eternity in August 1953 marked the beginning of a remarkable career revival. Tom Santopietro notes that Sinatra began to bury himself in his work, with an “unparalleled frenetic schedule of recordings, movies and concerts”, in what authors Anthony Summers and Robbyn Swan describe as “a new and brilliant phase”. On March 13, 1953, Sinatra met with Capitol Records vice president Alan Livingston and signed a seven-year recording contract. His first session for Capitol took place at KHJ studios at Studio C, 5515 Melrose Avenue in Los Angeles, with Axel Stordahl conducting. The session produced four recordings, including “I’m Walking Behind You”, Sinatra’s first Capitol single. After spending two weeks on location in Hawaii filming From Here to Eternity, Sinatra returned to KHJ on April 30 for his first recording session with Nelson Riddle, an established arranger and conductor at Capitol who was Nat King Cole’s musical director. After recording the first song, “I’ve Got the World on a String”, Sinatra offered Riddle a rare expression of praise, “Beautiful!”, and after listening to the playbacks, he could not hide his enthusiasm, exclaiming, “I’m back, baby, I’m back!”

In subsequent sessions in May and November 1953, Sinatra and Riddle developed and refined their musical collaboration, with Sinatra providing specific guidance on the arrangements. Sinatra’s first album for Capitol, Songs for Young Lovers, was released on January 4, 1954, and included “A Foggy Day”, “I Get a Kick Out of You”, “My Funny Valentine”, “Violets for Your Furs” and “They Can’t Take That Away from Me”, songs which became staples of his later concerts. That same month, Sinatra released the single “Young at Heart”, which reached No. 2 and was awarded Song of the Year. In March, he recorded and released the single “Three Coins in the Fountain”, a “powerful ballad” that reached No. 4. Sinatra’s second album with Riddle, Swing Easy!, which reflected his “love for the jazz idiom” according to Granata, was released on August 2 of that year and included “Just One of Those Things”, “Taking a Chance on Love”, “Get Happy”, and “All of Me”. Swing Easy! was named Album of the Year by Billboard, and he was also named “Favorite Male Vocalist” by Billboard, DownBeat, and Metronome that year. Sinatra came to consider Riddle “the greatest arranger in the world”, and Riddle, who considered Sinatra “a perfectionist”, offered equal praise of the singer, observing, “It’s not only that his intuitions as to tempi, phrasing, and even configuration are amazingly right, but his taste is so impeccable… there is still no one who can approach him.”

In 1955 Sinatra released In the Wee Small Hours, his first 12″ LP, featuring songs such as “In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning”, “Mood Indigo”, “Glad to Be Unhappy” and “When Your Lover Has Gone”. According to Granata it was the first concept album of his to make a “single persuasive statement”, with an extended program and “melancholy mood”. Sinatra embarked on his first tour of Australia the same year. Another collaboration with Riddle resulted in the development of Songs for Swingin’ Lovers!, sometimes seen as one of his best albums, which was released in March 1956. It features a recording of “I’ve Got You Under My Skin” by Cole Porter, something which Sinatra paid meticulous care to, taking a reported 22 takes to perfect.

His February 1956 recording sessions inaugurated the studios at the Capitol Records Building, complete with a 56-piece symphonic orchestra. According to Granata his recordings of “Night and Day”, “Oh! Look at Me Now” and “From This Moment On” revealed “powerful sexual overtones, stunningly achieved through the mounting tension and release of Sinatra’s best-teasing vocal lines”, while his recording of “River, Stay ‘Way from My Door” in April demonstrated his “brilliance as a syncopational improviser”. Riddle said that Sinatra took “particular delight” in singing “The Lady is a Tramp”, commenting that he “always sang that song with a certain amount of salaciousness”, making “cue tricks” with the lyrics. His penchant for conducting was displayed again in 1956’s Frank Sinatra Conducts Tone Poems of Color, an instrumental album that has been interpreted to be a catharsis to his failed relationship with Gardner. Also that year, Sinatra sang at the Democratic National Convention and performed with The Dorsey Brothers for a week soon afterwards at the Paramount Theatre.

Read more about Career Revival And The Capitol Years (1953 – 1962) here.

Reprise Years (1961 – 1981)

Sinatra grew discontented at Capitol and fell into a feud with Alan Livingston, which lasted over six months. His first attempt at owning his own label was with his pursuit of buying declining jazz label, Verve Records, which ended once an initial agreement with Verve founder, Norman Granz, “failed to materialize.” He decided to form his own label, Reprise Records and, in an effort to assert his new direction, temporarily parted with Riddle, May and Jenkins, working with other arrangers such as Neil Hefti, Don Costa, and Quincy Jones. Sinatra built the appeal of Reprise Records as one in which artists were promised creative control over their music, as well as a guarantee that they would eventually gain “complete ownership of their work, including publishing rights.” Under Sinatra, the company developed into a music industry “powerhouse”, and he later sold it for an estimated $80 million. His first album on the label, Ring-a-Ding-Ding! (1961), was a major success, peaking at No.4 on Billboard. The album was released in February 1961, the same month that Reprise Records released Ben Webster’s The Warm Moods, Sammy Davis Jr.’s The Wham of Sam, Mavis River’s Mavis and Joe E. Lewis’s It is Now Post Time. During the initial years of Reprise, Sinatra was still under contract to record for Capitol, completing his contractual commitment with the release of Point of No Return, recorded over a two-day period on September 11 and 12, 1961.

