I have talked with Sammy many times about his "doing" Frank on stage. Of course everybody wanted him to do it.

Sammy felt he had to do something, but really didn't like doing Frank. He felt that to do Frank and get his sound was tough, because Frank had a "sound" and a "presence." He could get close to the sound but doing it with the "presence" was almost impossible.

I talked to George Rhodes about it, who just said that he and Sammy were too smart to do a straight imitation. Too tough to do. The people want something so Sammy just plays with it. Frank likes that too. George felt that Sammy could do the voice and played with the "attitude" and of course the audience loves that but the secret is that Sammy is doing the "attitude" that the audience has of Frank. Sammy does the "soft" side of Frank and Dean does the "tough" side. Both of them are just giving back to the audience how they look at Frank, it's something they will connect with.

Sammy told me "I'm doing what they think of Frank - not what I think."

George has said if you watch Sinatra singing he is really trying to give a concert type approach to it. He said it goes back to his singing in front of a big band days. Both Sammy and George felt Sinatra was into the music but most of the audience thinks of Frank's "attitude" in his shows. So most people who do imitations of Frank can only try to capture that and get a response.

George said "Were too smart to just do it straight." "Won't work." "So we use the coat and the hat and go with it. You think we can just stand there and sing like Frank - impossible."

"They want something so we play with it." " Frank likes it that way too."