Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - Frank v. Tony: Toronto Mike'd #1010

Episode Date: March 7, 2022

In this 1010th episode of Toronto Mike'd, Mike is joined by Steve Paikin and Bruce Dowbiggin as they discuss Frank Sinatra vs. Tony Bennett with songs and stories. Toronto Mike'd is proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, Palma Pasta, Canna Cabana, StickerYou, Ridley Funeral Home and RYOBI Tools.

Welcome to episode 1010, 1010 of Toronto Mic'd. Proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, a fiercely independent craft brewery who believes in supporting communities, good times, and brewing amazing beer. Order online for free local home delivery in the GTA. StickerU.com. Create custom stickers, labels, tattoos, and decals for your home and your business.

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Over 100 stores across the country. Learn more at cannacabana.com. And Ryobi. Join the cordless revolution with Ryobi's 18-volt OnePlus system. There are 260 tools in the system, and it's available at Home Depot. Joining us this week in the battle of Frank versus Tony,

it's Steve Paikin and Bruce Dobigin. Welcome, guys. Hi, Mike. How you doing? Good to see you, Dobidoo. And you too. Back at you. Welcome, Bruce. This is more an opportunity for us to share our love over two phenomenal singers. And, you know, it's not like the Super Bowl where brains are going to be beaten in by the time it's all said and done. It's going to be a big love in for two fantastic singers. Absolutely. I thought of the same thing that this is kind of like, you know, are you a Beatles fan or are you like a Steely Dan fan? You can't be wrong. It's

just the appreciation and what they represent and how they're different and all that sort of stuff. I can take a shot or two at Frank though, but you know. Exactly. I love him. Exactly. It's, you know, Frank, Tony, we're going to celebrate the greatness of both artists and Steve Paikin will be going to bat for Frank Sinatra

and Bruce, you'll be going to bat for Tony Bennett. I just want to thank you both off the top because you both contributed to episode 1000. So thank you. Mike, did you get any newspaper coverage from that wonderful achievement in podcasting? Here,

let me get back to him. Just reading the together together section of the, you see this, this guy's got a great publicist. Look at that full-page Toronto Star. Beautiful picture. Great story inside. My goodness, the guy.

Give your publicist a raise, Mike. He did a great job. Or she did a great job, more likely. I'm best for publicist. You know, my trick was have enough people on your program that you'll eventually have somebody who could write that for the Toronto Star.

Because the author, Gilles Leblanc, is an FOTM. He's been on the program. So I feel like that, you know, one day I'll even appear on TV Ontario if I keep up this relationship with Steve Paikin. Yeah, I'm polka dot door probably. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, I'd love that. Like you don't even tease me like that. I would. I would love it. Bruce, before we get too deep into this podcast, how is your health? I'm getting there. I'm getting there. It's a steps forward and steps back. But the doctors have told me I'm free to go and do a lot of stuff. So I'm swimming and walking the dog and all that. And hopefully at the end of the month,

I'll come through Toronto, see my granddaughter and my kids, and then head down to Florida for a couple of weeks. But I'm still, you know, I'm still reserving the right to say, nah, I'm not yet. Make sure you let me know when you're coming to town, okay? You got to come up and see me. The weirdest thing about it is that up until then, whenever I felt stuff, I'd go, oh, that's just, you know, part of being old or whatever it is. But now when it happens, I go, oh, is this happening again? And that's the psychological part that's harder to deal with. Now I understand I've heard there's some heart attack victims and people who've had, it's not so much a cancer or whatever,

but a heart attack victim because the things come on quickly the way the embolism came on, the pulmonary embolism came on. I was going to say, we should let people, those who have blocked you on Twitter and don't know what's going on, Bruce, more on that later. But can you tell us, you know, what affliction, what struck you and why I'm asking about your health all of a sudden? Yeah, well, I had a pulmonary embolism appear over the holidays. Always been healthy, never a problem. As Steve knows, active guy. I've always been, you know problem as steve knows active guy i've always been you know done

athletics and all that type of thing came out of nowhere uh a clot developed in my left leg and the clot went up to my left lung and uh it's it's it's a big one it's about six or eight inches long and actually it's bilateral because it's gone a little bit into the other lung too so i was in the hospital for off and on for about 10 days to start of January. And they sent me home with a needle to give myself a needle every day and some other stuff. And it's, it's, I've talked to you. Well, you remember Hamlin Grange, of course, our colleague at CBC, Steve, Hamlin has had this and a few other people have sent me notes and said, you know, hang in there. And it's just a matter of time. It's, it really, it's really a shock because I

didn't, it's nothing I did to bring it on. It's not like you smoked for 30 years and then they got lung cancer or you drank for 50 years and now your liver is falling out. It's one of those things that just could happen to anybody. Where do you stick the needle? In your, in your belly, just below your belly button. I've, I've finished that, that regimen. I'll send you the picture of my stomach looked like at the end,

not very pretty. It looked like I went about 12 rounds with Mike Tyson and it was only belly punches, but I'm taking the medication. I'll probably for up to six months till, till the summertime. Good luck pal. Yeah. That's how long it takes for these things to go all again, to your audience and people, anybody listening, if you, you're having problems, especially in your legs.

And especially if you're a man, if you're having problems in your legs, soreness, tightness, heat, anybody listening, if you're having problems, especially in your legs, and especially if you're a man, if you're having problems in your legs, soreness, tightness, heat, et cetera, that's one of the symptoms of pulmonary embolism. And it unfortunately killed my father-in-law 40 years ago. And so we've sort of known about it, but I never thought I'd get one. Do you have any, like, comfort knowing that not a single guest of this 10-year program has ever died? Everyone's still alive, eh? Wow. I almost screwed it up on you. Had I known, I could have rolled over and said, that'll get that son of a bitch.

It's something like 600 unique people. And there's like, for example, there's people in their 90s on that list, right? So the fact that not a single one has passed away, I feel like I have something to do with that. Yeah. But Mike, if I know you, I think you're taking bets on who the first is going to be. And I bet I know who's on the list too. Give me, give me, give me 20 bucks. I'm dope again. I heard he had an emblem. It's not going to be him. Not going to be him. Oh my goodness. I remember when Steve was in the hospital for an extended period of time. God, how long has that gone? 20 years ago when you had all your issues?

Very good. 18 years ago. Yeah, it was right when my daughter was born. Yeah, and was your back? I'm trying to remember again. Was your back? Yeah, and he was like right out of it. And we thought we might lose him there a little bit because he seemed on the ropes.

But, you know, only the good die guy young so he's still with us now uh i do want to just before we get to the frank and the tony and uh before we get to that i have a uh disclaimer i need to read so that's exciting to look forward to but first i need to uh just steve could you share a few words about fraser kelly i know fraser kelly passed away since you were last on the program. I'd be delighted to. And Bruce and I both worked with and for Fraser Kelly when we were back at CBLT. This would be back in, gosh, when was that, Bruce? 1985 to 92 is certainly when. I started in 85. Yeah, as did I. And Fraser Kelly was the anchor of the CBC six o'clock separate hour newscast. And quite frankly, he was kind of my hero in journalism.

He's the guy I wanted to be. Right. And he was a great mentor to me over the years. We both we both love journalism and we both love to go to Toronto Argonaut football games. He had seats right behind my grandparents seats at Exhibition Stadium. So I used to bump into him at the Argo games all the time. And of course, I'd be cheering against the Argos being from Hamilton and he'd be cheering for the Argos. And Fraser left in, I guess he left in the early 1990s to go start his own business, which he did very successfully, communications consulting business. And it was a sad day when he left. I remember I had lunch with him before COVID and he was in his early 80s at the time.

And he sort of confessed to me that he was starting to have moments where he just wasn't all there. Like he could feel a bit of dementia setting in and it really bothered him because this was a guy who just was so quick on his feet and had great political stories and facts at his fingertips. And it really sort of bothered him that he was losing that ability. But he's a great man and he was a great example to many of us in journalism. And thanks for the chance to talk about him. No, I'm sorry. Sorry for your loss. And I did catch wind of some of the eloquent things you were saying about him.

And I'm like, I took a note. I need to ask Steve to speak to Fraser Kelly. Now, can you two... He was unique too, because if I'm not wrong, Steve, right? He was a CTV guy. Absolutely. And in those days,

you didn't cross the line. They didn't hire from the competition. So, Frazier coming over was a significant thing for CBC. CBC tried a series of people at the six o'clock news hour to try to knock off CFTO, which was the champion for ratings at that time. And Frazier was another of the people that thought, well, we'll take one of their guys. And somehow, they just never sort of gravitated to CBC in the same numbers. We had really good numbers. Like today, they kill for those numbers.