In 1962, Sinatra released Sinatra and Strings, a set of standard ballads arranged by Don Costa, which became one of the most critically acclaimed works of Sinatra’s entire Reprise period. Frank Jr., who was present during the recording, noted the “huge orchestra”, which Nancy Sinatra stated “opened a whole new era” in pop music, with orchestras getting bigger, embracing a “lush string sound”. Sinatra and Count Basie collaborated for the album Sinatra-Basie the same year, a popular and successful release that prompted them to rejoin two years later for the follow-up It Might as Well Be Swing, arranged by Quincy Jones. The two became frequent performers together, and appeared at the Newport Jazz Festival in 1965. Also in 1962, as the owner of his own record label, Sinatra was able to step on the podium as conductor again, releasing his third instrumental album Frank Sinatra Conducts Music from Pictures and Plays.

In 1963, Sinatra reunited with Nelson Riddle for The Concert Sinatra, an ambitious album featuring a 73-piece symphony orchestra arranged and conducted by Riddle. The concert was recorded on a motion picture scoring soundstage with the use of multiple synchronized recording machines that employed an optical signal onto 35 mm film designed for movie soundtracks. Granata considers the album to have been “impeachable”, “one of the very best of the Sinatra-Riddle ballad albums”, in which Sinatra displayed an impressive vocal range, particularly in “Ol’ Man River”, in which he darkened the hue.

In 1964 the song “My Kind of Town” was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Song. Sinatra released Softly, as I Leave You, and collaborated with Bing Crosby and Fred Waring on America, I Hear You Singing, a collection of patriotic songs recorded as a tribute to the assassinated President John F. Kennedy. Sinatra increasingly became involved in charitable pursuits in this period. In 1961 and 1962 he went to Mexico, with the sole purpose of putting on performances for Mexican charities, and in July 1964 he was present for the dedication of the Frank Sinatra International Youth Center for Arab and Jewish children in Nazareth.

Sinatra’s phenomenal success in 1965, coinciding with his 50th birthday, prompted Billboard to proclaim that he may have reached the “peak of his eminence”. In June 1965, Sinatra, Sammy Davis Jr., and Dean Martin played live in St. Louis to benefit Dismas House, a prisoner rehabilitation and training centre with nationwide programs that in particular helped serve African Americans. The Rat Pack concert, called The Frank Sinatra Spectacular, was broadcast live via satellite to numerous movie theatres across America. The album September of My Years was released in September 1965 and went on to win the Grammy Award for best album of the year. Granata considers the album to have been one of the finest of his Reprise years, “a reflective throwback to the concept records of the 1950s, and more than any of those collections distils everything that Frank Sinatra had ever learned or experienced as a vocalist”. One of the album’s singles, “It Was a Very Good Year”, won the Grammy Award for Best Vocal Performance, Male. A career anthology, A Man and His Music followed in November, winning Album of the Year at the Grammys the following year.

In 1966 Sinatra released That’s Life, with both the single of “That’s Life” and the album becoming Top Ten hits in the US on Billboard‘s pop charts. Strangers in the Night went on to top the Billboard and UK pop singles charts, winning the award for Record of the Year at the Grammys. Sinatra’s first live album, Sinatra at the Sands, was recorded during January and February 1966 at the Sands Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas. Sinatra was backed by the Count Basie Orchestra, with Quincy Jones conducting. Sinatra pulled out from the Sands the following year when he was driven out by its new owner Howard Hughes, after a fight.

Sinatra started 1967 with a series of recording sessions with Antônio Carlos Jobim. He recorded one of his collaborations with Jobim, the Grammy-nominated album Francis Albert Sinatra & Antônio Carlos Jobim, which was one of the best-selling albums of the year, behind the Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. According to Santopietro the album “consists of an extraordinarily effective blend of bossa nova and slightly swinging jazz vocals, and succeeds in creating an unbroken mood of romance and regret”. Writer Stan Cornyn wrote that Sinatra sang so softly on the album that it was comparable to the time that he suffered from a vocal haemorrhage in 1950.

Sinatra also released the album The World We Knew, which features a chart-topping duet of “Somethin’ Stupid” with daughter Nancy. In December, Sinatra collaborated with Duke Ellington on the album Francis A. & Edward K.. According to Granata, the recording of “Indian Summer” on the album was a favourite of Riddle’s, noting the “contemplative mood [which] is heightened by a Johnny Hodges alto sax solo that will bring a tear to your eye”. With Sinatra in mind, singer-songwriter Paul Anka wrote the song “My Way”, using the melody of the French “Comme d’habitude” (“As Usual”), composed by Claude François and Jacques Revaux. Sinatra recorded it in one take, just after Christmas 1968. “My Way”, Sinatra’s best-known song on the Reprise label, was not an instant success, charting at No. 27 in the US and No. 5 in the UK, but it remained in the UK charts for 122 weeks, including 75 non-consecutive weeks in the Top 40, between April 1969 and September 1971, which was still a record in 2015. Sinatra told songwriter Ervin Drake in the 1970s that he “detested” singing the song, because he believed audiences would think it was a “self-aggrandizing tribute”, professing that he “hated boastfulness in others”.

In an effort to maintain his commercial viability in the late 1960s, Sinatra would record works by Paul Simon (“Mrs. Robinson”), the Beatles (“Yesterday”), and Joni Mitchell (“Both Sides, Now”) in 1969.

Retirement And Return (1970 – 1981)

In 1970, Sinatra released Watertown, a critically acclaimed concept album, with music by Bob Gaudio (of the Four Seasons) and lyrics by Jake Holmes. However, it sold a mere 30,000 copies that year and reached a peak chart position of 101. He left Caesars Palace in September that year after an incident where executive Sanford Waterman pulled a gun on him. He performed several charity concerts with Count Basie at the Royal Festival Hall in London. On November 2, 1970, Sinatra recorded the last songs for Reprise Records before his self-imposed retirement, announced the following June at a concert in Hollywood to raise money for the Motion Picture and TV Relief Fund. He gave a “rousing” performance of “That’s Life”, and finished the concert with a Matt Dennis and Earl Brent song, “Angel Eyes” which he had recorded on the Only The Lonely album in 1958. He sang the last line.”‘Scuse me while I disappear.” The spotlight went dark and he left the stage. He told LIFE journalist Thomas Thompson that “I’ve got things to do like the first thing is not to do anything at all for eight months… maybe a year”, while Barbara Sinatra later said that Sinatra had grown “tired of entertaining people, especially when all they really wanted were the same old tunes he had long ago become bored by”. While he was in retirement, President Richard Nixon asked him to perform at a Young Voters Rally in anticipation of the upcoming campaign. Sinatra obliged and chose to sing “My Kind of Town” for the rally held in Chicago on October 20, 1972.

