Junior does it Dad’s way

Frank Sinatra Jr. knows his father’s music by heart – and by chart.

“I was Frank Sinatra’s conductor for the last seven years he toured,” said Frank Jr., 67, by phone from Los Angeles. “I was the musical director and conducted all of those famous songs.”

So when he arrives Saturday to perform with the Spokane Symphony in a SuperPops concert, he’ll bring not only his father’s vocal timber and range, but also his father’s arrangements.

“It’s the actual Sinatra orchestrations,” said Frank Jr. “We do the arrangements, exactly as they appeared on those records.”

“Sinatra Sings Sinatra” will include many of the great standards that have become forever linked to the Chairman of the Board. You’ll probably hear “One for My Baby,” “New York, New York” and “My Way,” along with many other hits.

The concert’s first half will feature the orchestra playing big-band instrumental standards, conducted by guest conductor Dan Keberle. Then in the second half, Frank Jr. will arrive on stage with his eight-piece combo which will perform alongside the orchestra. He will also bring his own conductor, Terry Woodson.

Frank Jr. has garnered critical respect for his deep understanding of swing and big band music. He also once discovered that he had a particularly surprising fan: Bob Dylan.

In the 1960s, Dylan attended a Frank Sinatra Jr. show at New York’s Rainbow Room and afterward they had a long heart-to-heart conversation about music and life. Dylan wrote about it in his autobiography, “Chronicles,” in which he calls Frank Jr. “a fine singer” with a “big blasting band.”

Sinatra still chuckles about that meeting. They came two different musical universes, he says, “but nevertheless we carried the same union card.”

Frank Jr. has been a singer and musician since his teens, but it took him a long time to become comfortable singing his father’s songs. After the elder Sinatra’s death in 1998, Frank Jr. began doing tributes to his father – and audiences loved it.

Growing up as the son of the most famous entertainer of his time was not easy. In fact, Frank Jr. was kidnapped at age 19 and held briefly for ransom. Yet for the most part, he has fond memories of his childhood.

His mother and father, he said, never “permitted me to believe that my people were something special.”

“I was taught to be just one of the boys,” he said. “And I have always been very grateful for that. … I didn’t have any royal blood in my veins of any kind.”

By the way, his performance Saturday will be on the same stage where an obscure act named the Hoboken Four performed in 1935 as part of a Major Bowes Amateur Hour tour. One member of the Hoboken Four was a skinny 19-year-old named Frank Sinatra.