The singer Frank Sinatra called the “single musical influence on me”
While there have arguably been plenty of more naturally gifted vocalists to emerge in the years since, when he first came into the public eye, there was simply nobody in the world with a voice like Frank Sinatra.
‘Old Blue Eyes’ wasn’t just an exceptional crooner who knew how to pack in a whole heap of emotion into every performance, but he was a charismatic individual who was able to win over audiences with even so much as a wry grin or a small glance in the direction of someone in the audience. While having actual talent will take you a long way towards stardom, having the ability to win over a crowd by being such an affable character will do plenty to consolidate this.
One other huge aspect of his artistry was his vocal delivery, which was frankly unlike anything else that existed at the time. While it isn’t uncommon for jazz singers to have a style that saw them work with a slightly swung meter, Sinatra took this to the extreme, as though he was constantly stumbling over his lines and delivering them so far behind the beat that it almost felt as though he was singing far later than he should have been. It sounds clumsy, yet it worked a treat for him, and very few others have been able to replicate that.
Sinatra was a truly authentic performer whose recordings made it feel as though you’re being serenaded in a smoky room at the back of a nightclub, but it could translate into the largest concert halls as well because of his ability to project his voice and become a booming beacon of noise.
Many people would credit the New Jersey native as having changed the game when it came to vocal jazz, but it’s not as though there weren’t other fine examples prior to him who were just as exceptional at their craft, and his influences had to have come from somewhere.
While the likes of Ella Fitzgerald, Nina Simone and Chet Baker were all considered as contemporaries of Sinatra, there was one vocalist whose presence in the years before Sinatra’s activity was more influential than anyone else, and who can arguably be considered as the stylistic originator of what all of the aforementioned singers did.
All the way back in 1944, Sinatra was fortunate enough to have encountered Billie Holiday, who passed on some sage advice about bending notes and utilising the full range of his vocals to create something more alluring, which he would go on to incorporate into his own music.
Regarded as one of the greatest jazz vocalists of all time by many of the performers of Sinatra’s generation, he proclaimed in 1958 that there wasn’t anyone else like her. “It is Billie Holiday who was, and still remains, the greatest single musical influence on me.”
Even though he went on to make a significant impression on the history of music himself, the fact that someone like Holiday was able to start her career as early as 1933 and still receive recognition for her craft almost an entire century later is the mark of a true innovator and originator, and Sinatra’s acknowledgement of this is testament to her impact on his own career.
