The nakedness Kazan saw, the impersonality Miller described, are not incompatible. A very modest and sensible lady, she always said that it was her job to make her hearers feel their own feelings, not hers. This accords with the philosophy of one of Sinatra’s primary influences, the godmother of New York cabaret, Mabel Mercer. No, he said, he was singing his audience’s emotions, not his own. It was, however, the other Sinatra - the great interpreter of great songs - whom Miller seemed to have in mind when he decried the common notion that the singer’s best work was autobiographical. Mitch Miller, of singalong fame, was the classical oboe virtuoso turned record producer, who masterminded what’s generally considered to be the low-point of the Sinatra career: the early 1950s when, having fallen from his unprecedented teen-idol eminence of the previous decade, he was recording novelties and sub-standard ballads in a vain attempt to keep up with the musically depressing times. The first volume Frank: The Voice came out in 2010, and it contains an observation that should be considered in conjunction with Kazan’s. I got that nugget from Sinatra: The Chairman by James Kaplan, the second half of a massive and probably definitive two-volume biography - a double-doorstopper from Doubleday - published to coincide with the centenary of its subject’s birth, on Dec. 12, 1915. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Manage Print Subscription / Tax Receipt.
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