In 1973, Sinatra came out of his short-lived retirement with a television special and album. The album, entitled Ol’ Blue Eyes Is Back, arranged by Gordon Jenkins and Don Costa, was a success, reaching number 13 on Billboard and number 12 in the UK. The television special, Magnavox Presents Frank Sinatra, reunited Sinatra with Gene Kelly. He initially developed problems with his vocal cords during the comeback due to a prolonged period without singing. That Christmas he performed at the Sahara Hotel in Las Vegas, and returned to Caesars Palace the following month in January 1974, despite previously vowing to perform there again. He began what Barbara Sinatra describes as a “massive comeback tour of the United States, Europe, the Far East and Australia”. In July, while on the second tour of Australia, he caused an uproar by describing journalists there – who were aggressively pursuing his every move and pushing for a press conference – as “bums, parasites, fags, and buck-and-a-half hookers”. After he was pressured to apologize, Sinatra instead insisted that the journalists apologize for “fifteen years of abuse I have taken from the world press”. Union actions cancelled concerts and grounded Sinatra’s plane, essentially trapping him in Australia. In the end, Sinatra’s lawyer, Mickey Rudin, arranged for Sinatra to issue a written conciliatory note and a final concert that was televised to the nation. In October 1974 he appeared at New York City’s Madison Square Garden in a televised concert that was later released as an album under the title The Main Event – Live. Backing him was bandleader Woody Herman and the Young Thundering Herd, who accompanied Sinatra on a European tour later that month.

In 1975, Sinatra performed in concerts in New York with Count Basie and Ella Fitzgerald, and at the London Palladium with Basie and Sarah Vaughan, and in Tehran at Aryamehr Stadium, giving 140 performances in 105 days. In August he held several consecutive concerts at Lake Tahoe together with the newly-risen singer John Denver, who became a frequent collaborator. Sinatra had recorded Denver’s “Leaving on a Jet Plane” and “My Sweet Lady” for Sinatra & Company (1971), and according to Denver, his song “A Baby Just Like You” was written at Sinatra’s request for his new grandchild, Angela. During the Labor Day weekend held in 1976, Sinatra was responsible for reuniting old friends and comedy partners Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis for the first time in nearly twenty years, when they performed at the “Jerry Lewis MDA Telethon”. That year, the Friars Club selected him as the “Top Box Office Name of the Century”, and he was given the Scopus Award by the American Friends of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in Israel and an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters from the University of Nevada.

Sinatra continued to perform at Caesars Palace in the late 1970’s and was performing there in January 1977 when his mother Dolly died in a plane crash on the way to see him. He cancelled two weeks of shows and spent time recovering from the shock in Barbados. In March, he performed in front of Princess Margaret at the Royal Albert Hall in London, raising money for the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. On March 14, he recorded with Nelson Riddle for the last time, recording the songs “Linda”, “Sweet Loraine”, and “Barbara”. The two men had a major falling out, and later patched up their differences in January 1985 at a dinner organized for Ronald Reagan, when Sinatra asked Riddle to make another album with him. Riddle was ill at the time and died that October before they had a chance to record.

In 1978, Sinatra filed a $1 million lawsuit against a land developer for using his name in the “Frank Sinatra Drive Center” in West Los Angeles. During a party at Caesars in 1979, he was awarded the Grammy Trustees Award, while celebrating 40 years in show business and his 64th birthday. That year, former President Gerald Ford awarded Sinatra the International Man of the Year Award, and he performed in front of the Egyptian pyramids for Anwar Sadat, which raised more than $500,000 for Sadat’s wife’s charities.

In 1980, Sinatra’s first album in six years was released, Trilogy: Past Present Future, a highly ambitious triple album that features an array of songs from both the pre-rock era and rock era. It was the first studio album of Sinatra’s to feature his touring pianist at the time, Vinnie Falcone and was based on an idea by Sonny Burke. The album garnered six Grammy nominations – winning for best liner notes – and peaked at number 17 on Billboard’s album chart, and spawned yet another song that would become a signature tune, “Theme from New York, New York”. That year, as part of the Concert of the Americas, he performed in the Maracanã Stadium in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, which broke records for the “largest live paid audience ever recorded for a solo performer”. The following year, Sinatra built on the success of Trilogy with She Shot Me Down, an album that was praised for embodying the dark tone of his Capitol years. Also in 1981, Sinatra was embroiled in controversy when he worked a ten-day engagement for $2 million in Sun City, in the internationally unrecognized Bophuthatswana, breaking a cultural boycott against apartheid-era South Africa. President Lucas Mangope awarded Sinatra with the highest honour, the Order of the Leopard, and made him an honorary tribal chief.

Favourite Frank Sinatra Songs Index

This list does not contain Christmas songs. You can find Christmas music from Frank Sinatra here.

The links below will take you to YouTube.

I Get a Kick Out Of You.

It Was A Very Good Year.

I’ve Got You Under My Skin.

Love And Marriage.

Mack The Knife.

Me And My Shadow. (With Sammy Davis Jr.).

My Kind Of Town.

My Way.

One for My Baby (And One More For The Road).

Send In The Clowns.

Somethin’ Stupid (With Nancy Sinatra).

Strangers In The Night.

That’s Life.

The Lady Is A Tramp.

Theme From New York, New York.

Three Coins In The Fountain.

