FRANKLY SPEAKING
Sinatra’s gone 20 yrs., but singers keep him alive
The Voice still roars — and purrs.
The 20th anniversary of Frank Sinatra’s death at age 82 falls on Monday and Ol’ Blue Eyes still stirs audiences — as seen by 4.8 million monthly listeners on Spotify — and performers.
Ask three of them — including his granddaughter AJ Lambert, actor Robert Davi and singer Steven Maglio — whose upcoming New York shows summon Sinatra in various ways.
Queens-born Davi, 66, is an opera-trained singer and actor with film and TV credits stretching from “The Goonies” and “License to Kill” to “Profiler” and beyond.
His Sinatra-themed tribute show running Wednesday and Thursday at Feinstein’s/54 Below on W. 54th St. celebrates his four-decade bond with the Chairman of the Board that began in 1977 on the set of “Contract on Cherry Street.” “It was my first movie. It started a relationship,” says Davi.
Sinatra’s voice has been heralded for its gentleness. Same goes for the man. “Frank and I were talking on the set of ‘Cherry Street,’” says Davi. “He saw scars on my neck and asked ‘Were you a forceps baby?’ I nodded. He showed me similar scars on his own neck.”
Such sensitivity and authenticity helps explain why Sinatra endures and attracts new fans, including 20- and 30-somethings, says Davi. “Millennials have grown up on shiny manufactured voices, instead of someone who was able to perform without Auto-Tune and grab you.”
Davi is compiling his setlist, but plans to include “Where or When” and “A Foggy Day.” Also on deck: “Forget to Remember,” a lesser-known tune.
Maglio, who never met Sinatra, has made Swoonatra hits his specialty, but he cautions that he’s no copycat. “Right up front, I’m not a Sinatra impersonator,” he says. He’s careful not to “overdo the mannerisms. Sinatra would point a lot. So I don’t.”
Still, he channels Rat Pack ring-a-ding-ding while crooning “Fly Me to the Moon,” “My Way” and more Sinatra signatures. Whether he’s at his longrunning show on Saturday night at the Carnegie Club in Midtown or new request-driven show at the Beach Club on Sunday night, Maglio keeps it easy-breezy as a “Summer Wind.”
“A lot of singers today mistake being comfortable on stage with being lazy — as if they’re not putting on enough of a show,” says Maglio, 59, who lives in Hazlet, N.J., but grew up in East Harlem listening to his parents’ Sinatra records. “Sinatra was always himself, and natural.”
Lambert, 43, a third-generation singer who whose mom is Nancy Sinatra, knows that better than most. Her show on May 25 at Rough Trade in Brooklyn is a preview of her upcoming album, “Careful You.”
“It’s not a Sinatra show,” she says. But he’s an influence nonetheless. “I’m more acrobatic and dramatic on stage,” she says. But she has the “same love and respect for the writing of the song” as her grandfather. To interpret a lyric, she says, “you need to know what you’re singing about. That’s important to both of us.”
Without going into details, she says she reserved some space for the show for a couple obscure Sinatra songs.
“He died when I was 24,” she says. “It’s a labor of love to make sure people keep hearing his music.”