But at the time, always looking at the vapor trail from CFTO. Interesting. Interesting. Now, before we get to Frank versus Tony, and then before we get to my disclaimer that I need to read, can we speak, please, to the Fan 590 show that some people remember some claim I made it up and I promise I didn't make it up, but you two co-hosted, tell us the details.

You two co-hosted a show on the fan five 90. We did. It was called double play. And part of the reason for double play was that we both love baseball. And the other reason was D for double P P for play, Dobogen and Paken. So those initials were there as well. And we did that. I think we did it for only a year together.

I think it was in 1996. And the reason I think I remember that is that I had a third kid in 1997. And as soon as the kid was born, well, there went my mornings. Because I was hosting studio too live at 8 o'clock at night. So I was able to sort of take a late start. It started at 11 o'clock, which was coincidentally when the radio show ended. But then I had the kid and there went the mornings. So Bruce continued it on on the fan 590 after I'd left. But we had a great time for a year. Just a great time. It's a lot of fun. It was. Well, I'd sort of done a little work as a guest at the fan. And then we came up with this idea with our pal Howard Bernstein and Richard Martin.

We put a proposal in front of Nelson Millman. And to be honest with you, Nelson, you know, his interest in the time slot we were occupying was pretty small. As long as we didn't lose him money, I think he was OK with it. It's still that way to this day. I mean, the daytime hours on sports talk radio don't make much money. So they were willing to give us that opportunity. And yeah, it was fun. And the chance to shoot the breeze. And we still have people who talk to us who just remember that one year we were on. They don't know we were on TV or any other stuff, but remember us

on the fan. It really, a real great loyalty. Oh, that's funny. Now you had to sell your own ads on this program, right? Well, we tried. Hey, I know what that's like. I think the deal was, yeah, the deal was they gave us the airtime for nothing and whatever we could sell, uh, you know, we kept, and we had a few sponsors along the way. I remember that, but you know, neither one of us did it to make any money. We did it because we just, it was an, it was an opportunity to spend a couple hours together every day talking sports. That's really why we did it. Yeah. And I was at that time I was doing the six and 11 o'clock on CBLT. Uh, and of course Steve was doing TVO. Uh, and so I thought, you know, I've got all those hours during the day and I've only got three kids of my own, like, geez, all that spare time. Let's go do a radio show.

So so we did. And we had lots of fun and some and some moments in which Malaprops, as always, in live radio or live TV. I know what you're talking about there. And I won't say it. I won't tell me. I need to know. I was we were watching and it was it was it was it Scott MacArthur who was on. I'm trying to remember who was on. Somebody was reading the sports news and I wanted to, I wanted to, uh, uh, call him a, uh, what was the, what was the word I was, I was aiming for. I can't remember. You were probably aiming for pedagogue or something like that.

He was a pedagogue. Yes, yes, yes, yes. And, and, and I said it the wrong way, of course, which is really not the best way. And then Steve, what did you say? And I said, I said, Oh, pod, yes, yes. And I said it the wrong way, of course, which is really not the best way. And then Steve, what did you say? And I said, I said, oh, podiatrist, podiatrist. I said podiatrist. And in those days, there was no social media. Right. I'd have been beaten up for six weeks on social media for forgetting that wrong. So on that note, Bruce Dobegin. And we'll see if we even get to the jams, but I'm going to read a disclaimer.

So get ready. It's important I read this disclaimer before we begin. Are you ready? I can take it. I know you can take it or I wouldn't do it. The following episode of Toronto Mic'd is not an endorsement of Bruce Dobigin's tweets and opinions. The host

and producer of this podcast does not share in Bruce's constant praise of Donald Trump and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis nor his support of the Freedom Convoy and recent criticism of Ukraine President Volodymyr

Zelensky. Peace and love and vaccinations for all. There you go. That's my head there. I was supposed to respond. I just thought it was a whatever. Yeah, you know, it's up to you if you want to respond. But one note that came in on Twitter last night that I think speaks to all this is from David,

who listens to this program. And David just says, Bruce, consistently on the wrong side of history. So you may respond, of course. That's what we're having a conversation. No, but you realize, and I've discovered this by leaving Toronto, you realize that when you live in Toronto, particularly downtown Toronto, you're members of a cult, right? You understand that.

You understand that there's kind of an echo chamber cult going on in Southern Ontario, that you aren't really the real people in the rest of this country. So that's all I'll say. I'll say too, the other thing was that difference of opinion makes a horse race and I'll leave it at that. Steve, any words from you? I know you, of course, you are a very important celebrity figure in this market and you will be very careful. But when you hear that, I mean, I can't tell if Bruce is joking or not, but he's suggesting that we've, what we've sipped some Kool-Aid or something. Is that what you're suggesting, Bruce? Well, I think Bruce's words can stand for themselves.

You know, they're, he's, you know, Bruce is very iconoclastic. Bruce has always been, as long as i've known him and i've known him now whatever it is 35 more more than 35 years um he marches to the beat of his own drummer i i he and i've had numerous terrific arguments over the years about about uh what i would view as his two indulgent views of the former president of the United States. And, and he gives it right back to me in as much as he thinks that there's far too much wokeness and indulgence of stupidity on the left.

And, you know, he, and he's right. The vive la difference. And, and as long as he's not being, you know,

as long as he doesn't say anything illegal, we have free speech in this country. So let him say what he wants. The only thing I would, and I said this when I was on the show the first time with you, Mike, is that I'm not a fan of Donald Trump. I don't support Donald Trump. What I talk about is what Donald Trump represents to the political process and what his impact on the political process and the fact that the left could never get over what he was representing. People keep saying, oh, you know, Donald Trump, he's led these people, misled these people. No, no, no. Donald Trump found people who already had their minds made up.

He took their issues and he rode with them. He was just a salesman for other people's issues. That's why they loved him, because they already have their minds made up about stuff. Even the stuff this weekend about Trump, he's just about painting the planes to look like they were Chinese planes or something to bomb Russia. That's Trump. He just shoots from the hip.

I've never considered myself. I like DeSantis, and I think DeSantis is going to be the next president of the United States. Okay, so I have a question for Steve Paikin as a gentleman who's known you for a lot longer than I have. Do you think Bruce changed when he moved out West? Like how much does his move to Alberta, how much of a role does that play in this new Bruce Dobigan we have here? Okay. I actually thought this was going to be one of the few times I wouldn't have

to talk about politics, but no such luck. Okay, I've known Bruce, as I say, for a very long time. When he was in Montreal, he started his life in Montreal. He was a socialist. When he moved to Toronto, he became sort of a moderate upper Canadian. And now that he's moved to Alberta, you know, he's sort of a little bit in the deep end of the right-wing pool. And, you know, that's, Mike, it's all legal. You're allowed to change your views as you experience more things in life.

And he has. What was it, Milton Friedman's expression? I was a liberal till I was mugged by reality. I guess that's what I would say. I wrote, actually, I wrote a column about my sort of transformation when I went to Alberta recently. I think it was the 22nd anniversary of moving to Alberta. And just about how I've

come to appreciate the West in a way that I didn't when I lived in Toronto. And what I didn't when I lived in Montreal or Ottawa, because I lived in those places too. And how I've come to appreciate the otherness in this country and how it basically is getting the short shrift as far as I'm concerned. And a lot of people are concerned out here. Just, just the, the energy policy alone. I mean, that's, that's how people feel out here. So yeah, I, I would never, I would never disagree that my politics haven't changed. They've evolved. I like to think I'm kind of where I was a long time ago, but other people have moved left of me again. And now I look like a conservative. And let the record show. I you on my uh podcast to discuss frank versus tony but of course i can't ignore the fact that i will you know people were like it bothers so many people

the fact that so many people oh yeah no it bothers people it bothers people i have no opinion i have notes like how can you have them on the show and i'm explaining like how i can still have you on the program so So the disclaimer, I hope will address those concerns that some FOTMs have that I have this, this, the great, that I have Bruce Dobigan on the program. No one's complaining about Pagan being on the program.

Just for the record here, everybody. in fairness, I'm not really allowed. I'm not really allowed to give my views. So it's a big difference. Bruce is not only allowed to, my views. Right. Exactly. It's a big difference. Bruce is not only allowed to, he's encouraged to open up on the issues of the day.