Witchcraft.

Blog Posts

Music: The Rat Pack.

Music: Dean Martin.

Notes And Links

The image shown at the top of this page is the copyright of Capital Records via Wikipedia.

Music: The Rat Pack

I have grown up listening to the Rat Pack. Although there were five members, they were more well-known for Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin and Sammy Davis Jr. They were cool, funny and I love their music, especially those by Sinatra and Martin.

In Blog Posts at the bottom of the page, you will find links to Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin and an index containing some of my favourite songs by the Rat Pack.

About The Rat Pack

The Rat Pack was an informal group of entertainers, the second iteration of which ultimately made films and appeared together in Las Vegas casino venues. They originated as a group of A-list show business friends who met casually at the Los Angeles home of Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall. In the 1960s, the group featured Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr., Joey Bishop, and (before falling out with Sinatra in 1962) Peter Lawford, among others. They appeared together on stage and in films in the early 1960s, including the films Ocean’s 11, and Sergeants 3; after Lawford’s expulsion, they filmed Robin and the 7 Hoods with Bing Crosby in what was to be Lawford’s role. Sinatra, Martin, and Davis were regarded as the group’s lead members after Bogart’s death.

The 1950’s

The name “Rat Pack” was first used to refer to a group of friends in New York, and several explanations have been offered for the name. According to one version, Lauren Bacall saw her husband Humphrey Bogart and his friends returning from a night in Las Vegas and said, “You look like a goddamn rat pack.” “Rat Pack” may also be a shortened version of “Holmby Hills Rat Pack”, a reference to the home of Bogart and Bacall which served as a regular hangout.

Visiting members included Errol Flynn, Ava Gardner, Nat King Cole, Robert Mitchum, Elizabeth Taylor, Janet Leigh, Tony Curtis, Mickey Rooney, Lena Horne, Jerry Lewis, and Cesar Romero. According to Stephen Bogart, the original members of the Holmby Hills Rat Pack were Frank Sinatra (pack master), Judy Garland (first vice-president), Sid Luft (cage master), Bogart (rat in charge of public relations), Swifty Lazar (recording secretary and treasurer), Nathaniel Benchley (historian), David Niven, Katharine Hepburn, Spencer Tracy, George Cukor, Cary Grant, Rex Harrison, and Jimmy Van Heusen.

The 1960’s

The early 1960s version of the group included Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr., Peter Lawford, and Joey Bishop. This group was originally known as the “Clan”, but that name fell out of favour because it was reminiscent of the Ku Klux Klan.

Marilyn Monroe, Angie Dickinson, Juliet Prowse, Buddy Greco, and Shirley MacLaine were often referred to as the “Rat Pack Mascots”.

Comedian Don Rickles wrote that “I never received an official membership card but Frank made me feel part of the fun.”

Peter Lawford was a brother-in-law of President John F. Kennedy (dubbed “Brother-in-Lawford” by Sinatra), and Kennedy spent time with Sinatra and the others when he visited Las Vegas, during which members sometimes referred to the group as “the Jack Pack”. Rat Pack members played a role in campaigning for Kennedy and the Democrats, appearing at the July 1960 Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles. Lawford asked Sinatra if he would have Kennedy as a guest at his Palm Springs house in March 1962 and Sinatra went to great lengths to accommodate the President, including the construction of a helipad. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy advised his brother to sever ties to Sinatra because of his association with Mafia figures such as Sam Giancana and he cancelled the visit. Kennedy instead stayed at Bing Crosby’s estate, which further infuriated Sinatra. Lawford was blamed for this and Sinatra “never again had a good word” for him. Lawford’s role was written out of the upcoming 4 for Texas, and his part in Robin and the 7 Hoods was given to Bing Crosby.

The Rat Pack Revival

Sinatra, Davis, and Martin announced a 29-date tour called Together Again in December 1987. At the press conference to announce the tour, Martin joked about calling it off, and Sinatra rebuked a reporter for using the term “Rat Pack”, referring to it as “that stupid phrase”.

Dean Martin’s son Dean Paul Martin died in a plane crash in March 1987 on the San Gorgonio Mountain in California, the same mountain where Sinatra’s mother was killed in a plane crash ten years earlier. Martin had since become increasingly dependent on alcohol and prescription drugs. Davis had hip replacement surgery two years previously and was estranged from Sinatra because of Davis’ use of cocaine. Davis was also experiencing severe financial difficulties and was promised by Sinatra’s people that he could earn between six and eight million dollars from the tour.

Martin had not made a film or recorded since 1984 and Sinatra felt that the tour would be good for Martin, telling Davis, “I think it would be great for Dean. Get him out. For that alone it would be worth doing”. Sinatra and Davis still performed regularly, yet they had not recorded for several years. Both Sinatra and Martin had made their last film appearances together in 1984’s Cannonball Run II, which also starred Davis. This marked the trio’s first feature film appearance since 1964’s Robin and the 7 Hoods. Martin expressed reservations about the tour, wondering whether they could draw as many people as they had in the past. Sinatra and Davis complained during private rehearsals about the lack of black musicians in the orchestra. The tour began at the Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum Arena on March 13, 1988, to a sold-out crowd of 14,500.

Davis opened the show, followed by Martin and then Sinatra; after an interval, the three performed a medley of songs. During the show, Martin threw a lit cigarette at the audience. He withdrew from the tour after just five shows, citing a flare-up of a kidney problem. Sinatra and Davis continued the tour under the title “The Ultimate Event” with Liza Minnelli replacing Martin as the third member of the trio.

Davis’s associate stated that Sinatra’s people were skimming the top of the revenues from the concerts, as well as stuffing envelopes full of cash into suitcases after the performances. In August 1989, Davis was diagnosed with throat cancer which caused his death in May 1990. He was buried with a gold watch that Sinatra had given him at the conclusion of The Ultimate Event Tour.

