Tina Sinatra’s Artanis Entertainment Groups released this Rat Pack version of unofficial recordings and bootlegs releases. The album compiles a live performance of several nightclub shows with Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin and Sammy Davis, Jr.
Tina Sinatra edited the recordings down to a 78 ½ minute album released on compact disc in 1999. In the 1990s, all three performers had passed away, so the Sinatra family easily produced their night club acts during the late 1950s and early 1960s, creating a pseudo-historical document.
Each Sinatra, Martin and Davis show keeps to the same routine where Martin opens with a series of song parodies and hits, followed by a straight singing Sinatra set, and then Davis performs with the other two interrupting him with two or three songs of their own.
Next, we hear a 45-minute comedy, musical act that includes jokes, impressions, insults and even more songs. The performances are supposed to be spontaneous, but insiders agree that Sammy Cahn wrote the parody lyrics. The performers have fun and the audience has fun, constantly campy it up to the point it’s so bad it’s good.
The Rat Pack name started way before Dean or Sammy came into the picture. It was back in the old days, when Humphrey Bogart and his wife Lauren Bacall, along with their friends Judy Garland and husband Sid Luft, actor David Niven, songwriter Jimmy Van Husuen, and a young Frank Sinatra, spent their weekend evenings mingling and going out around town at all the top places and hot spots. They favorably called their group “The Rat Pack of Holmby Hills”. During those times Holmby Hills was considered an exclusive area in LA.
Bogey passed away and the group disbanded, but Sinatra longed for those fun times with friends. As time evolved he formed new friends and the tradition of partying with best friends began again. But this time with Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr., Peter Lawford and Joey Bishop were part of the socializing group. Sometimes even Shirley Maclaine and Angie Dickenson would show up and join the party. At first, the new group of friends were called “The Clan”. But that didn’t fit because, approaching the mid sixties, Sinatra needed to create a different name for the group of friends. So, he affectingly took Bogey’s old game name and called them “The Rat Pack.”
The compact disc is not a typical Sinatra album, but a Las Vegas act that entertained people who loved Vegas. You can hear the energy and the feel of Vegas. Some notable songs are “Chicago”, “I Left My Heart in San Francisco” and “Your Nobody Until Somebody Loves You.” Sinatra’s family brings an interesting light to Sinatra.
My father, Don Altobell, took the Dean, Sammy, and Frank photo while the three were performing at Atlantic City’s 500 Club. Visit goo.gl/u3BfP and read about last time the Rat Pack ever performed as a trio in Atlantic City.
Visit goo.gl/UxGBg to see my father photos from that night and other 500 Club shows.