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A Storied Singer Frank Sinatra as Literary Conceit

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Gilbert L. Gigliotti

Book Code: GM0973

ISBN: 0-313-30973-6

ISBN-13: 978-0-313-30973-1

DOI:

192 pages

Greenwood Press

Publication: 5/30/2002

List Price: $102.95 (UK Sterling Price: £59.95)

Availability: In Stock

Media Type: Hardcover

Trim Size: 6 1/8 x 9 1/4

Subjects:

Series Title: Contributions to the Study of Popular Culture

Series Number: 76

Endorsement From Philip Furia
Director of Film Studies
University of North Carolina at Wilmington: Instead of yet another biography of Frank Sinatra, Gil Gigliotti gives us something much more timely and illuminating--a wideranging and insightful study of Frank Sinatra as a literary creation who emerges from lyrics crafted for him by Sammy Cahn and other songwriters, album liner notes, cartoons, and an immense array of other works that reveal how important a figure Sinatra carves in American culture.

Description: Frank Sinatra forever altered American art and culture. His life and work is mythified in countless books and essays. This book offers a much-needed fresh approach to The Chairman of the Board. Artists from all varieties of media have used Sinatra to create their own works and, in many cases, their own Sinatras.

Sinatra's legacy is not confined to the music he created--his shadow, his aura, and his mere existence helped to inform the lives and works of generations. Gigliotti examines how genre and literary fiction, lyric and satiric poetry, rock and folk music, and even domestic drama have conjured and symbolically employed the legendary singer. Each of the eleven chapters of A Storied Singer details a different use of Sinatra. Subjects include the lyrics of Sammy Cahn, recent novels such as The Death of Frank Sinatra, and the many songs that are about or mention Old Blue Eyes.

Gigliotti also examines Sinatra as seen through international eyes, from British songwriters and Spanish novelists to American expatriates and Israeli filmmakers, providing an unusual and fascinating look at a major American figure.

Table of Contents:

Preface
Prologue: The Man in Many Looking Glasses: From an Obscene Gerund to a Pas de Deux
Self-portraits
"Come [Fly, Dance, and Waltz with] Us on Equal Terms": The Whitmanesque Sinatra of Sammy Cahn
The Colors of Ava: Tone Poems of Color and the Painful Measure of Sinatra's Passions
The Composition of Celebrity: Sinatra as Text in the Liner Notes of Stan Cornyn
Left Standing at Watertown Station: The Chairman of the Board in the Time of Woodstock
Strolling Among the Stars: Gordon Jenkins' Reflections on Frank's Future
'Sad-eyed Sinatras' in Song and Story
"Will You Be My Music": Sinatra in Popular Song from the '40s to a New Millennium
The Universal Tongue: Language and Image in Raul Nunez's Sinatra
"There'll Be No Future without Him": The Voice Versus the Emerging Monster in Playing Sinatra
"The Voice" in the Desert: A Quartet of Frank Revelations
Tale of Two Cities: Sinatra as Genius Hobokenesis and Vegas Incarnate
"Gonna Sit Right Down and Write Myself a Letter": Blaming the Oyster in Sinatraland
Epilogue: The Sinatriad: The Unwritten American Epic
Appendices
Works Cited
Index

LC Card Number: 2001055606

LCC Class: ML420

Dewey Class: 782


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