By Eileen Buckley
Buffalo, NY – Frank Sinatra, Jr. was in Buffalo Thursday. He was the headline act at the Italian Heritage Festival on Hertel Avenue. Sinatra met with reporters to talk about his tour and offered his thoughts on the current music industry.
Frank Sinatra, Jr. is every bit the veteran of the music world as his father once was. He says he's been performing for 43 years at major venues and clubs worldwide. Thursday night in Buffalo, a new generation was exposed to the famous "Sinatra" sounds -- made popular by his father. Frank Sinatra, Jr. -- who looks and sounds a lot like his dad -- says he first performed in Buffalo about 40 years ago.
"The first time I played here in Buffalo was at a place called the Town Casino. That was over forty years ago," Sinatra said. "I can only tell you in those days we had work for everybody. Musicians could work full-time."
But Sinatra is not pleased with the new sounds coming from the music industry. He says he doesn't think today's music is real. Sinatra says it's too manufactured by the recording studios. He had some harsh criticism for what is know as "rap" music.
"Today when I hear Elvis Presley, it's like hearing Tchaikovsky compared to what is around now," Sinatra said. "The great oxymoron at the end of the 20th and beginning of the 21st century is rap music -- the two do not belong in the same sentence."
Sinatra says the recording industry is producing new music at a low cost.
"You have drum machines that are programmed with a few buttons that lay down a pulse," Sinatra said. "Then they get some one who is sitting there reading some very campy, high school-type poetry. This costs nothing to make for the record company, absolutely nothing."
Sinatra says most of the songs he performs are his father's famous hits because that's what the public demands. And the music is played by many of the original band members that worked with Frank Sinatra, Sr.