A 1988 performance of The Ultimate Event in Detroit was recorded and shown on Showtime the following year as a tribute to the recently deceased Davis. A review in The New York Times praised Davis’s performance, describing it as “pure, ebullient, unapologetic show business.

The Rat Pack Reputation

Concerning the group’s reputation for womanizing and heavy drinking, Joey Bishop stated in a 1998 interview: “I never saw Frank, Dean Martin, Sammy or Peter drunk during performances. That was only a gag! And do you believe these guys had to chase broads? They had to chase ’em away!”

The Rat Pack Films

The links below will take you to IMDb.

It Happened in Brooklyn (1947) starring Frank Sinatra and Peter Lawford.

Meet Me in Las Vegas (1956) starring cameos by Frank Sinatra and Sammy Davis Jr.

Some Came Running (1958) starring Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin, co-starring Shirley MacLaine.

Never So Few (1959) Starring Frank Sinatra, Peter Lawford, and initially Sammy Davis Jr., who was replaced by Steve McQueen.

Ocean’s 11 (1960) starring Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr., Peter Lawford, Angie Dickinson, Joey Bishop and a cameo by Shirley MacLaine.

Pepe (1960) starring cameos by Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr., Peter Lawford, and Joey Bishop.

Sergeants 3 (1962) starring Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr., Peter Lawford, and Joey Bishop.

The Road to Hong Kong (1962) starring cameos by Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin.

Come Blow Your Horn (1963) starring Frank Sinatra with a cameo by Dean Martin.

Johnny Cool (1963) starring Sammy Davis Jr. and Joey Bishop. Peter Lawford was the executive producer; Henry Silva of Ocean’s 11 starred, with Mort Sahl and Jim Backus in supporting roles.

4 for Texas (1963) starring Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin.

Robin and the 7 Hoods (1964) starring Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr., and initially Peter Lawford, who was replaced by Bing Crosby.

Marriage on the Rocks (1965) starring Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin.

The Oscar (1966) starring Frank Sinatra uncredited, and Peter Lawford.

A Man Called Adam (1966) starring Sammy Davis Jr. and Peter Lawford.

Texas Across the River (1966) starring Dean Martin and Joey Bishop.

Salt and Pepper (1968) starring Sammy Davis Jr. and Peter Lawford.

One More Time (1970) starring Sammy Davis Jr. and Peter Lawford.

The Cannonball Run (1981) starring Dean Martin and Sammy Davis Jr.

Cannonball Run II (1984) starring Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin and Sammy Davis Jr., plus Shirley MacLaine and Henrey Silva.

Archival footage of Lawford and Sinatra was used in the 1974 compilation film That’s Entertainment!

Shirley MacLaine appeared in the 1958 film Some Came Running, along with Sinatra and Martin. She had a major role (and Sinatra a cameo) in the 1956 Oscar-winning film Around the World in 80 Days. MacLaine played a Hindu princess who is rescued by and falls in love with, original Rat Pack associate David Niven, and Sinatra had a non-speaking, non-singing role as a piano player in a saloon, whose identity is concealed from the viewer until he turns his face toward the camera during a scene featuring Marlene Dietrich and George Raft. MacLaine appeared alongside Sinatra in Can-Can. She also had an appearance in the 1960 film Ocean’s 11 as a drunken woman. The 1984 film Cannonball Run II, with MacLaine, marked the final time members of the Rat Pack shared theatrical screen-time together.

A biopic titled The Rat Pack, made by HBO in 1998, starred Ray Liotta as Sinatra, Joe Mantegna as Martin, and Don Cheadle as Davis, dramatizing their private lives and, in particular, their roles in the 1960 presidential campaign of John F. Kennedy.

Favourite Rat Pack Songs Index

This list does not contain Christmas songs. You can find Christmas music from Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin and Sammy Davis Jr. here.

The links below will take you to YouTube.

Ain’t That A Kick In The Head – Dean Martin.

All Of Me – Frank Sinatra.

All The Way – Frank Sinatra.

Come Fly With Me – Frank Sinatra.

Everybody Loves Somebody – Dean Martin.

Fly Me To The Moon – Frank Sinatra.

I Get a Kick Out Of You – Frank Sinatra.

It Was A Very Good Year – Frank Sinatra.

I’ve Gotta Be Me – Sammy Davis Jr.

I’ve Got You Under My Skin – Frank Sinatra.

Love And Marriage – Frank Sinatra.

Mack The Knife – Frank Sinatra.

Mambo Italiano – Dean Martin.

Me And My Shadow – Frank Sinatra With Sammy Davis Jr.

Memories Are Made Of This – Dean Martin.

Mr. Bojangles (Live) – Sammy Davis Jr.

My Kind Of Town – Frank Sinatra.

My Way – Frank Sinatra.

One for My Baby (And One More For The Road) – Frank Sinatra.

Send In The Clowns – Frank Sinatra.

Somethin’ Stupid – Frank Sinatra With Nancy Sinatra.

Standing On The Corner – Dean Martin.

Strangers In The Night – Frank Sinatra.

Sway – Dean Martin.

Sweet Gingerbread Man – Sammy Davis Jr.

That’s Amore – Dean Martin.

That’s Life – Frank Sinatra.

The Candy Man (Live) – Sammy Davis Jr.

The Lady Is A Tramp – Frank Sinatra.

Theme From New York, New York – Frank Sinatra.

Three Coins In The Fountain – Frank Sinatra.

Volare – Dean Martin.

Walkin’ My Baby Back Home – Dean Martin.

When You’re Smiling
– Dean Martin.

Witchcraft – Frank Sinatra.

You’re Nobody Till Somebody Loves You – Dean Martin.

Blog Posts

Music: Frank Sinatra.

Music: Dean Martin.

Notes And Links

The image shown at the top of this page is copyright unknown via Wikipedia.