Well, except for Argos versus Ticats. I think that's when you wouldn't be shy about your alternative views on that. I can open it on sports. And his Red Sox obsession. Yeah, that's more annoying, actually, than the Ticats thing. I find the Red Sox thing, that's worse than what Bruce is spewing on Twitter. Spewing. Spewing.

So here, here. We're going to, and I don't know what order to go in. Maybe you guys can make this decision now. Is it Tony first or Frank? Should it be Tony first? Mike, it's your show. Frank was a star before Tony was. So I would let Steve start telling the Frank story.

And then I'll pick up from it. And then we're just going to alternate songs? Yeah, so I'm going to go one by one. Yeah, I'll do a Frank song and then I'll go in your order that you submitted it. But Frank then Tony and then, yeah, I'd love to hear from you guys. I'm very excited about this episode. And before I press play on the first Frank Sinatra jam, I

just want to thank a few sponsors, a few partners that helped fuel this real talk here. So, and this is actually, I'm wondering, Bruce, do you partake, do you enjoy the very legal cannabis in Alberta? Is this something you partake in? I don't, actually, I tried some of the edibles for as painkillers or whatever you call it.

I just found oh i've never i've never really been a big cannabis guy and i found they kind of disoriented me a bit so i didn't uh i didn't pick up i i just find the whole thing funny though when you go by a strip mall these days and there's a there's a pizza pizza and there's a grocery store and then there's a cannabis store well listen i still have to wrap my head around it you walk by all those cannabis shops until you hit a can of Cabana because can of Cabana

is helping to fuel this real talk. So can of Cabana was created by and for people who love weed, love to smoke it, buy it, chat about it, and share it with their friends. I urge all the FOTMs to go to canofcabana.com

and sign up for the Cabana Club. Be the first in the know when there's a sale going on. They have absolutely unbeatable prices on cannabis and smoking accessories. And I want to thank Great Lakes Brewery. I literally just biked back from Great Lakes where I enjoyed a couple

of octopus wants to fight. And I appreciate their support. They were first in, you know. And we love Great Lakes beer here. Palma Pasta. So you've each enjoyed a lasagna or two in your times as FOTMs, right? Yes, indeed. So much love to Palma Pasta. Yeah, next time you guys are in studio, I have another lasagna for you. That's absolutely for sure. Here's a new

sponsor I'm excited about, Ryobi. The Ryobi 18 volt one plus high capacity lithium plus battery provides four times more runtime, four times longer lasting charge, and 20% lighter weight. Easy for you to say. The fuel gauge lets you know the battery status before work begins. So much love to Ryobi and their Ryobi 18-volt OnePlus tools and chargers. I can tell you guys firsthand, my wife swears by the Ryobi tool set. And at some point over the next month, we'll discuss some of the amazing pieces that she's made. Ridley Funeral Home, hopefully Bruce never needs their services. I hope Bruce... Someday I will. Well, that is true.

Eventually we'll all need them. We all will. That's right. But it will be a long time before an FLTM requires Ridley Funeral Home. They have a new podcast called Life's Undertaking. That's Brad Jones. He's the funeral director there. And it's a great new podcast.

Sticker You. Much love to stickeryou.com. That's where you get your Toronto Mike stickers and you can get your decals and everything you need. Are you two gentlemen ready to kick out the Frank and the Tony? Let her rip, baby. Can I set this up a little bit though, Mike? Of course, Mr. Pagan, of course.

Whenever I do, I did the kick out the jams with you once. And of all the thousands of songs that I've heard and loved in my life, you made me pick 10. You know, your top 10. It's just such a difficult thing to do. And I thought, how are we going to organize this today? And I guess I concluded that it's not my five favorite Sinatra songs. What we've done here are five songs best known as having been sung by Frank Sinatra. So other artists have done these songs as well, but I think it's fair to say he is best known for

these five songs. And they represent five different aspects of his character. The saloon singer, Frank Sinatra, the rat pack guy, you know, ring-a-ding-ding, the swinging Frank Sinatra, the guy who made the comeback in the early 1970s, Frank Sinatra, and then the guy who sings Broadway songs, you know, as well as anybody. So those are my five categories. That's how I've organized it. And I'll rely on you to sort of lead me through this. Amazing. So let's begin with saloon singer, Frank. Here's our first jam. Here's our first jam. It's quarter to three.

There's no one in the place except you and me. So set them up, Joe. I got a little story. You ought to know We're drinking, my friend To the end Of a brief episode Make it one for my baby. And one more for the road.

Steve, what are we listening to here? As the lyric just suggested, this one's called One for My Baby and One More for the Road. Can you just imagine Frank sitting at a bar, cigar in one hand, Jack Daniels in the other with his fedora on his head? And he's talking to the bartender about how tough his life is right now. This is the saloon singer, Frank. This is a song that was written in 1943 for a show called, a movie musical called The Sky's the Limit. And again, like a lot of Sinatra songs, this one was first performed by somebody else, in this case, Fred Astaire, but he found it and of course made it hugely popular.

Written by Johnny Mercer and Harold Arlen, two of the greatest songwriters of the great American songbook ever. And Mike, one of the reasons why this song is so ingrained in my DNA, I'll tell you a little story here. I was at a high school reunion and oh my gosh, how long ago is this? Probably 25 years ago. And as the evening gets, it's probably close to midnight. And one of my buddies says, hey, I got a buddy who owns a bar. Let's blow this place and let's go to his bar and we'll do that. And the guy's bar, like we were in Toronto and I think the guy's bar was in Oakfield or something. And I thought, what am I doing this for? But this was my buddy and this is what he wanted to do. And by the time we got there, you know, it was ridiculous.

It was probably 2.30 in the morning by the time we got there. And I said to my buddy, Eddie, it was just his birthday the other day. Sadly, he is no longer with us. I said, Eddie, it's 2.30 in the morning. This guy's not going to be open. He says, just you wait. He knocks on the bar door and son of a gun at 2.30 in the morning, the bartender comes and opens his establishment and in we go. And I'm sure none of this was legal, but in we go and he pours us drinks and we're sitting there at the bar and the bartender asked me, you want to hear some music? And I look at my watch and I said, I got to hear one for my baby and one more for the road because it's quarter to the three and there's no one in the place except you and me. And he put that on and it just was perfect. Wow. Wow. Love it. Love it. I always like this phase of Frank too. So I'm going to talk about Frank. Yeah, please, please, please.

But this is the period, Steve, I think when it's really his music is colored by the Ava Gardner thing. And of course he left his wife for Ava Gardner, the actress, and it didn't go well. And Frank's career and everything went into the toilet when the Ava thing broke up. So when I hear this song, I see, see Frank sitting somewhere in New York, Ava Gardner's left him and he nobody wants him anymore. He hasn't had the, he hasn't had the godfather moment with the horse in the bed.

So he gets back into the tea, into the movies. And that's, so it evokes that. It's a great song for that purpose alone. Yeah, very well said. And the other great song, I'm a Fool to Want You, is very much about Ava Gardner. And this song came out in 43, and the recording we're listening to was done in 62. So it's a little bit after all the Ava stuff. But you know that that was just a part of his,

that was stuck in his bones for a long time. The fact that it just didn't go well with Ava. So ideally this episode will not just work for those who already love Frank Sinatra and Tony Bennett, but what, but I feel like this would be a great primer for somebody who's kind of like discovering this era of music. And so, so this is saloon singer,

Frank, we just heard there. And I love that we're going to kind of walk through these phases of Frank and Tony, and we're going to educate as many FOTMs as we can on this delightful journey here. Bruce, do you have any words you'd like to say before I press play on your first Tony Bennett jam? Well, one of the reasons that, that, that this show works,

and I would have probably said never mind, is the fact that both Frank and Tony went on to be adopted by the MTV generation, that they had this second, half, fourth part of their life, whatever, fifth part of their life, where they got adopted by the MTV generation. So I feel like it's worth talking about because these people have seen, and we're going to get to Tony and Lady Gaga in a minute. But anyhow, so Anthony Benedetto is his real name, Tony Bennett. Comes out of New York City. People don't know this about him. He was drafted into the American Army,

fought in the American Army right after the Battle of the Bulge. He was an infantryman, so he was right there in the heart of the worst fighting of the war for the Americans. It colored him forever for the rest of his life. You know, he saw some, well, all you have to do is watch Band of Brothers, and you get a sense of what being an infantryman was like. And so it colored him going forward. And so where Frank is always passion, Tony, there's passion in Tony's singing, but it's more about his technique, his precision and all that sort of stuff. But anyhow, he comes out of the army in the 1940s. He's just running around. Pearl Bailey discovers him, gives him a little bit of work, and he ends up being kind of a pop singer at the time. So he's in there with guys like Perry Como,

Al Martino, Dean Martin, Victor Moan, those kind of people. Louis Prima. They're all Italians and they come out of the kind of the Bel Canto, Neapolitan school of singing, etc. So this one that we've got for Tony, we don't have to play it all, but it gives us a sense of a guy in the 1950s and what pop music sounded like in the 1950s. Rags to riches. Firstly, what do you mean we don't have to play it all? Of course we have to play it all. But let's get into Rags to Riches.

