Let Me Be Frank: The Extraordinary Life and Music of Frank Sinatra, Jr.

Let Me Be Frank: The Extraordinary Life and Music of Frank Sinatra, Jr.
Bruce Klauber and Andrea Kauffman
216 Pages
ISBN: # 97-1-4968-5865-8
University Press of Mississippi
2025

Sid Mark, the legendary Philadelphia broadcaster who for many years hosted the iconic radio show "The Sounds of Sinatra," liked to tell a joke about the Chairman of the Board that inspired instant self-recognition among most men of the time who heard it. "A great musician dies, goes to Heaven, and meets St. Peter at the Gate. The musician feels overwhelmed, and St. Peter says 'Welcome to Heaven. You have the run of the place. What would you like me to do for you?' The musician says, 'Well, I'd just like to see and hear some of the great band leaders who made it to Heaven.' St. Peter takes him to a bandstand where Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Stan Kenton, and Glenn Miller are hanging out and rehearsing with their bands. The musician is awestruck. Then he sees a guy walking cooly around with a catchy smile and his hat tipped just right. The musician asks St. Peter: "Who's that?" St. Peter says, "That's God. He's trying to be like Frank."

If anyone other than God had to wrestle with his identity vis-à-vis Frank Sinatra, it was his son, Frank Sinatra, Jr., the subject of Klauber's and Kauffman's Let Me Be Frank: The Extraordinary Life and Music of Frank Sinatra, Jr.. Among the things that this book documents meticulously is Frank Jr's lifetime struggle to be like his father, while at the same time striving to differentiate himself personally and professionally from him. Partly because of the family connection, Frank, Jr. was in certain ways a clone of his father, with a fine singing voice in the same vocal register, and a similar flare for making music swing. Yet, like every young man, he wanted to be recognized for his own unique potential. This resulted in a scenario in which father and son cared about each other and at the same time felt alienated from each other-sometimes finding themselves in a power struggle. Such is sometimes the case between father and son, but Frank, Sr's ambition and celebrity and his son's feelings of rejection, kept the struggle going, off and on, until both had passed on. The book is basically biographical, about "Frankie" (Frank, Jr.) and those in his career, life and in his family. Frankie wrote and recorded some songs of his own, but they were mostly in the manner of his father's repertoire—the Great American Songbook and the swing era-so they aren't analyzed very much. There are stories about many of Frank, Jr's gigs, especially reminiscences by Andrea Kauffman, the members of his bands, and the like.

A chapter of the book is devoted to the notorious kidnapping of Frank, Jr. A young man, he was gigging with his band at Harrah's Club in Lake Tahoe, when he was taken hostage by two college students seeking ransom money from his father. Frank, Sr., was very upset and complied with the request, with some attention to advice given by the FBI. But the hostage-takers got scared before they got the money, and released Frank, Jr. Nevertheless, they were brought to trial and convicted. Throughout, Frank, Sr. was the "good father," thinking only about the well-being of his son. Because of the family connection, the case got a huge amount of publicity in the press. Frank, Jr., suffered a great deal from it and it left him suspicious whenever he checked into a hotel after that. Interestingly, Sinatra, Sr.'s ex-wife, Ava Gardner, who was not Frankie's mother, nevertheless showed great compassion when he was staying at a hotel in Spain, and had him come stay at her house.

Overall, the book seems to be fair in its assessments to all those involved, which is very difficult to do in such a love-hate situation. The one exception might that it demolishes a young lawyer, Cynthia McMurray, who was married for a short time to Frank, Jr. The authors calls her a "vampire" and point to her devilish intention, namely to swindle lots of money from the "victim" (Frankie) and his father. At least one of the authors, Andrea Kauffman, supports this idea from personal experience. Whether McMurray had any redeeming qualities, and whether Kauffman was objective and detached about her, remain unanswered questions.

The book is a rich depiction of Frank, Jr. and his intriguing life with his family and in the music business. The authors, Klauber and Kauffman, are extremely qualified to undertake such a task, Klauber being an outstanding drummer and singer with a doctor of music degree, and Kauffman, for many years Frank, Jrs' manager, a good friend of his, and often on site with him. It may not tell the whole story, but it tells enough of it to keep the reader interested throughout.

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