All my life I wanted to meet Ol’ Blue Eyes –

then one day, in a chance encounter, I did …

Nobody ever told me about Frank Sinatra. Nobody had to.

In my all-American hometown, Ben Avon, Pa., (Population, 2000; number in my graduating class, 54), we all walked home from school for lunch. My walk was three blocks one block longer than Lynn Watson’s, two blocks shorter than Barry Price’s, and about the same as Jack Kuhn’s.

In those days, just like now, we all listened to and loved the pop music of the time – in our case, Eddie Fisher, Patti Page, Joni James, Don Cornell et.al. The first rock ‘n’ roll song, Gee by the Crows (at least in the Pittsburgh area), had not yet surfaced.

One day, I was scarfing lunch at my parent’s chrome and yellow formica kitchen table. (The idea was to tear through the meal so I could hang around with the guys outside of Espy’s drugstore before returning to school.) My mom had KDKA playing on her little kitchen radio with what must have been a two-inch speaker. The deejay was Art “your old pal” Pallin. That day, at a moment forever scored on my mind, out came forth something I will never forget: Sinatra singing American Beauty Rose, the original Columbia version.

It was clear to me that something extraordinary was happening with that song by that singer. None of the others sang like that and later I began to understand, none would ever do so. Though that moment was to change my life, I never discussed it with anyone at the time. I suppose I didn’t really understand what it meant anyway.

But I did know then that Frank mattered. It wasn’t until years later that I knew how much, because from then on my entire life was underscored by Sinatra’s music.

I would wait for each new album from that point until his last in 1994 (through the 50’s, 60’s, 70’s, 80’s, 90’s) – through junior high, high school, college, grad school, career path, CBS, Disney, marriage . . . from Philadelphia to New York City and Los Angeles… through the climb to professional success – and widower hood… to getting lucky in marriage again!

For a while they came more than once a year – at the end, only once a decade. In all that time, I never heard a Sinatra song I didn’t like. And I never heard anyone sing as he did.

Every album was a revelation. As I would tear off the shrink wrap and carefully place the LP on the turntable and begin the first of dozens of plays, every song on every album became part of me. I learned the melodies and the lyrics, and every nuance of Frank’s interpretations. The way he punched the words “Looking for the light” after the instrumental bridge in Dancing In The Dark; the way he toys with the rhymes “best vest” and “tweeds pressed” in All I Need Is The Girl; the way he . . . oh, never mind. I assimilated all of it into my increasingly vast repertoire of Sinatra words and music.

And between albums, there were the concerts – The 500 Club; Las Vegas; Carnegie Hall; Madison Square Garden; Universal Amphitheatre; Greek Theater; Royal Albert Hall; Long Beach Convention Center. I was there, early and often.

I would take new friends, new loves, and business associates, out of-town visitors, my mother and father. I would spread the word About Frank. Few failed to see and hear what I saw and heard. Often at these concerts, fans would express their feelings for Frank. Women would sometimes offer flowers, and Sinatra always responded by giving one of them the orange handkerchief from his lapel pocket. Often a man would yell from the darkness, “We love you, Frank.” Sinatra inevitably replied, “I love you, too, pal.”

Everybody who knew me knew about Frank and me; those who loved me reveled in how much I delighted in his music, and were happy for me.

It was through Sinatra, too, that I learned about the Great American Songbook. During his most fruitful periods, there were precious few good songs being written. So Frank went back into the archives and recorded the definitive versions of hundreds of Rodgers, Kern, Porter and Gershwin songs, as well as the best of what was left of quality contemporary material (e. g. , Sondheim    and Coleman). Occasionally, he did mediocre material, too, but even then he always managed to bring something special to the piece. Listen to Downtown, Winchester Cathedral or Sweet Caroline. He has the definitive versions, even of these.

Ah… but, about that conversation.

Frank was appearing at Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas during the time he was with Warner-Reprise. Coincidentally, there was an Atari (at the time owned by Warner), convention in town.

Apparently, someone had suggested that Sinatra make an appearance at some Atari function. Steve Ross, the president of Warner, whom I knew by sight but had never met, had come to Caesar’s to pick up Sinatra and escort him to the Atari group. I got on the Caesar’s Palace elevator alone, on the sixth floor. The elevator stopped on the fifth floor – Ross and Frank Sinatra got on.

At that moment, an infinite array of thoughts crossed my mind, the most important of which was, “No matter what I choose to say to Frank Sinatra, I’ve got no more than seven or eight seconds in which to do it”. Something else occurred to me: if I said anything gushy or stupid, he might have responded unkindly.

I wouldn’t chance that. So, I uttered nothing.

But, I caught his eye, and in the process must have actually said what I wanted to say. He saw the look and acknowledged it in what appeared to be an understanding nod. Strangers in the elevator (sic), exchanging glances …

What I must have said was, “I love you, Frank. Don’t quit until you record every great song ever written.”

Frank’s response must have been, “I love you too, pal.”

The doors opened and they swept away.

For a long time after that encounter, I didn’t understand that Frank and I actually had a conversation that day; but now I’m certain we did.

I got to tell Frank Sinatra how I felt about him before he died.

– Jim Jimirro