I know I'd go from rags to riches If you would only say you care And though my pocket may be empty I'd be a millionaire My clothes may still be torn and tattered But in my heart I'd be a king Your love is all that ever mattered It's everything everything So open your arms And you'll open the door

To every treasure That I'm hoping for Hold me and kiss me And tell me you're mine evermore. Must I forever be a beggar? So Bruce, what year are we talking about here?

This is 1953, I want to say. Around there. When I hear this, it's like a scene out of Goodfellas or The Godfather. The guys are all in the club with their girlfriends, plus they never took their wives, they took their girlfriends. And they're all sitting there listening to Jerry Vale or one of the singers of the time.

And it's that era. And it was an era of pop music. And as I say, Perry Como, all those other guys about the same time. It's funny you say out of Goodfellas, because of course this song was in Goodfellas. And it got a whole new, you know, a whole new group of people, as you alluded to earlier, uh, saying, who's that guy singing that song? Uh, and this is in Goodfellas, like 40 years later, this song gets a whole second life. And it comes out of that belt. As I said, the belt canto Italian style that they brought

over from Italy to America and the singers and there's a generation of them were like this. And Frank was that way too. Although he got away from it relatively but he was a while while Frank was a Bobby Soxer and the girls were chasing him Tony was in the was in the army he had a different experience and that was a big difference between the two of them because while Tony did see action Frank Frank Sinatra he got 4F because he had a perforated eardrum and he did not serve and there was a lot of anger towards him by a lot of the men who went overseas while Frank Sinatra stayed home and was hitting on their wives. So that was a bit of an issue for a while in the 1940s. It certainly was. And listen,

Tony could have gone on for a long time being this sort of a singer. Up until the early 60s, there was a lot of stuff to be gained by being that kind of a singer. You could on the pop charts i think this was number one the song and he had two or three others at that time were number one so he was he was comfortably up at the top but as we'll get to in a few minutes he kind of decides it's there's other places to go well it's kind of amazing that this this uh that tony's you know at the top of the charts in the early 50s, and he's still with us. He just retired in August of last year, and he's got Alzheimer's. And his son, Danny, who has run his career for about 30 years now, his son Danny says he can't remember if he's played a concert that night, but he remembers the words to every song he's ever done. Astonishing.

Music only 95 years old. That's a very Alzheimer's thing too, of course, is having a distant memory, but not an immediate memory. But yes, so he's retired now from performing. But he was performing last summer, where he was able to because of COVID. Sure. Now, Steve, anything you'd like to share with us

before I kick out your second Frank Sinatra jam? Well, we're calling this Rat Pack Frank. Now, Frank, of course, he didn't start the Rat Pack. That is not the case. Humphrey Bogart actually started the Rat Pack and it was called the Klan when he started it. But then, of course, Bogie died young and the Rat Pack was sort of taken over by Frank

and Sammy Davis Jr. and Joey Bishop and Dean Martin and Peter Lawford, who was a brother-in-law to President John F. Kennedy. And, you know, when you hear this song, this song is called That's Life. And it just evokes, you know, you can see these guys hanging out in Vegas. It's very Robin and the Seven Hoods. It's just, it's a bunch of guys just hanging out and drinking and having a great time. And it's not moody like the previous Saloon song was, right? This is all about, you know, being up and having fun. And it's also the message here is about hanging in there.

Go ahead, Mike. Let's hear some of it. That's life. That's life That's life That's what all the people say You're riding high in April Shot down in May But I know I'm gonna change that tune When I'm back on top Back on top, back on top

in June I said that's life that's life and as funny as it may seem some people get their kicks stomping on a dream

but I don't let it let it get me down cause this fine old I love this checklist. I've been a puppet, a pauper, a pirate, a poet. A poet. A poet. I've been up and down and over and out. And I know one thing Each time I find myself Flat on my face

I pick myself up and get back in the race That's life Is that cool or what? He sings those lyrics. Is that cool or what, He sings those lyrics. Is that cool or what, man? That is so cool. First of all, love the Hammond B3 organ that starts it off. That's a very, it's a unique sound.

You know when Frank Sinatra says... Wasn't it Count Basie playing? I think it was Count Basie was playing the organ. I believe that's right. Wow. James Basie. The Count. Wow.

You know that when Frank says, you know, I've been up and down and over and out and, you know, because he has been, right? He's experienced it all. But the lesson of it in this song written by Dean K and Kelly Gordon in 1963, the lesson is you got to hang in there. And I want to make sure we hear the ending because it's a great ending. Okay. And it doesn't matter how bad your life gets. You've got to persevere through and hang in there as Frank did.

You're from here for eternity. Oscar is coming. And you can put it all back together again. Okay. Well, let Frank give us the big finish here. I thought of cutting out, but my heart won't buy it. But if there's nothing shaking, come this here July. I'm gonna roll myself up in a big ball. And I, my, my. Big finish.

You got to love that. Absolutely. Bruce, what do you think of that? I'm surprised he didn't get, well, of course, he said 63. That was just before he was going to meet Mia Farrow, too. All that jazz. That period of music where he had a few hits when he was living with her. He was married to her, wasn't he?

I think so. Yes, he did. He was briefly married to Ava and briefly married to Mia Farrow. And they broke up because she wanted to do Rosemary's Baby, and he didn't want her to do the movie. Wow. Exactly it was a little bit of disturbing stuff. The other great part about that record is, of course, you know, Nelson Riddle. And it's hard to talk about Frank without talking about his arrangers and the band leaders and stuff. Of course, Nelson Riddle was so key to so many. When I did my top 10 with Mike, I had,

I brought you under my skin because it's just one of the best big band arrangements. And of course that's, that's really key to Frank. And, and for Tony, he said, segueing. When we left Tony, he was, he happened to hit the hit songs, but he decides he wants more. He wants to be better than that. And he talks to, he gets involved with a guy named Ralph Sharon, who turned out to be his, his accompanist and sort of aid to camp for most of the rest of his career.

And Ralph Sharon said, listen, you can have these hits for a little while, but it's not going to last. You've got to, you've got to see about taking your full talent. Ralph Sharon knew how talented Tony was. And all of a sudden he starts listening to jazz musicians and phrasings and things like that. And it's not, he's not the Italian Bel Canto guy anymore. Now he's a little bit like the piano singer that Steve was talking about before the guy in that kind of a, in that kind of an atmosphere,

choosing that type of music. And Ralph Sharon really helped him focus his career and get himself to become the jazz singer that he was. And the song that I brought that sort of emphasizes a little bit of this is called The Best Is Yet To Come. Out of the tree of life, I just picked me a plum You came along and everything started to hum Still it's a real good bet the best is yet to come best is yet to come the best is yet to come

and babe won't it be fine you think you've seen the sun but you ain't seen it shine wait till the warm up's underway wait till our lips have met Wait till you see that sunshine day You ain't seen nothing yet The best is yet to come

And babe, won't it be fine The best is yet to come. Come the day you're mine. Come the day you're mine. I'm going to teach you how to love. All right, Bruce, tell us more about this jam. Well, I mean, it's the phrasing. Now we get into the thing that Tony Bennett is known for.

In fact, Frank Sinatra said he thought that Tony Bennett was the greatest singer of all of his generation. He thought that Tony technically was a better singer. And you can just hear him riffing through there. You've got the trumpet with the muted trumpet and all that sort of stuff. And it really kind of a hipster swinging song. You can see that playing at the time. You're a bit younger, Mike, but for Steve and I, you'll remember in those days when we were growing up, their parents had the turntable,

right? The vinyl records and the turntable. And nobody had like a hundred records. You had like seven or eight. And the seven or eight in our household, one of them was the greatest hits of Tony Bennett. And that included this, included when Joanna loved me. We're going to get to San Francisco in a minute. All those things. And we played that record over and over again. And my mom had been a singer in the jazz, singer in the troop shows during the Second World War. So she loved Tony Bennett. And she was always pointing out to us just how fantastic Tony was. She liked Tony better than Frank. She thought Frank was maybe a little bit, a little bit,

you know, the private life was a little bit much for her. A good Catholic from Montreal. So anyhow, it just, that was, we had this vinyl record. We played the daylights out of it.

