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Frank Sinatra Research Paper

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One can not make much of an argument that Frank Sinatra was not one of the greatest individual starts of the twentieth century; his music reached the captive ears of millions, he was a successful actor who even netted an academy award. Throughout his career he maintained an air of sophistication, surely most who imagine Frank Sinatra imagine him dressed to the nines, in a full suit with a fedora to complete the look. His musical style mirrored his appearance, with his songs consisting of his smooth clear voice, usually crooning over a big band or similar instrumental group. His incredible talent and popularity lead him to be able to voice his opinion on matters unrelated to his music, and thus he made a brief stint into politics and the Civil …show more content…

For instance, his hit song My Way was originally a french song called Comme d'habitude, with English lyrics that were written specifically for Frank Sinatra by Paul Anka, another performer who was a long time friend of his (Queenan). As a result of his failure to use his music to push forward his political ideas, Sinatra instead had to push his views through what he said outside of his music. One of his more direct contributions to the civil rights music took place in 1945, where he went to a high school in Gary, Indiana to give a speech about racial tolerance to high school students who where protesting their school’s pro civil rights policies (Kelley, 543). This was an astounding example of how an incredibly well known figure such as Frank Sinatra could use his influence to push a productive political viewpoint. Frank Sinatra is also well known for his Rat Pack, a collection of celebrities that included an African American performer: Sammy David Jr, whose rise to fame was certainly contributed to by his friendship with a star as large as Sinatra …show more content…

During the Cuban Missile Crisis, when cold war tensions were at an all time high in the United States, Bob Dylan wrote a song that would become known as A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall, which depicted the world after a nuclear cataclysm. He song provided imagery such as “a newborn baby with wild wolves around it” and “a young woman whose body was burning” (Dylan). Compared to Sinatra, Dylan’s music was extremely politically motivated and used to push a message, it was also composed by Dylan himself. This difference is most likely due to Sinatra’s origin in the Big Band era of Swing Music, where a singer would exist as part of a large ensemble if one existed at all, and the band director would be primarily in charge of songs that the orchestra performed. Whereas Dylan was a child of the Folk Music revival, which valued music less for setting a mood but rather as a means for creative expression for a given artist. Even if a difference in era is the root in Dylan’s music being far more politically motivated, it did lead to him being able to have a large amount of influence of the political views of his listeners. Dylan was also notoriously racially tolerant, with the singer Victoria Spivey saying that to him “Everybody was people, not color” (Sounes, Chapter 3). One of Bob Dylan’s biggest hits was Blowin’ In The Wind,

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