It seems that he felt, like a lot of us do, that when Frankie stopped singing his best three or so years ago, no other singer came along who could shine his shoes, And so it was just plain, simple logic that when Frankie returned to his natural form, that he'd be "the greatest since Sinatra!" Makes sense, doesn't it?

    It makes special sense if you've been listening to Frank on his latest Capitol records, on which he's been doing some great rhythm and ballad tunes, and if you were lucky enough to have caught him, as I did twice, when he sang at Bill Miller's Riviera and stilled the big crowds there for an hour at a time singing just one wonderful song after another.

    Frank seemed happy that I liked what he did and especially so because so many people approved of the great songs that he sang. The impeccable taste he showed was his way of answering the men and mice who have been deluging the music scene with material which he considers not merely unmusical, but horrible. When I suggested that a few more performances from a few more performers like him, and popular music might be put back on the right track, he said he hoped so, because he believed that the public really wanted music of that sort and that it wasn't as stupid as some of the music business's newly appointed gods seemed to think.

    "If what I did at Bill Miller's did anything, it convinced me once and for all that you can still show good taste and be appreciated. You don't have to sing loud and raucously and belt them over the head all the time. You can use a little restraint and try to create a mood that you and they can both feel, sort of like being together in a small room, and if you really mean it, and show that you mean it, you can register all right.

    "It made me feel great the way they paid attention to the songs I sang. They were good songs, all of them -- at least I think so, because they were my favorites. Things by Rodgers and Hart and Rodgers and Hammerstein and the Gershwins and Cole Porter. They don't write many songs like that today. I got a friendly beef on with some good song writers I know. I ask them 'please, when are you gonna sit down and write some GOOD songs?' and they just look at me and give me that routine about who's gonna buy them, and anyway how are they gonna get a record on them. They're wrong and the record companies are wrong, but they're never gonna find it out until they stop selling the public short and give them a fair dose of good music.

    "One thing they're certainly not writing these days is many good lyrics. I know that because I'm more conscious of the words in songs than I am of the melody." If you've listened to Sinatra much, you'll know exactly what he means. Whereas musicians and singers often ad lib around a melody they know and like, few singers ever ad lib with the lyrics. Sinatra does, though. He doesn't make any major changes, but merely slight switches in incidental words, switches that convince you he feels every word, every lyrical idea.

    "The melody," he says, "should be like a back-drop for the lyrics. Sure, it should be good and musical. But it should be more like a guy reading poetry with organ music or something going on in the back. If the poem or the lyrics are stated often enough with the same music going on at the same time, they become associated as one.

    "Of course the lyrics have to he something special, like the ones that Larry Hart and Oscar Hammerstein and Ira Gershwin and Johnny Mercer and Sammy Calm have been writing. You know I have a real, healthy respect for anybody who can write. I don't mean just songs. I mean anything. Sure wish I could!"

    On Capitol, Frank has been allowed to show his good taste. All of the songs he has recorded for the company have been good ones. His big hits, surprisingly enough, have been rhythm numbers. "Maybe that's a good sign," he thinks. "At least I'm not using any gimmicks and they seem to be buying my records. This could be a transition - you know - from gimmicks to rhythm tunes and then on to real pretty ballads again, just the way it was when I was back with Tommy and when I was starting out on my own.

    Reference to those days unearthed a bit of Sinatra astuteness that people don't know about. "I don't think I ever told anybody this before," he said, "but the reason I started out on my own when I did was because I wanted to make sure I got there as a single before Bob Eberly did. I knew that if that guy ever did it first, I'd never be able to make it the way I did. That Eberly, he sang so rich and so pure, it used to frighten me. Even today, guys who sing in his fashion can't even sit in the same room with him. That guy has always been too much, and I knew he'd be too much for me if he ever got started on his own before I did."

    Such Sinatra astuteness or timing or awareness or whatever you want to call it has been one of the big reasons for his success over the years. He has had the shrewed faculty of knowing what to do when and where, and though he hasn't always come up on his feet immediately, he has always risen a step higher in the end. Take, for example, his latest venture. Today, because he realized, before anybody else did, that he fit the role of Maggio in From Here to Eternity, he is a bigger star than he's ever been. He went after that role, as he has always gone after everything else he believed in, till he got it, and when he got it, he certainly made the most of it. In his newest found glory he likes to give special credit to Burt Lancaster and Montgomery Clift. "They helped me a lot in that picture. They're both such great guys and great actors. They just about lived their parts, because they knew them so well, and they helped me to make what I did out of mine.

    Maybe Frank realizes it, or maybe he doesn't. But it's this same sort of sincere performing, this same living a part, whether it be as a straight dramatic actor or as a singer, that has always put him so far ahead of most others in his field, that has always stamped him as a truly honest singer, as a guy who feels what he's singing, and who's not just emoting in the hopes that some echo chamber or some sound effects man will so embellish his performance that the public will he fooled and go out and buy a lot of his records. For Frank Sinatra is one of the few performers in the popular music field who has not compromised his music, who has been willing to go through lean years rather than indulged himself in phony commercial sounds, and who has respected the efforts of good musicians and singers in particular and the intelligence of the public in general. That he is now "the greatest thing since Sinatra" is a heartening sign for those of use who may lose faith in popular music now and then, a particularly rewarding sign for those of us who have never lost faith in a truly sincere and talented guy named Sinatra.