And that's how I became a fan of Tony, but not only Tony, but that phrasing you were just hearing there. Love it. I got a little story about this song, Mike. Go ahead there, Steve.

Let's hear it. This song written by Cy Coleman and Carolyn Lee, who also did Witchcraft. And I was told when I got married to my wife, Francesca, that there would be no speeches at the wedding. And so in the... Who made that decision? Well, Francesca made that decision. And when we got to the after party, after the wedding was over,

I grabbed the microphone and I said to everybody in the audience, I said, a decision has been made. There are no speeches allowed, but they never said I couldn't sing. Open the curtains. I'd arranged to have a, I think a three or four piece jazz band waiting there. And I sang that song to my wife, the best is yet to come. And I'll tell you what, I'm trying to remember now, Mike Murley on saxophone, David Braid on the piano,

a couple other guys too. And if I say so myself, I didn't do too bad a job at it. But you didn't know Bruce was going to kick out that jam, right? I didn't know. So I just want to let the listeners know. We surprised each other with the lists.

I mean, he chose Frank first, so I went and beavered around on Tony. I was at your wedding. Yes, you were. I was. Did you not come to the after party? Do you not remember me nailing this song? I remember it being at St. Mike's, and I just thought a Jewish guy at St. Mike's. Oh, my God.

How can we do that? It was not at St. Mike's. It was a Victoria College. Victoria. Well, even worse than Protestants. Even worse than Protestants. A little different. I went to St. Mike's for the record. Yeah, that was, that was one of the many songs that both Frank Sinatra and Tony Bennett both

did great versions of. And it, um, you know, they both of course stand this test of time. So gentlemen, I mentioned we're live on the pirate stream. I just think it's cool to tell people that there's a pirate stream, live.torontomic.com.

This is where the, uh, episodes of toast go live. Uh, cause you know, we play too much music. So don't tell anyone. Okay.

So one question, a couple of questions have come in. I see Andrew Ward and Moose Grumpy are there. So Andrew Ward says, how important or significant were musicians and conductors like Mitch Miller who worked with Frank and Tony to their careers? So can either of you speak to the significance of the conductors? I can certainly talk about Mitch Miller because Mitch was the worst influence on Frank Sinatra's career ever. Tony too. And one of the reasons I remember seeing Mitch Miller when I was a kid,

he came to Hamilton and he, and he conducted the Hamilton Philharmonic Orchestra, but, but Mitch said to Frank Sinatra, and this would be in the, in the late fifties. Now, Frank,

your day is done. The songs that the Great American Songbook, the stuff that made you famous is not happening anymore because rock and roll is taking over and you're going to have to do something completely different. And Frank took his advice and we got such classic songs as Mama Don't Bark and some other really awful stuff. And thankfully, the Mitch Miller years did not last long for Frank Sinatra

because without question, you know, they brew a lot of coffee in Brazil and some other really, you know, just not his stuff. He was reaching out to stuff he shouldn't have been reaching out to. And thankfully, that era ended and he got back to doing what he does best. And that is singing the great standards, the great American songbook, et cetera. It's a great point. They did the same thing with Tony, with the next that as well. But these guys, there were about four or five of them, and they were the A&R guys at the big record companies like RCA, Columbia, etc. And those guys basically decided what the pop trends were going to be, who was going to be a star, what music was going to get played. And it was destroyed. Thankfully,

it was destroyed by the Beatles and the British invasion. They basically shattered that thing. But up until that point, if you were a singer, you went with the stuff that they wanted, you know, Patty page doing how much is that doggy in the window, these fantastic singers having to do this real crap stuff. But Mitch Miller and these people thought this is what the kids wanted today. And he didn't want anything that was too, too, too challenging. And again, with Tony and with Frank, they broke out and they were able to break through that and find their

audience again. But yeah, for, for Tony. And as I say, we'll get to it here when we talk about the next song with San Francisco, but with, with Tony, they want them to record Beatles songs. They want them to record all sorts of junk. And for a while, he got lost. He really got lost, both professionally and personally, because he couldn't find what he was doing. Like a lot of jazz musicians, he ended up with a drug problem, a serious drug problem that he had to overcome, et cetera. So these guys were very rarely much used to you if you were a big star.

And again, thank goodness that for these guys and then the Beatles on the rock and roll side, they destroyed that model for the industry. And we got to hear stuff that we would have never heard before. Okay, good points. Now we're going to kick out another Frank Sinatra jam in just a second,

but there's a nice observation made by Moose Grumpy on the pirate stream where she talks about how amazing it is that a movie scene can change music for you. And this is true for me as well. Like there are songs I'll hear and I'll just visualize the scene in that movie. And it's sort of like they're changed forever by the film.

I heard the song and cause you know, Tony that Tony Bennett jam was in good fellas. And, uh, then there was a song we played, I guess that was used in Joker. I can't remember the details there, but the Joker with Joaquin Phoenix from a couple of years ago. What was the song?

Moose Grumpy, leave a comment to let us know. And then after this next jam, we'll get that from Moose because I don't have that detail here because I was late picking up these awesome comments here. But Steve, any comments from you before I kick out this next jam from Frank Sinatra? Well, this is really swinging Frank. This is Frank. And the title of the song says it all.

I got the world on a string and he really did. Okay. Fire away, Mark. And then we'll talk a little more about it. I've got the world on a string Sitting on a rainbow Got the string around my finger What a world, what a life, I'm in love

I got a song that I sing, I can make the rain go Anytime I move my finger Lucky me, can't you see I'm in love Life is a beautiful thing Lucky me, can't you see I'm in love? Life is a beautiful thing As long as I hold the string I'd be a silly so-and-so If I should ever let it go I got the world on a string

Sitting on a rainbow Got the string around my finger What a world, what a life I'm in love This is what I like about this song. It's just so unambiguously happy, right? He's got the world, he's just, he's got it all. This is a song, and again another one of

frank's songs which goes way back first written in 1932 harold arlen and teddy kohler uh frank doesn't make it popular of course to the late 50s early 60s and and and given all of the the misery and sadness and other things that we've heard him sing about already and you know when life kicks you you got to get back up off the mat. This one's just happy. It's just happy. It's upbeat. And I don't think he had a lot of moments like that in his life.

He had a lot of, he's a very moody guy, a lot of suffering, a lot of heartbreak, a lot of difficulties, a lot of fights with the media. But this song is just fun and upbeat. So it's one of the reasons I like it so much. What a chart too. It's a fantastic chart he's playing. I think if we were singing that today, that would be called toxic masculinity. That is 1960s brazen masculinity. And that's what he represented in the Rat Pack, right?

All the Franks, you were talking about the JFK stuff. About that time as well, of course, he was helping JFK get elected, and then JFK left him by the side of the road. And that broke his heart. Yeah, JFK was coming to California. Frank spent millions to get his house retrofitted so that the presidential helicopter could land there. And then apparently Frank was too toxic. And as a result, the Kennedy clan made the decision to go to Bing Crosby. Bing Crosby, a Republican, and of course, Frank's big rival at the time because Bing Crosby was the first great crooner to make it big and Sinatra was the second and bing crosby is apparently apparently said something like you know a voice like frank sinatra's comes along only once in a generation

why did it have to be in my generation bing could see how frank was taken over but bing got his revenge when kennedy came west i have the answer from who's grumpy here so the song we played that's life that's life is uh used in the movie Joker. Oh, the Joker. Okay. See, I like that. When a lot of these old songs that are 50, 60 years old get repurposed for new movies,

introduces a whole new generation to this great music. Well, this is always how it's been because when I was a teenager, I saw a little Quentin Tarantino movie called Pulp Fiction. And that's where I discovered Son of a Preacher Man, for example. So it's like I didn't know Son of a Preacher Man until I heard it in Pulp Fiction and then Forevermore, and that was back in 94, I guess.

I've been in love with that song. So it's a great way to introduce the next gen to some of these classic songs we know and love. Hey, one more quick comment from the pirate stream here. Can you comment on the collaborations between Tony Bennett and Bill Evans? Some thought it would be a mismatch considering many of Evans' gems are better suited for the female voice, but the pair is simply magic. Well, I can sort of jump ahead because this person read my mind.

