Ambition. So often I will find this to respect in an artist. It is easy, after all, to “stay in your lane” and perform the music that is expected of you. It is easy and we really can’t fault artists that continue to pay the bills by adhering to the public’s perception. It might be more respectable than an artist changing their sound in an attempt to find a hit and to settle into a lucrative niche; “maybe I can reinvent myself as a country singer”.
Ambition can easily result in severe misfires, sure, but we may not today have many classic albums if artists never thought outside the box. Another level of ambition is evident in those who attempt to forge their own path as opposed to the one blazed by a famous relative. If Frank Sinatra really has no musical peer, then what of his son, Frank Sinatra, Jr.? Frank the Younger (he was actually not a “Junior” having been christened Franklin Wayne Emanuel at his birth in 1944) is also a singular musical personality if only by virtue of his status as Frank Sinatra’s only son. How it really was for him as a singer in his dad’s shadow is the topic for another day and much of the insight no doubt died with Frank, Jr when he passed in 2016. On the day he died in Daytona Beach, I was only 11 miles away from him.
Today we are talking about Frank Sinatra, Jr.’s second album, Spice from 1971 and we can start by talking about Daybreak Records. Noted record man Sonny Burke is another Vintage Leisure player to be born in Pennsylvania. He had been a writer-arranger for the big bands and then teamed with Peggy Lee to write the songs for Disney’s Lady and the Tramp; a score that had some historical impact on the music business. He then focused on A&R and became musical director of Warner Bros. Records and Reprise Records where he produced the bulk of Frank Sinatra’s classic releases for that label. In 1970, he added record label owner to his CV when he worked out a deal with RCA Records to subsidise his new label, Daybreak Records. Very little can be found about this label but for it’s brief existence in the early 1970s it released albums by Bing Crosby, Count Basie and Crosby and the Count’s collab Bing ‘N Basie and Laurindo Almeida. An interesting little side trip in the record business, Burke’s short-lived side gig is a footnote, a little weathered road marker on our trip through the mists of the past.
In the first year of operation, Daybreak came out of the box with Basie’s Have a Nice Day followed by Bing’s last great Christmas album, A Time to Be Jolly. The fourth of Daybreak’s four releases that year was Frank Jr’s Spice. It is a surprisingly buoyant feast of delightful music presented in a variety of styles and tempos. No fool, Frank Jr, he called upon his pop’s old collaborator the great Nelson Riddle to orchestrate the record and Riddle’s work is typically sparkling. Also put to fine use is the Larry O’Brien Octette, an outfit that FS Jr had been using in night clubs. Who are Larry O’Brien and his 7 sidemen? They are an outfit FS Jr had been using in night clubs. That’s it. That is basically all I could find out about this band of players. According to the liners of Spice, Larry had been working with Frankie in clubs since 1966 and Junior also claims that his father once said “that after many years of listening to the great sound of Tommy Dorsey, he has once again found someone whom he truly considered to be of equal stature”. I may also have found that O’Brien conducted an album by the Glenn Miller Orchestra that was released in Japan in 2007.
And so it was that, in 1971 while working for Sonny Burke and Daybreak Records, the son of the most celebrated singer of all time took an equally renowned orchestrator and a hard-working road band into the studio to record an exceedingly listenable album of surprising quality.
One thing that certainly set Frank Sinatra, Jr apart was his ability to compose and to write lyrics, a service he provides on three of these thirteen tracks. He penned the title track that meanders with a clever rhyming sequence and a text extolling the virtues of the “spice of a new experience”. Christopher Riddle, son of our arranger, plays the bass trombone solo. It has been interesting to learn about the younger Riddle and his career in the trombone section of his father’s orchestra. When Nelson Riddle passed away in 1985, Chris took over conducting the orchestra and it seems he was revered by all he worked with and he was a fine patron of the legacies of his father, of Sinatra and of the history of popular song. Speaking of his father, Spice contains customarily clean Nelson Riddle arrangements and his orchestra is incredibly smooth. This is clearly seen – or heard – in “The Windmills of Your Mind”, Michel Legrand’s theme from The Thomas Crown Affair. A haunting music box intro leads to a nice vocal cadence from FS Jr.
