Introduction
Few individuals have changed the course of American Popular Music quite like the legendary Frank Sinatra. Arguably, this man contributed more to music and popular culture than any single entertainer in the business, and for a longer period of time. For six decades, Sinatra, commonly known as “the Chairman of the Board”, established new trends in the music business while reigning as one of the most iconic cultural icons of all time. This essay seeks to explore the influence Sinatra had both on the music itself, and on popular culture that emerged shortly after the Second World War. Beginning with a brief background on the musical style called “crooning”, as well as the life of early Sinatra, it will examine three primary ways that …show more content…
The Crooner arose because of a perfect combination of new technology. In their book, The Rise of the Crooners, authors Pitts and Hoffman explain the origins of the vocal style. Bing Crosby, one of their first singers to adopt a more causal, sensual vocal technique, came on the scene around 1930. Gene Austin’s hit “My Blue Heaven”, topped the charts in 1927. As Pitts and Hoffman say, this was the first of what would become popular music, “that is, the process of squeezing diversity through the strainer of familiarity”. Tin Pan Alley, a large music publishing agency in the heart of New York City, cranked out countless “hits” to be performed by whoever bought them. It was the wide dissemination of radio, along with the invention of the microphone, which allowed the Crooner to take the scene. With the microphone, a singer could sing intimately, usually in a plain style, singing the popular hits of Tin Pan Alley in a purely American idiom. The radio allowed these singers to be broadcast right into someone’s living room, thus, the popular singer was born. Hoffman and Pitts note, “By 1925 radio sales and revenue exceeded that of the recording industry, and programming was rapidly becoming
Few individuals have changed the course of American Popular Music quite like the legendary Frank Sinatra. Arguably, this man contributed more to music and popular culture than any single entertainer in the business, and for a longer period of time. For six decades, Sinatra, commonly known as “the Chairman of the Board”, established new trends in the music business while reigning as one of the most iconic cultural icons of all time. This essay seeks to explore the influence Sinatra had both on the music itself, and on popular culture that emerged shortly after the Second World War. Beginning with a brief background on the musical style called “crooning”, as well as the life of early Sinatra, it will examine three primary ways that …show more content…
The Crooner arose because of a perfect combination of new technology. In their book, The Rise of the Crooners, authors Pitts and Hoffman explain the origins of the vocal style. Bing Crosby, one of their first singers to adopt a more causal, sensual vocal technique, came on the scene around 1930. Gene Austin’s hit “My Blue Heaven”, topped the charts in 1927. As Pitts and Hoffman say, this was the first of what would become popular music, “that is, the process of squeezing diversity through the strainer of familiarity”. Tin Pan Alley, a large music publishing agency in the heart of New York City, cranked out countless “hits” to be performed by whoever bought them. It was the wide dissemination of radio, along with the invention of the microphone, which allowed the Crooner to take the scene. With the microphone, a singer could sing intimately, usually in a plain style, singing the popular hits of Tin Pan Alley in a purely American idiom. The radio allowed these singers to be broadcast right into someone’s living room, thus, the popular singer was born. Hoffman and Pitts note, “By 1925 radio sales and revenue exceeded that of the recording industry, and programming was rapidly becoming