That's the fourth song that I've picked out for Tony is his collaborations with Bill Evans as he got himself back up on his feet. Well, save it. And yeah, we'll save the stuff about Bill Evans. So set up your third jam and then we'll put a pin in that and we'll come back to that. Well, we're still kind of in the 60s, the 60s style of music. And we're talking about iconic songs. Well, we're still kind of in the 60s, the 60s style of music. And we're talking about iconic songs. And there's no more iconic song, of course, for Frank, for Tony Benton, I Left My Heart in San Francisco. If you watched during the COVID sort of catastrophe that we've gone through, when people were locked up in San Francisco, Tony Bennett did a live link in and all these people went out on the balconies in San Franciscoisco and sang i left my heart in san francisco uh to try to you know keep up their spirits and keep up the civic spirit and all that sort of stuff uh what's interesting about this one is it's it's a

song that was around before it was offered if you can believe it i can't believe it it's offered to tennessee ernie ford there's a name from the past tennessee ernie ford was the cotton picking guy and i can't believe it was offered to him. Anyhow, Tony Bennett, somebody brought it to him, and he debuted it live at the Fairmont Hotel up on Knob Hill in San Francisco. I don't know if either of you have been there. Fantastic place, the Fairmont. Tons and tons of history. And he debuted it in 1961, but he didn't record it until 1962. And he recorded it as a B-side as well. It wasn't even an A-side. But it caught on as obviously in San Francisco as their theme song, the song that everybody associates with the city.

And go ahead and we'll play and we can talk more about it after. The Loveliness of Paris Home is of another day I've been terribly alone And forgotten in Manhattan I'm going home To my city by the bay Another day I left my heart in San Francisco. High on a hill, it calls to me to be where little cable cars climb. Climb halfway to the stars The morning fog May chill the air I don't care My love waits there the end. I don't care. My

love waits there. I almost don't want to bring it down. Written by two San Franciscans who were living in New York City at the time, and of course Frank as Tony was a New Yorker too. In fact, he had no connection to

the city of San Francisco particularly. This became his connection. It was successful. It only got to number 19 on the pop charts, but they put out an album. And that was the title track on the album. And the album was a big hit. And that helped to get it out there. And, of course, he sung this song at San Francisco Giants games

and San Francisco 49ers games, various other things at the public events. Here's the big finish. Yeah. Your golden sun will shine for me. me Wow. The finale is the rags to riches Tony again just making an appearance. The ballad style singing

it's a song that's just iconic and other people have recorded nice versions of it but it's forever attached to Tony and he forever has to sing it. Well, I would argue you find a hundred random people and you say, what's Tony Bennett's signature song? 99, maybe all of them, actually. A hundred of them are going to say that song right there. Yeah. It's classic, beautiful arrangement. Yeah.

And it's not really jazzy, but it's the song that everyone associates with them. So I had to put it on the list. Oh, you had to, or we would have outrage, but just what was that hotel? Before I played it, what was the hotel you referenced? The Fairmont hotel. If you go up on the streetcar to the top of knob Hill, and if you, if you ever study about the friar, they had in San Francisco,

knob Hill was one of the last places that burned down, but anyhow, that the knob Hill hotel and then the Fairmont is Fairmont across the way from it. And if you watch the movie Bullet, you'll see a lot of that. Steve McQueen, love that movie for the car chases. Now, Lady Chat, who's in the Pirate Stream, stayed there in 2011. She said it's a fantastic hotel. Yeah, great location. Everything in San Francisco is fantastic. Sorry, Steve. Now, two things about that song. Number one, I had the great honor of interviewing Tony Bennett once upon a time, many years ago for TVO. And I did ask him how he found that song.

And Ralph Sharon, whom you referenced earlier, Bruce, Ralph found that song and brought it to him. And it ended up being a signature song. I don't think Tony thought much of it when he first got it, but it became his signature song. I don't think Tony thought much of it when he first got it, but it became his signature song. And I remember asking him during the interview, you know you have to sing that song at every concert. You can never do a concert where you don't sing that song.

Do you get tired of singing that song? And he said, can you get tired of making love? He never got tired of singing that song. And I'll tell you what, I've seen Tony Bennett in concert, I think three times. And of course, I've heard him numerous other times. He never sang it the same way twice in a row. He would always find a slightly different way, either through phrasing or maybe he'd go up a third for something or down a third, whatever. He sang it differently every time. And as a result, it kept it fresh for him. I think that was one thing that really, it was important to him to do it differently

so that people didn't think that he was mailing it in. He gave you a new version every time he sang it. Yeah. Now, it's interesting, too. You've met him, and I met him a couple of times as well. One time I was doing sports, and I used to run into the makeup room at 11 o'clock and just get a quick makeup job and go. And this is when Pam Wallen had her show. And occasionally I'd walk in, there'd be somebody there.

One night Bill Gates was there, Robert Palmer, the rock and roll singer. Sure. The big night was when I walked in and Tony was in the chair. And I just, I just said, he said, should I get up so you can get your makeup job? I said, yeah, right. Me before Tony Bennett. The other thing was, as I say, my mother loved him and Tony, I don't know if he paints anymore or not, but he's a terrific painter. And he was up at Mirvish Village.

I'm just guessing in the 1990s with a book that he brought out. My mother, I took my mother to Mirvish Village. I'm just guessing in the 1990s with a book that he brought out. My mother, I took my mother to Mirvish Village to meet him. And he was so kind and there was no attitude. I mean, Frank was like, hey, who is this broad type of stuff? Get out of my way, these people. Tony, none of that stuff. The fame and that type of thing never affected him. Whatever personal demons he had, and he had some, he kept very below the surface. It was never a part of his narrative. And a wonderful guy to his fans. Mike, how's this for a weird story?

I remember being 12 years old, growing up in Hamilton, Ontario, and Tony Bennett came to town to the brand new theater auditorium, which was then called Hamilton Place in downtown Hamilton. And I said to my folks, let's go see Tony Bennett. Now, this is in the early 70s when Tony was kind of on the outs, right? I mean, as Bruce alluded to earlier, he went through this phase, some drug use. Anyway, he was not popular at this time, but I wanted to go see him anyway. And my folks would not take me. So I said, well, I'm going to go by myself then. And here's this

little 12-year-old pipsqueak going down to Hamilton Place to see Tony Bennett in 1972. Fast forward, gosh, I don't know what, 20 years, maybe more, maybe 30 years, right? Yeah, maybe 35 years. And I'm interviewing Tony Bennett. And I said, you won't remember this, but the first time I saw you perform was at a new theater auditorium in Hamilton called Hamilton Place. And he interrupts me and he says, oh, I remember that very well. I said, how do you remember that? He says, how do I remember it? How could I forget it?

It was a beautiful new hall and it had this. Anyway, he went on to describe various aspects of the hall and totally blew me away with the fact that he remembered that occasion. I love it. I got to say, I'm loving this. Like, I mean, as a guy who kind of, of you know as a teenager was in love with grunge like I'm thoroughly enjoying Tony versus Frank here this is

amazing so guys I know we have a you guys each brought five jams and there is a bonus jam at the end but so we're three out of five complete here and I'm having a blast here's a quick question from the live stream Steve wants to know Steve Leggett wants to know,

where do you guys rank Mel Torme when it comes to, and by the way, he gives a shout out to Night Court because if you're my age or Steve's age, apparently, you know Mel Torme as Harry Anderson's favorite singer on Night Court. But in addition to, you know, authoring the Christmas song,

but what would you guys say about Mel Torme? Go ahead, Steve, with his nickname. Go ahead. Well, he was known as the Velvet Fog. And, you know, of course he was a terrific singer, but I would put him one, and forgive me to his two sons, James and Stephen, who, if they are listening to this,

and who both sing and have wonderful careers of their own, you know, Mel Torme is in a level below Frank and Tony. Frank and Tony are at the top of the mountain and Mel Torme is in the next group down. Right. He's the next tier. Go ahead. The only thing I would say, I don't want to dump on him, but he never had the star quality that the other two guys had. He just, there was never a niche for him in the entertainment world the way there was for these two guys. And again, fantastic technical singer, a lot of stuff. So you could go a long way

listening to Mel Torme and not get bored. Steve, any words before I kick out your fourth Frank Sinatra jam? Sure. We remember that back in the early 1970s, Frank Sinatra actually retired from singing. He just thought he'd had enough. His voice was hurting. He'd been working very, very hard for many decades in a row. And he just thought, okay, I've come to the end of the road. Rock and roll has taken over. I'm not sure I can compete in this new entertainment landscape. And he did one final concert in which he, the last song he sang was Angel Eyes. And you may remember the last line of that song. It goes, excuse me while I disappear. And Frank just disappeared off the stage. He did not come back on for an encore. He did not come back on to hear the applause.