Next is “Tomorrow is the First Day of the Rest of My Life”, one of those charming deep cuts from the folds of pop history. The song is by a group I had never heard of before, The Free Design, a sunshine pop vocal group that employed complex harmonies and was comprised of the Dedrick family. Leader Chris eventually moved to Toronto and worked in the industry there. From this great pop rock/soft rock sound, we go into some velvety bossa nova on another hidden tune but this one from the Great American Songbook. In the hands of Frank & Co. here, “Fun to Be Fooled” does not sound like a song from the 1930s and it is just lovely. “Everybody’s Talkin'” is Nilsson’s hit song from Midnight Cowboy and in the wake of it’s chart run everyone jumped on the wagon to record it; I count an astounding 58 versions in ’69-’70 alone. Frank does well with it here and it’s very sprightly with a popping horn chart – and dig that bass line. “Believe”, written by FS Jr, is a gentle ballad in the Jack Jones tradition, beautifully scored with gentle percussion, acoustic guitar and that modulation “up” that I love so. I get a Tony Scotti vibe from this one, if any of you are Valley of the Dolls fans. “The Trolley Song”, to me, is blah. For his take on it, Frankie updates the lyrics and the results are either silly or clever. Frankie and his crew did this number on The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour.
Frank Jr composed the second side opener, “Black Night”, a song bemoaning the darkness of night when one is abandoned by a lover. Riddle provides an appropriately “evil arrangement” employing sparse plucking guitar and bass clarinet before allowing the orchestra to swell dramatically. The old chestnut “Love is Here to Stay” is given an airy arrangement provided by drummer Bobby Joe Harrison and carried out by the O’Brien Octette. It is brief but spry. Junior makes the canny choice to quote from the cat from Rio, the late Sérgio Mendes and his Brasil ’66. The Mendes treatment is basically copied for the enchanting “So Many Stars”. This track is a gentle breeze that features a choice trombone solo from Larry O’Brien.
Frankie then tips his hat to his boss by presenting Sonny Burke’s classic blues “Black Coffee”. Sadly, Junior’s version seems to stagger and flail a bit in this arrangement. It does, though, feature a tasty bass line. Can’t fault any singer for including their take on the Carpenters’ lovely “We’ve Only Just Begun’ and Frankie’s voice caresses the lyric nicely and Nelson provides a typically gorgeous chart, making for pleasant listening. A barn-burner closes the record. In the liner notes, Junior references Nelson Riddle’s 1963 album Love is a Game of Poker on which he included “Indiscreet” and Frankie uses this galloping track to wrap things up.
It may not come as a surprise that Spice didn’t make much of an impression upon release; there wasn’t much of a market for this kind of product in 1971. And let me get a couple of beefs out of the way. The back of the jacket is loaded with text; looks like an essay from one of your jazz records. Junior takes pen in hand to promote his band and give plenty of insight on the individual tracks. But here’s the thing and this may be just me. As a means to punch up the “spice” theme of the record, he persists in referring to Nelson Riddle as “Master Spice Mixer” and even “MSM”. This is so lame I can barely stand to talk about it. The second beef is that “Trolley Song”. Blah. Anyways…
What was a surprise for me is how enchanting the record is. I talked at the outset about ambition and it is apparent that Frank Junior was not interested in phoning this one in but a real effort was made on the album. Frank’s own compositions make the program unique and – Riddle aside – the band chairs are not filled by an all-star cast but instead Junior pushes his road band to the fore. Sure, no one has heard of Larry O’Brien but points for Frank for choosing to honour their work together in the clubs by taking them into the studio to make this record.
The songs are well-chosen and this is not the no-brainer it may seem. Some of the biggest-selling recording artists of the time moved a lot of units, yes, but they struggled finding material and their albums were filled with safe versions of the “hits of the day”. FS Jr dug a little deeper, though, including his own work, a deep cut standard, a deep cut pop song and a gorgeous album cut from a class outfit like Brasil ’66. When he did tackle a contemporary standard – I count three here – the results are quite lovely. And Frank Sinatra, Jr doing “Windmills of Your Mind” is a bit easier to take and understand than my beloved Andy Williams doing “Windy”.
Frank, Jr wasn’t much for record making. His next release was also on Daybreak and bore the unfortunate title His Way! Again though Frankie jammed the record with obscure songs. Then in 1977 Frank released It’s Alright on the poverty row label Churchill Records. The album had a ridiculous cover but, again, the track listing is filled with unrecognizable titles. Got to hand it to Junior; he never recorded a “Songs My Father Made Famous” album.
He would later do some acting – he turned down the Vic Fontaine role on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine that James Darren eventually took – but most importantly he heeded his father’s call when Pops asked him to become his conductor on the road. Sinatra the Elder was outliving his conductors and becoming frail and wanted someone he could trust to work the baton so his boy put his own pursuits on hold. Junior also scores points for never trading on his dad’s legacy while at the same time joining with his sisters to provide perspective and an insider’s take on the Chairman while the three of them have done well as custodians of their dad’s music and films.
