The moment Frank Sinatra finally called his daughter Nancy a “star”
When you see the logo for the Reprise record label, you might think of Joni Mitchell, or Fleetwood Mac, or maybe Green Day, depending on your age. You might need to be even a tad older to recall, however, that Reprise was actually founded by Ol’ Blue Eyes himself, Frank Sinatra, and that his role as CEO of the label is what earned him his other nickname: “Chairman of the Board.”
When he launched Reprise in 1960, it was a vanity project of sorts for the 45-year-old Sinatra, as it gave him total control over his own output going forward, while also allowing him to help out his pals. The original roster of Reprise musicians include fellow Rat Pack members Dean Martin and Sammy Davis, Jr., as well as some esteemed jazz artists and comedians that Sinatra personally liked and respected: Bing Crosby, Duke Ellington, Rosemary Clooney, and Redd Foxx among them.
Less fanfare came with the 1961 signing of a 21-year-old singer named Nancy . . . Nancy Sinatra, that is. Yes, nepo babies have existed since the dawning of time, but in this case, Frank’s attempts to help his daughter establish herself as a recording star were met with consistent disinterest from the American public. Between 1961 and 1964, Nancy managed a couple minor hits overseas, but listeners in the US seemed skeptical from the outset.
According to legend, there were considerations in the Reprise offices about cutting bait with Nancy entirely in 1965, but Papa Frank decided to try one more thing; enlisting the 36-year-old producer and delightfully odd country-lounge singer/songwriter Lee Hazlewood to try and develop some songs for his daughter.
Hazlewood, as one of the great, under-appreciated musical geniuses of his generation, promptly delivered the goods, agreeing to hand over a song he’d been working on for himself, called ‘These Boots Were Made for Walkin.’ The title had actually been inspired by a line of dialogue Frank Sinatra speaks in the 1963 film 4 For Texas, but Frank convinced Lee that the song might work even better coming from the voice of a sweet-seeming young gal.
Sure enough, Nancy Sinatra’s version of ‘These Boots’ broke out in 1966 as the biggest hit in Reprise Records’ short history.
“After recording so many records with so little success, it’s pretty hard to believe what’s happening,” Nancy told the Associated Press that March, adding that her famous father and label chief was “very pleased. . . . Now he calls me ‘Star’.”
Maybe it’s a little bit sad that young Nancy hadn’t already earned that sort of nickname just for being Frank’s kid, but it’s not every day your daughter also creates a financial windfall for your upstart business, especially when initial returns on ‘These Boots’ didn’t look too promising.
“For three weeks it just sat there,” Nancy Sinatra said of the single. “I thought, ‘Oh, boy, failed again.’ It’s pretty crushing to work on records year after year and have nothing come of them. But then ‘Boots’ caught on in Hawaii and became the number-one record. Then it took off in Albany and in Philadelphia.”
And soon enough, the song was everywhere, a fairly unique sort of tune and singer compared to its competition on the pop charts at the time.
“Obviously teenage girls buy most of the single records,” Nancy said, “and they prefer to listen to men singers. But ‘Boots’ is a song that girls can associate with.”
January 22nd will mark the 60th anniversary of ‘These Boots Were Made for Walkin’’ debuting on the US pop charts.