He literally disappeared and he went out of sight. But of course, being the great singer that he was, you just couldn't keep them down. And he was, I remember talking to, who was it? Ray Brown, the great bass player, Ray Brown came into TVO for an interview once. And I remember talking to him about how, and Ray played with Frank Sinatra many times. And Ray said, Frank was just miserable after he retired. He missed the action. He missed the go-go life. He missed the music. He missed everything about it. And he decided to make a comeback a couple of years later. And Ray Brown played on the first album that Frank made his comeback with. And they were supposed to be in the studio for an hour and

a half or something recording the new album. And after they finished, Frank said, what do you say we keep going? And apparently they went on for another four hours. Frank missed it so much, he spent another four hours in the studio with Ray Brown and some of the other guys. And they just kept playing. I don't even know that they recorded it, but they just kept playing. And this next song that we're going to play is Frank on the Comeback Trail. It's Joe Raposo doing the arranging on this one.

And he had harps and violins, and it was that kind of sound as opposed to the plaintive trumpets and that kind of thing. And this is the Frank Sinatra who's busted up with some woman and realizes it was a big mistake. And he says, let me try again. And of course, it's replete with double entendre because he's making the comeback and he wants to try again to be a big star and a big singer. I know I said that I was leaving But I just couldn't say goodbye It was only self-deceiving To walk away from someone who means everything in life to you

You learn from every lonely day I've learned and I've come back to stay Let me try again Let me try again Think of all we had before. Let me try once more. We can have it all. You and I again.

Just forgive me or I'll die Please let me try again Okay, Frank is almost 60 years old when he's singing this song and Mike, to use one of your expressions there's a little more sandpaper in that voice now

right? And you can tell that he's had more experiences. This song actually, like My Way, was found by Paul Anka. It was originally a French song. Paul Anka, Sammy Kahn, Michel Jourdain did the words and lyrics for this. Excuse me, words and music for this. And this was for the comeback album in 1973 called old blue eyes is back and it just reflects um it's an older more contemplative uh frank sinatra who is trying to reclaim his place in the musical universe and i just i love the heartfelt oomph that he sings it

with and you can tell the difference too between the arrangements from before when he had the big band stuff and it was all trumpets and horns up top. This is music being driven by the beat. The drummers were never that influential in a Sinatra band in the past. There were drummers, great drummers, but they were never pushed forward in the mix.

You can see that the mix is pushing this thing forward, giving a little bit of an urgency for him. I think it's a really interesting kind of switch for Frank in terms of how things were, the charts went from there. Let's hear the ending, Mike. It's coming up now. You got it. Just forgive me, or I'll die.

Please let me try again. Wow. And that harp at the end, and it's just, it's a big finish, and just, oh, I love everything about that song. So on the Pirate Stream, Andrew has a mind blow. He says, Ray Brown was part of Oscar Peterson's trio. Yep. Yeah, and I think was married to Ella Fitzgerald for a while as well.

So he's jazz royalty, to be sure. He also, by the way, he's jazz royalty to be sure. He also, by the way, wants you to, to start a podcast. I'm just, he says it, he says,

I feel like I'm watching Steve and Bruce from the nineties and I don't want this to end. Mike slows down. Maybe when Steve slows down, I got the time, but he's too busy. He's got too much going on. Let's table that idea.

I like that idea. All right. We'll revisit that one for sure here. Bruce, what would you like to say before I kick out your fourth Tony Bennett jam? Well, Steve was just talking about how many of the great composers and people wanted to work with Frank Sinatra. And it was the same thing for Tony Bennett, the guy who began, as I say, as a pop singer. By the 70s, there's people who want to work with him, all these top people. And the earlier person, I forgot the name, I should have written it down, but they mentioned Bill Evans. Bill Evans is just like, for some people, he is the quintessential trio, jazz musician, composer, arranger, etc. Did fantastic work with a lot of

people. And he and Tony did two albums that are, I think, for jazz aficionados that are legendary. There is the Tony Bennett, Bill Evans album. And then there's another one called Together Again. And the thing with Evans is the harmonics that he brought back into jazz, the layering. His was a richer kind of jazz. They're moving away from bebop. They're moving away from some of those kinds of things now. And Bill Evans is there and he sees in Tony, a singer who is technically able to match his mind. A lot of people thought that Bill Evans could only work with women,

but in this case, he saw Tony as being the kind of guy who could handle what he was going to put out. So this one is called Who Can I Turn To? See, when your bill happens, you get to do a long intro. piano solo Who can I turn to When nobody needs me My heart wants to know And so I must go Where destiny leads me With no star to guide me and no one beside me.

I'll go on my way and after the day the darkness will hide me. And maybe tomorrow I'll find what I'm after I'll throw off my sorrow Beg steel to borrow My share of laughter With you I could learn to You on

a new day But who can I turn to If you turn away So pure, so pure. Tony had recorded that song back in the 60s, that vinyl album I talked about.

This song was on it in another arrangement when he was a little younger. And as Steve was just talking about, a little more sandpaper on the voice. Not as much damage to his vocal cords as Frank had had, but you can just hear Bill Evans making them work, you know, with the piano. And he's right there. He's spot on. He's up to every challenge that Bill Evans is putting out. That was, I think, Tony Newley and Leslie Brickus who wrote that song. And it reminds me as well, I hear it evokes a lot of the stuff that Michelle Legrand wrote later, maybe a decade later.

And Tony would also sing, How Do You Keep the Music Playing? Those songs, I feel, have a lot in common. And boy, he was so good at, I guess one of the things that makes these guys geniuses is that when they sing these songs, it just feels so honest. You think they are singing about things that they have experienced and that they need to share with their audience. And you know that the wide panoply of life's experiences, they haven't missed out on any of it. And it just gets so reflected in every note, every phrasing, like Tony can sing. So, so like he can push so much air through those lungs, so much power. And anyway, I just marvel. Yeah. The phrasing thing,

I think I mentioned this before, Mike, when you and I were doing the top 10 thing, and we're talking about Sinatra, the phrasing, what Steve just talked about was what's amazing is how many bars they can go without taking a breath. And they asked Frank Sinatra how he was able to develop that technique. And of course, he'd started out in the Dorsey band watching Tommy Dorsey was a trombonist play. And he could see Dorsey could do 10, 12 bars without taking a breath. And he said that I've got to be able to emulate that physically. And of course, when you have that ability, then there's none of the gasps for breath. There's none of the sort of staccato stuff you get with people who don't have the same technical ability.

They can just like, you know, legato go right through a song and you hardly ever notice the splice marks, you know, between the breaths and stuff. So anyway, just a perfect example. If you don't know Bill Evans, for the people who are, you know, we're giving them an education maybe about Frank and, and, and, and Tony, but if Bill Evans just is at records with Jim Hall, his records with Stan Getz, just a Fenton and his solo records, Waltz for Debbie is one of the, one of the great piano pieces if you ever get a chance to listen to.

And no relation to Boston Red Sox, Daryl Evans. Daryl Evans never played for the Red Sox. Dewey Evans played for the Red Sox. Oh, who did, is he a Tiger? He played for the San Francisco Giants. Are you sure? I'm going way back with that one. In my head somewhere.

Am I sure? I know. You're asking me? I have, I can visualize. You're talking to me? That's right. You've got to be careful, Mike. You're in with a couple of polymaths here, you know, but sometimes it gotta be careful, Mike. You're in with a couple of polymats here, you know,

but sometimes it can be a little frightening. I know I'm feeling the heat over here. Holy smokes. Okay. By the way, Bruce, when you referred to the top, the top 10 thing, you kicked out the jams, Bruce Dobigan. Okay. You kicked out the jams. I'm sorry. I didn't. And I should put the little R after kick out the jams. That top 10 thing he says come on well yeah i have the same thing i had the same thing as steve you know i kept sending you a list and i kept getting longer you'd say no it's got to be shorter than that and

the next one would come back long and we're sure daryl evans never played for the red socks right i'm why do i evans was a first baseman for the giants dwight evans was the greatest right fielder well one of the great right fielders anyway in Red Sox history. Darryl Evans with the Tigers, too. You know, you're 100% right. I want to apologize. Was Tony Armis on that team? Who else?

Tony Armis played center field for the Red Sox for a while, but that was not where he... He had 40 home runs one year for the Red Sox, but that was not where he played most of his best years. And his son pitched for the Expos. Yeah. Tony Armistead. Right.

