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    Frank: The Voice
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    Frank: The Voice
    Unavailable
    Frank: The Voice
    Audiobook22 hours

    Frank: The Voice

    Written by James Kaplan

    Narrated by Rob Shapiro

    4/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    Bestselling author James Kaplan redefines Frank Sinatra in a triumphant new biography that includes many rarely seen photographs.

    Frank Sinatra was the best-known entertainer of the twenti­eth century-infinitely charismatic, lionized and notori­ous in equal measure. But despite his mammoth fame, Sinatra the man has remained an enigma. As Bob Spitz did with the Beatles, Tina Brown for Diana, and Peter Guralnick for Elvis, James Kaplan goes behind the legend and hype to bring alive a force that changed popular culture in fundamental ways.

    Sinatra endowed the songs he sang with the explosive conflict of his own personality. He also made the very act of listening to pop music a more personal experience than it had ever been. In Frank: The Voice, Kaplan reveals how he did it, bringing deeper insight than ever before to the complex psyche and tur­bulent life behind that incomparable vocal instrument. We relive the years 1915 to 1954 in glistening detail, experiencing as if for the first time Sinatra's journey from the streets of Hoboken, his fall from the apex of celebrity, and his Oscar-winning return in From Here to Eternity. Here at last is the biographer who makes the reader feel what it was really like to be Frank Sinatra-as man, as musician, as tortured genius.


    From the Hardcover edition.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPenguin Random House Audio
    Release dateNov 2, 2010
    ISBN9780307748492
    Unavailable
    Frank: The Voice
    Author

    James Kaplan

    James Kaplan has written novels, essays, and reviews, as well as over a hundred major profiles for many magazines, including The New Yorker , Vanity Fair, and Esquire. He is the co-author of the book Dean and Me: A Love Story with Jerry Lewis about his working relationship with Dean Martin. James lives in Westchester, New York, with his wife and three sons.

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    Reviews for Frank

    4/5

    54 ratings9 reviews

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    • 5/5
      A great read. Every once in a while there is a passage that is a little overly-gossip column-like and that got under my nerves a bit, but other than that I loved this. Definitely reading part two, which is even longer. Never thought I'd read 1600 pages about Frank Sinatra, but there you have it.
    • 4/5
      A very well done bio on the early years of Frank Sinatra's most storied life and career. I was not a big fan and he was before my time but I am glad I was able experience his really amazing life in this work.Maybe one of the most talented and flawed men in the entertainment world certainly there was, and are no more of his ilk. The crash and burn and the Phoenix rise make for a rather riveting read that James Kaplan reveals spectacularly. It made me revisit the early recordings and marvel at the talent and ponder what went into their production as relayed in the book. The tumultuous nature of his marriages was also fascinating. The contrast between Nancy and Ava could not be more revealing to his compulsions and obsessions. There is a lot here to put together many of the pieces of this complex man. I look forward to the second edition and am left with one thing that stands out from this one; few have probably packed more into a lifetime then this guy.
    • 4/5
      Seemingly well researched accounts of a troubled, temperamental individual. I've always been a Sinatra fan and I still am, despite his less than perfect attitudes. The writing is clear and engaging, but it does come off as a bit gossipy at times.
    • 5/5
      A very interesting, engaging, and generally well-balanced account of Frank Sinatra's life from birth up to the early 1950s (the point where he won an Oscar for his role as Maggio in From Here to Eternity). There's a lot of interesting material and analysis regarding his musicianship, and a good look at some of the myths and legends (such as how he landed the role of Maggio, and how he left the Dorsey orchestra). My only irritation was the odd placement of footnotes -- something corrected in the next volume.
    • 4/5
      This is really the story of how Frankie became Frank. Whereas other Sinatra tomes go through his entire life or just focus on the music, James Kaplan has pulled the reader into Francis Albert's beginnings up until Ava's goodbye. We get a deepened look at the man who changed song, along with some sweet asides about the songwriters, the conductors, and the loves of The Voice's rise-fall-rise before he took off into the stratosphere.

      It all started with Mama Dolly. Abortionist, midwife, neighborhood politico. She was the one who shaped young Frankie, made him into the man he became, which isn't exactly Mr. Cool. Through his relentless quest to be better than Der Bingle, to his alienation of much of Hollywood, past his pursuit of Ava Gardner, to his sudden comeback, we get a solid picture of what made this guy the best of the best of the best.

      There is a good section of the book devoted to Ava Gardner, of whom I had little interest or knowledge of before I read this, but now I want to know more about her. In my view, that means Kaplan did his job. It's also obvious that the author loves music, as evidenced when he suddenly describes some of Frankie's earlier songs and, especially, as the bowties disappear and the fedora and lamp post take over.

      Sinatra was a lifelong Dodger fan, so I felt heartened to know that his favorite color scheme was orange and black...the colors of the Giants (it's worth another hour or so just to read Kaplan's notes/sources section).

      Book Season = Summer (when the swinging begins)
    • 4/5
      Well researched and written bio of Frank Sinatra. Not sure why it only ended at the point he won his oscar, but maybe there's a sequel in the works somewhere.Worth the read if interested in the subject matter.
    • 3/5
      A lot of quotes and not bad but I don't see how someone can provide quotes of two people in intimate conversation. Also, seemed that every film before From Here to Eternity was bad. The early MGM films were what MGM was famous for at that time - pure, delightful entertainment - and there is nothing more entertaining that Frank and Durante in It Happened in Brooklyn or Frank and Kelly in Take Me Out to the Ball Game - two films the author particularly disliked.
    • 5/5
      Written in a breezy, accessible style, this is one of the best biographies of a musician to come along in a long time, and will probably become the definitive Sinatra biography. Frank comes off as a complicated, thin-skinned, musical genius, with some serious issues around women. A lot of myths and gossip gets debunked here, but the truth is even more amazing than the stories. _The Voice_ covers Frank's childhood, rise to musical stardom, fall from grace, and triumphant return via his role in _From Here to Eternity_, with his very complex love affair with Eva Gardner dominating the last half of the book. Personally I can't wait for Volume Two and the rest of the Sinatra story. Place it on the shelf next to Peter Guralnick's masterful 2-volume Elvis bio.
    • 2/5
      A poor amalgam of previously written bios of Sinatra. Kaplan adds only some snarky comments and sleazy innuendo, providing a behind the bedroom door look at Sinatra and his many conquests, especially Ava Gardner.