I’m happy report that, on top of this, Frank Jr did once release a fine album worth seeking out.
Spice (2C 062-92974 – 1971) – from Daybreak Records
Produced by Sonny Burke
Side One: “Spice”, “The Windmills of Your Mind”, “Tomorrow is the First Day of the Rest of My Life”, “Fun to Be Fooled”, “Everybody’s Talkin’”, “Believe in Me”, “The Trolley Song”
Side Two: “Black Night”, “Love is Here to Stay”, “So Many Stars”, “Black Coffee”, “We’ve Only Just Begun”, “Indiscreet”
Frank Sinatra Jr., vocals // With The Larry O’Brien Octette and Nelson Riddle and His Orchestra
SoulRide 
I tried twice to leave a fairly lengthy comment, and it’s not letting me. Sad face.
I so enjoy your writing. I feel a connection with someone who can appreciate Sinatra Jr.
The 60s and 70s were such awkward times for a Sinatra son whose goal was to be the boy singer in a big band. Anyone who chooses to sing The Trolley Song in 1971 doesn’t care about the audience demographic.
The cringy liner notes reflect a somewhat pedantic nature. He was sensitive, introverted, and intelligent, and he took music very seriously.
I saw him sing several numbers with Roy Clark at a stifling hot school gym for a Phil Harris benefit in Linton, Indiana, in 1994. In particular, he sang a song called “Red Beans and Rice,” and none of his father’s hits. I met him in the back hallway, standing alone and staring out the glass back doors. I approached him to ask for an autograph. My pen immediately flew apart, so he quietly provided one. I thanked him for supporting Phil Harris’s charity and directing his father’s orchestra. I told him I drove four hours to see him, and that I’d seen him work with his father in Aurora, Illinois, the previous year. And then … I left him alone. He was a man who definitely wanted to be left alone.
I took my son to see him in Indianapolis, doing the Sinatra retrospective. That was 3 months before he died in Florida.
Junior attended school at USC, but didn’t graduate. He wrote his own charts. He loved the orchestra and standards, and he shared his father’s disdain for modern pop and rock music. He went out on the road with Harry James Orchestra and played small clubs when he was a late teen. His father didn’t support him financially.
Sinatra Sr. doted on his daughters but was notoriously rough on Junior. As Sinatra’s son, what are you going to do?
Frank Jr. was known to be quiet and solitary. It’s simply impossible to play a Superstar Father’s game. If he’d been a surgeon, a Dr. Frank Sinatra, he’d have been renowned and respected, but since he followed in his father’s footsteps as a singer, he chose the roughest path. It’s too bad he didn’t turn his attention strictly to orchestra work, film scoring, or the like.
Of course, in the 90s, he helped keep the Old Man going on the road. In essence, he kept Frank alive through the music, as dementia and illness were getting the better of him.
I listened to Spice. It’s a decent album with an audience 50 years in the future.
That’s amazing that you met him. What a memory to have.
You provide an excellent perspective – thanks for sharing it and for fighting through the commenting issues!
I always dig your writing. I need to catch up on Sinatra stuff. Still need to revisit Watertown and Sept of my Years.
I met him, but he didn’t want to be met. lol. I don’t recall a word he said except thank you.
Another fascinating insight, and I did also love Hannah’s comment and her particularly telling point, “anyone who chooses to sing The Trolley Song in 1971 doesn’t care about the audience demographic”. I realised I’d never actually heard Jnr sing, and I was listening to ‘Tomorrow is the First Day’ as I was reading, and thought it was a little bland initially and zoned out, then suddenly realised what it had built up to and went back to listen again. It struck me how great he must have sounded live with the band behind him, and I wonder just how powerful a live album might have been, or if he was actually one of those artist for whom vinyl never really did justice. Anyway, thanks to you I’m going to track through the whole album. Thank you for the discovery.
Yeah, Hannah’s an old soul, like us, and she can sound some deep notes.
SO little I could find to share about the record and next to nothing on YouTube; glad I found someone who shared the whole album.
Junior doesn’t blow me away but I’ve got a lot of respect for him and – obviously – I love this album. Started this article maybe 3-4 years ago!
I can’t help thinking that maybe a line from this tune might have been a better suited and more marketable album title…
A different title may have meant losing the Master Spice Mixer thing. 🙄😆