Music: Christmas Music

Who doesn’t love a good Christmas tune? I certainly do and it is part of my Christmas tradition to play the same ones every year. They may be by someone who is not particularly one of my favourite music artists and bands but I still like them nevertheless.

I have grown up listening to many festive tunes with my Mom and on my own, especially Mom’s LP’s by Nat King Cole, Elvis Presley, Jim Reeves, Mario Lanza, Andy Williams, Perry Como and the Hawaiian Christmas and Christmas Party Sing-A-Long ones too. We also listened to singles as well. I am pleased to say I still have them in my vinyl collection.

There is an index at the bottom of the page containing many, but not all of the Christmas music I like to listen to. There are obviously many artists who cover the same tunes but I will show my favourite versions. Some songs are not necessarily Christmas songs per se but are from Christmas albums.

It is hard to pick just a small selection when there are so many to choose from!

Christmas decorations on sheet music.

Christmas Music

Christmas music comprises a variety of genres of music regularly performed or heard around the Christmas season. Music associated with Christmas may be purely instrumental, or in the case of carols or songs may employ lyrics whose subject matter ranges from the nativity of Jesus Christ to gift-giving and merrymaking, to cultural figures such as Santa Claus, among other topics. Many songs simply have a winter or seasonal theme or have been adopted into the canon for other reasons.

While most Christmas songs prior to 1930 were of a traditional religious character, the Great Depression-era of the 1930s brought a stream of songs of American origin, most of which did not explicitly reference the Christian nature of the holiday, but rather the more secular traditional Western themes and customs associated with Christmas. These included songs aimed at children such as “Santa Claus Is Comin’ to Town” and “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer”, as well as sentimental ballad-type songs performed by famous crooners of the era, such as “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” and “White Christmas”, the latter of which remains the best-selling single of all time as of 2018.

Elvis’ Christmas Album (1957) by Elvis Presley is the best-selling Christmas album of all time, selling more than 20 million copies worldwide.

Performances of Christmas music at public concerts, in churches, at shopping malls, on city streets, and in private gatherings is an integral staple of the Christmas holiday in many cultures across the world. Radio stations often convert to a 24-7 Christmas music format leading up to the holiday, starting sometimes as early as the day after Halloween – as part of a phenomenon known as “Christmas creep”.

Christmas Music History

Early Music

Music associated with Christmas is thought to have its origins in 4th-century Rome, in Latin-language hymns such as Veni redemptor gentium. By the 13th century, under the influence of Francis of Assisi, the tradition of popular Christmas songs in regional native languages developed. In the 16th century, various Christmas carols still sung to this day include “The 12 Days of Christmas”, “God Rest You Merry, Gentlemen”, and “O Christmas Tree”, which first emerged.

Music was an early feature of the Christmas season and its celebrations. The earliest examples are hymnographic works (chants and litanies) intended for liturgical use in observance of both the Feast of the Nativity and Theophany, many of which are still in use by the Eastern Orthodox Church. The 13th century saw the rise of the carol written in the vernacular, under the influence of Francis of Assisi.

In the Middle Ages, the English combined circle dances with singing and called them carols. Later, the word carol came to mean a song in which a religious topic is treated in a style that is familiar or festive. From Italy, it passed to France and Germany, and later to England. Christmas carols in English first appear in a 1426 work of John Audelay, a Shropshire priest and poet, who lists 25 “caroles of Cristemas”, probably sung by groups of wassailers, who went from house to house. Music in itself soon became one of the greatest tributes to Christmas, and Christmas music includes some of the noblest compositions of great musicians.

Puritan Prohibition

During the Commonwealth of England government under Cromwell, the Rump Parliament prohibited the practice of singing Christmas carols as Pagan and sinful. Like other customs associated with popular Catholic Christianity, it earned the disapproval of Protestant Puritans. Famously, Cromwell’s interregnum prohibited all celebrations of the Christmas holiday. This attempt to ban the public celebration of Christmas can also be seen in the early history of Father Christmas.

The Westminster Assembly of Divines established Sunday as the only holy day in the calendar in 1644. The new liturgy produced for the English church recognized this in 1645, and so legally abolished Christmas. Its celebration was declared an offence by Parliament in 1647. There is some debate as to the effectiveness of this ban, and whether or not it was enforced in the country.

Puritans generally disapproved of the celebration of Christmas—a trend that continually resurfaced in Europe and the USA through the eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

Read more about Christmas Music History here.

Classical Music

Many large-scale religious compositions are performed in a concert setting at Christmas. Performances of George Frideric Handel’s oratorio Messiah are a fixture of Christmas celebrations in some countries, and although it was originally written for performance at Easter, it covers aspects of the Biblical Christmas narrative. Informal Scratch Messiah performances involving public participation are very popular in the Christmas season. Johann Sebastian Bach’s Christmas Oratorio (Weihnachts-Oratorium, BWV 248), written for Christmas 1734, describes the birth of Jesus, the annunciation to the shepherds, the adoration of the shepherds, the circumcision and naming of Jesus, the journey of the Magi, and the adoration of the Magi. Antonio Vivaldi composed the Violin Concerto RV270 Il Riposo per il Santissimo Natale (For the Most Holy Christmas). Arcangelo Corelli composed the Christmas Concerto in 1690. Peter Cornelius composed a cycle of six songs related to Christmas themes he called Weihnachtsliede. Setting his own poems for solo voice and piano, he alluded to older Christmas carols in the accompaniment of two of the songs.

Other classical works associated with Christmas include:

Pastorale sur la naissance de N.S. Jésus-Christ (c. 1670) by Marc-Antoine Charpentier.

Christus (1847) an unfinished oratorio by Felix Mendelssohn.

L’enfance du Christ (1853–54) by Hector Berlioz.

Oratorio de Noël (1858) by Camille Saint-Saëns.

The Nutcracker (1892) by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky.

