I'm watching a Live at Lincoln Center concert right now on my TiVo, recorded last night off PBS. It's called Sinatra and it's a tribute to the man on the 100th anniversary of his birth.
Now, they're telling a lot of stories about Sinatra's life and that's fine but most of the show is folks like Bernadette Peters, Sting, Sutton Foster and host Seth MacFarlane singing songs that Sinatra recorded. Seth, for example, just sang "I've Got the World on a String."
Am I the only person who's ever bothered by this kind of thing? It's like someone said, "Hey, let's pay tribute to Frank by having other people sing all his big hits!" Frank didn't write any of these songs so it's more like a showcase for the genius of Jule Styne and Sammy Cahn, as well as others who composed these tunes. There's little to no trace of Ol' Blue Eyes in any of these performances.
Imagine if you went to see something billed as "A Tribute to Rex Harrison" and the show consisted of doing My Fair Lady with someone else playing Henry Higgins in a different style. What a monument to the talent of Rex Harrison that would be.
Now, Sting is singing "Witchcraft," which was written by Carolyn Leigh and Cy Coleman. I guess you could argue that Frank gets credit for making the song famous in the first place. You could also argue that these songs endure quite well without Sinatra's participation so maybe he was just the lucky guy who got to sing them first. (Oh, wait. Louis Armstrong and Bing Crosby recorded "I've Got the World on a String" before Sinatra did. And I've got twenty bucks that says somebody sings "New York, New York," which Frank also didn't introduce, before this show is over.)
I'm probably overthinking this. It's a fine show and the little stories about Sinatra between numbers speak of his contributions to the world. But it just seems odd to me that you honor a man like Sinatra by gathering up a bunch of songs he was once known for…and removing all the Sinatra from them.