Fantasia on Christmas Carols (1912) and Hodie (1954), both by Ralph Vaughan Williams.

A Ceremony of Carols (1942) by Benjamin Britten.

Christmas Carols

Songs that are traditional, even some without a specific religious context, are often called Christmas carols. Each of these has a rich history, some dating back many centuries.

Popular Christmas Songs

United States

According to the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) in 2016, “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town”, written by Fred Coots and Haven Gillespie in 1934, is the most played holiday song of the last 50 years. It was first performed live by Eddie Cantor on his radio show in November 1934. Tommy Dorsey and his orchestra recorded their version in 1935, followed later by a range of artists including Frank Sinatra in 1948, the Supremes, the Jackson 5, the Beach Boys, and Glenn Campbell. Bruce Springsteen recorded a rock rendition in December 1975.

Long-time Christmas classics from prior to the “rock era” still dominate the holiday charts – such as “Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!”, “Winter Wonderland”, “Sleigh Ride” and “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas”. Songs from the rock era to enter the top tier of the season’s canon include Wonderful Christmastime by Paul McCartney, All I Want for Christmas Is You by Mariah Carey and Last Christmas by Wham!

The most popular set of these titles—heard over airwaves, on the Internet, in shopping malls, in elevators and lobbies, even on the street during the Christmas season—have been composed and performed from the 1930s onward. (Songs published before 1925 are all out of copyright, are no longer subject to ASCAP royalties and thus do not appear on their list.) In addition to Bing Crosby, major acts that have popularized and successfully covered a number of the titles in the top 30 most performed Christmas songs in 2015 include Frank Sinatra, Elvis Presley, Andy Williams, and the Jackson 5.

Since the mid-1950s, much of the Christmas music produced for popular audiences have explicitly romantic overtones, only using Christmas as a setting. The 1950s also featured the introduction of novelty songs that used the holiday as a target for satire and a source for comedy. Exceptions such as The Christmas Shoes (2000) have re-introduced Christian themes as complementary to the secular Western themes, and myriad traditional carol cover versions by various artists have explored virtually all music genres.

United Kingdom And Ireland

Most Played Songs

A collection of chart hits recorded in a bid to be crowned the UK Christmas number one single during the 1970s and 1980s have become some of the most popular holiday tunes in the United Kingdom. Band Aid’s 1984 song Do They Know It’s Christmas? is the second-best-selling single in UK chart history. Fairytale of New York, released by The Pogues in 1987, is regularly voted the British public’s favourite-ever Christmas song. It is also the most-played Christmas song of the 21st century in the UK. British glam rock bands had major hit singles with Christmas songs in the 1970s. Merry Xmas Everybody by Slade, I Wish It Could Be Christmas Everyday by Wizzard, and Lonely This Christmas by Mud all remain hugely popular.

The top ten most played Christmas songs in the UK based on a 2012 survey conducted by PRS for Music are as follows:

Ranked No. 1:
Fairytale of New York by The Pogues with Kirsty MacColl.

Ranked No. 2:
All I Want for Christmas Is You by Mariah Carey.

Ranked No, 3:
Do They Know It’s Christmas? by Band Aid.

Ranked No. 4:
Last Christmas by Wham!

Ranked No. 5:
Santa Claus Is Comin’ to Town by Harry Reser and his orchestra (sung by Tom Stacks).

Ranked No. 6:
Do You Hear What I Hear? by Bing Crosby.

Ranked No. 7:
Happy Xmas (War Is Over) John Lennon with Yoko/Plastic Ono Band and the Harlem Community Choir.

Ranked No. 8:
Wonderful Christmastime by Paul McCartney.

Ranked No. 9:
I Wish It Could Be Christmas Everyday by Wizzard.

Ranked No. 10:
Merry Xmas Everybody by Slade.

Included in the 2009 and 2008 lists are such other titles as Jona Lewie’s Stop the Cavalry, Bruce Springsteen’s Santa Claus is Coming to Town, Elton John’s Step into Christmas, Mud’s Lonely This Christmas, Walking in the Air by Aled Jones, Shakin’ Stevens’ Merry Christmas Everyone, Chris Rea’s Driving Home for Christmas and Mistletoe and Wine and Saviour’s Day by Cliff Richard.

Christmas Number Ones

The “Christmas Number One” – songs reaching the top spot on either the UK Singles Chart, the Irish Singles Chart, or occasionally both, on the edition preceding Christmas – is considered a major achievement in the United Kingdom and Ireland. The Christmas number one, and to a lesser extent, the runner-up at number two, benefit from broad publicity. Social media campaigns have been used to try to encourage sales of specific songs so that they could reach number one.

These songs develop an association with Christmas or the holiday season from their chart performance, but the association tends to be shorter-lived than for the more traditionally-themed Christmas songs. Notable longer-lasting examples include Band Aid’s “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” (No. 1, 1984, the second-biggest selling single in UK Chart history; two re-recordings also hit No. 1 in 1989 and 2004), Slade’s “Merry Xmas Everybody” (No. 1, 1973), and Wham!’s “Last Christmas” (No. 2, 1984). Last Christmas would go on to hold the UK record for highest-selling single not to reach No. 1, until it finally topped the chart on 1 January 2021, helped by extensive streaming in the final week of December 2020.

The Beatles, Spice Girls, and LadBaby are the only artists to have achieved consecutive Christmas number-one hits on the UK Singles Chart. The Beatles annually between 1963 and 1965 (with a fourth in 1967), the Spice Girls between 1996 and 1998, and LadBaby in 2018, 2019 and 2020 (with the novelty songs We Built This City, I Love Sausage Rolls and Don’t Stop Me Eatin’). Bohemian Rhapsody is the only recording to have ever been Christmas number one twice, in both 1975 and 1991. Three of the four different Band Aid recordings of “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” have been number one in Christmas week.

At the turn of the 21st century, songs associated with reality shows became a frequent source of Christmas number ones in the UK. In 2002, Popstars: The Rivals produced the top three singles on the British Christmas charts. The “rival” groups produced by the series—the girl group Girls Aloud and the boy band One True Voice—finished first and second respectively on the charts. Failed contestants The Cheeky Girls charted with a novelty hit, Cheeky Song (Touch My Bum), at third. Briton Will Young, the winner of the first Pop Idol, charted at the top of the Irish charts in 2003.

The X Factor also typically concluded in December during its run; the winner’s debut single earned the Christmas number one in at least one of the two countries every year from 2005 to 2014, and in both countries in five of those ten years. Each year since 2008 has seen protest campaigns to outsell the X Factor single (which benefits from precisely-timed release and corresponding media buzz) and prevent it from reaching number one. In 2009, as the result of a campaign intended to counter the phenomenon, Rage Against the Machine’s 1992 single “Killing in the Name” reached number one in the UK instead of that year’s X Factor winner, Joe McElderry. In 2011, Wherever You Are, the single from a choir of military wives assembled by the TV series The Choir, earned the Christmas number-one single in Britain—upsetting X Factor winners Little Mix. With the Military Wives Choir single not being released in Ireland, Little Mix won Christmas number one in Ireland that year.

Read lots more about Christmas Music here.

Favourite Christmas Music Index

A Cradle In Bethlehem – Nat King Cole.

All I Want For Christmas (Is My Two Front Teeth) – Spike Jones And His City Slickers.

A Marshmallow World – Dean Martin.

An Old Christmas Card – Jim Reeves.

Away In A Manger – Andy Williams.

Baby, It’s Cold Outside – Dean Martin.

Blue Christmas – Elvis Presley.

Carol Of The Bells – Pentatonix.

C-H-R-I-S-T-M-A-S – Jim Reeves.

Christmas Time (Don’t Let The Bells End) – The Darkness.

Deck The Halls – Nat King Cole.

Do You Hear What I Hear? – Bing Crosby.

Frosty The Snowman – Gean Autry.

Gaudette – Erasure.

Guardian Angels – Mario Lanza.

Good King Wenceslas – Bing Crosby.

God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen – Mario Lanza.

Happy Holiday / The Holiday Season – Andy Williams.

Happy New Year – Abba.

Happy Xmas (War Is Over) – John Lennon With Yoko / Plastic Ono Band And The Harlem Community Choir.

Hark! The Herald Angles Sing – Mario Lanza.

Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas – Frank Sinatra.

Here Comes Santa Claus (Right Down Santa Claus Lane) – Elvis Presley.

Here We Come A-Caroling / We Wish You A Merry Christmas – Perry Como.

Holly Jolly Christmas – Burl Ives.

If Every Day Was Like Christmas – Elvis Presley.

I’ll Be Home For Christmas – Elvis Presley.

I Saw Three Ships – Mario Lanza.

It’s Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas – Perry Como And The Fontane Sisters.

It’s Christmas Time All Over The World – Sammy Davis Jr.

I Wish It Could Be Christmas Everyday – Wizzard.

Jingle Bells – Jim Reeves.

Joy To The World – Nat King Cole.

Last Christmas – Wham!

Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow! – Dean Martin.

Lonely This Christmas – Mud.

Mama Liked The Roses – Elvis Presley.

Mary’s Boy Child / Oh My Lord – Boney M.

Mary, Did You Know? – Pentatonix.

Merry Christmas Everyone – Shakin’ Stevens.

Merry Xmas Everybody – Slade.

Mistletoe And Holly – Frank Sinatra.

O Come All Ye Faithfull – Nat King Cole.

O Holy Night – Nat King Cole.

O Little Town Of Bethlehem – Nat King Cole.

O Tannenbaum – Nat King Cole.

Peace On Earth / Little Drummer Boy – David Bowie And Bing Crosby.

Rockin’ Around The Christmas Tree – Brenda Lee.

Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer – The Temptations.

Santa, Bring My Baby Back (To Me) – Elvis Presley.

Santa Claus Is Back In Town – Elvis Presley.

Santa Claus Is Coming To Town – Frank Sinatra.

Silent Night – Elvis Presley.

Silver And Gold – Burl Ives.

Silver Bells – Jim Reeves.

Someday At Christmas – The Temptations.

Sweet Little Jesus Boy – Andy Williams.

Thank You – Pentatonix.

Thank God It’s Christmas – Queen.

The Christmas Song (Merry Christmas To You) – Nat King Cole.

The First Noel – Mario Lanza.

The Little Boy That Santa Claus Forgot – Nat King Cole.

The Merry Christmas Polka – Jim Reeves.

Up On The Housetop – Pentatonix.

Walking In The Air – Aled Jones.

We Three Kings Of Orient Are – Mario Lanza.

What Christmas Means To Me – Pentatonix.

When A Child Is Born – Johnny Mathis.

White Christmas – Bing Crosby.

Winter Wonderland / Don’t Worry Be Happy – Pentatonix And Tori Kelly.

You’re A Mean One, Mr. Grinch – Pentatonix.

‘Zat You Santa Claus – Louis Armstrong And The Commanders.

Blog Posts

Blue Peter: An Advent Crown For Christmas.

Books: A Christmas Carol By Charles Dickens.

Christmas: A Christmas Carol By Charles Dickens – Screen Versions.

Christmas: Nostalgic Christmas Adverts.

Jokes: Christmas Jokes.

Poetry: A Visit From St. Nicholas By Clement Clarke Moore.

Poetry: Harley Davidson Christmas Poem By Unknown.

Notes And Links

Mick Haupt on Pexels – The image shown at the top of this page is the copyright of Mick Haupt. You can find more great work from the photographer Mick and lots more free stock photos at Pexels.

The image above of Christmas decorations on sheet music is the copyright of neelam279 at Pixabay.