Love it. Okay, love it all. But Red Sox still suck. I just want to put that on the record before we end. What he said. Yeah. Passing the mic. See, Bruce, I will forgive your crazy tweets

before I'll forgive Paken for his Red Sox love. Let the record show, Mike. I became a Red Sox fan before the Blue Jays existed. Let's remember that. That is a good reason. That's fine. Now, please, set up the final Frank. Not the last time we'll hear Frank's voice because there's a bonus jam

at the end of this, but what is your final Frank Sinatra jam here? Of course, so many of Frank Sinatra's great songs came from Broadway and he reinterpreted them for his purposes, for his concerts. And my favorite Broadway Frank Sinatra song is a song with just one word. It's simply called Soliloquy. And it was composed in 1945 for the musical Carousel. This is Rodgers and Hammerstein. And I guess John Raitt sang it in the movie and Gordon McRae, excuse me, John Raitt did it on Broadway. Gordon McRae did it in the film a decade later. And this song hits home to me. Well, you know what? Let's just start it and

then I'll explain. I wonder what he'll think of me. I guess he'll call me the old man. I guess he'll think I can lick every other fella's father. Well, I can lick every other fella's father Well, I can I bet that he turns out to be The spittin' image of his dad But he'll have more common sense Than his puddin' headed father ever had

I'll teach him to wrassle and dive through a wave When we go in the morning for a swim His mother can teach him the way to behave But she won't make a sissy out of him Not him, not my boy, not Bill. My boy Bill, I will see my boy Bill, he'll be tall and as tough as a tree. Will Bill, like a tree, he'll grow with his head held high and his feet planted firm on the ground. And you won't see nobody dare to try to boss him or toss him around. No pot-bellied, baggy-eyed bully will boss him around.

Now, in later years, when Mr. Sinatra sang that song, he would say, no pot-bellied, baggy-eyed bastard will boss him around. He spiced up the lyrics a little bit. Okay, what's the background here? baggy eyed bastard will boss him around. He spiced up the lyrics a little bit. Okay. What's the background here? This is a guy who's a bit of a rastabout, the character that Frank Sinatra is playing right now and singing on behalf of, named William Bigelow Jr.

And he can't hold down a job and he's sort of a ne'er do well. And he discovers that his girlfriend is pregnant and she is going to have his first child. And he is, as a result, singing this soliloquy. He's on by himself. He's singing to himself on stage. He's singing this soliloquy, just imagining all of the fantastic things he's going to do with his son. And he talks about, you know, my boy Bill, he'll be tall and as tough as a tree. Will Bill. Anyway, for the first, I can remember my dad also loved Sinatra. And I can remember after my first son was born, we always, as a joke, called him my boy Bill.

Even though that was not his name. His name is Zachary. But we called him my boy Bill after this. And the song goes on and on as Bill starts to talk to himself about all the great things they're going to do together. He's going to teach him how to do this, ride through a wave, go in the morning for a swim. You know, his mother can teach him the way to behave, but she's not going to make a sissy out of him.

Not my boy, not my boy Bill. So on and on this song goes for a good eight minutes. It's a long song, And probably 80% of the song is Bill talking about the things they're going to do and how he's going to have to clean up his act because, you know, I'm going to have to get a job. I'm going to have to be responsible because, you know, after all, I got a mouth to feed now. I got to be responsible for my son. And then probably three quarters, 80% of the way through the song, he goes, wait a minute.

Can it be? What the hell? What if he's a girl? And he's lost because he has no idea what to do with girls. He's always imagined that he's going to have a son and all the fabulous things they're going to do together. And then he completely changes at that point in the song. It's no longer this macho song about all the great stuff they're going to do, father and son. It's suddenly, oh my goodness, I've got to take care of a daughter. You can be, you can have

fun with a son, but you've got to be a father to a girl. And he starts going on about how he's going to have to clean up his act and take care of her and make sure the boys don't take advantage of her. And on it goes. And it's just the most. Now, I had three sons and then a girl. And when I hear this song and he gets to the part about the daughter and Bruce had two boys and he's got a girl. And when I hear this song and he gets to the part about the daughter and Bruce had two boys

and he's got a girl. And when you get, if you're a father of a girl, you can't get to that part of the song where he starts talking about how he's got to change his life to be a father to a daughter without tearing up.

It's just so wonderful. Get a little verklempt.. Get a little verklempt. You get a lot verklempt. The thing that's interesting with Frank too is, because Tony made one movie and that was it. He never made any more movies. He wasn't associated, never tried to do the stage. Frank was always married.

He had his foot in both camps. And he was, of course, this is all, I don't think he ever did Carousel. I know he sang from it, but I don't think he was ever in a production. Correct. But he acted a lot of the time. He's quite a good actor, actually, by the end. He was quite successful as an actor.

He's an Oscar winner for From Here to Eternity. Yeah. Yeah. But Tony never, he realized that that wasn't for him. And he kept a lower profile and kept his head down. And yeah, never did any of that sort of stuff. And that's what one thing that also differentiates the two of them is, you know, Frank's performances from, from here to eternity,

all those kinds of things. Those are as much a part of his profile. Uh, Tony, there's none of that. It's just Tony and the music. That's it. Gentlemen. I, this might be the opportunity for me to ask you a question. So we've all seen it. Here he goes, Mike. Hang on. Here he goes. Now he's talking about the idea of a daughter has come into his head now.

He's talking about all the boys who are going to woo the daughter. Her faithful dad. faithful dad She has a few pink and white young fellas of two and three But my little girl

gets hungry every night And as she comes home to me. Here comes the big finish, right? You see, you hear the difference in tone. It's all macho in the first part.

And now it's all, it's very different. Let's hear this wonderful ending here. I gotta get ready before she comes Gotta make certain that she Won't be dragged up in slums With a lot of bums like me She's gotta be sheltered and fed and dressed in the best that money can buy I never knew how to get money, but I'll try, by God, I'll go on and make it or steal it or take it or die.

Wow. Wow. Okay, guys. I'll die. I'm assuming we've all seen it many many many times is that fair is that fair correct and the third Mike so how many times have you seen the third I've seen the third probably only three times but I've certainly seen the first one probably 20 right and the second one probably 15 okay because I've seen the third precisely one time because I bought the DVD. And that was enough for you, right? That was enough. I never felt this need to watch number three a second time. I saw it twice, once and a half. Okay, once and a half.

So you're ahead of me there. Okay, so where am I going? You know where I'm going. So the character Johnny Fontaine, okay, played by Al Martino. I always, when I watch the movie, I substitute in Frank Sinatra for those scenes. So I'm just wondering, when I watch the movie, I substitute in Frank Sinatra for those scenes. Like, so I'm just wondering,

since you guys are probably, well, better read on this than I am, is that an appropriate substitution to make when I watch The Godfather? Well, I think Mario Puzo, who wrote The Godfather, I don't think he'd have been upset if you made that connection and it helped him sell some books, that's for sure.

There was a lot of scrambling around about what was true and what wasn't true. And, and people coming up and saying, Oh, all this stuff about Frank is not true and how he was all mobbed up, et cetera. But the story about basically how we got out of the Tommy Dorsey band was that the, you know, they strong arm Tommy Dorsey to get him out of the band so he could go off and be on, be a, be a solo act. And so there's a lot of, there's a lot of truth

to that in the godfather the problem of the godfather is i've got a couple of channels where it plays like twice a week and i can't watch if i watch more than two minutes it's like a drug addiction if it's more than two minutes i'm gone for the night i'm with you i'm the same way i'm the same way i can't stop i can't stop so anyway yes uh there's there's a lot of that there uh people talking about well what was and what wasn't real. And then the Godfather 2, of course, when they go to Cuba and the revolution is happening, all those things. What's true, what's not.

For what it's worth, and you can make your own judgments about this, Mr. Sinatra always denied that he was the example or the inspiration for that character. And that the whole scene that Michael describes in one about, you know, my father went to the band leader and said, either your brains or your signature is going to be on this contract, but you're going to let them out. Pure fiction, according to Frank Sinatra. Look, he did leave, he started with, oh my God, Harry James.

He started with the Harry James band. And when he wanted to leave that to go with Dorsey, Harry let him go because he understood that Frank was going to be huge and he couldn't hold onto him. Dorsey, by the time he let him go, insisted on retaining a third of all of his future earnings. He did let him go, but Sinatra had to give up a third of all of his future earnings in order to make that happen. Now, they eventually worked it out, worked out some kind of a deal where that ended, but it was supposed to be originally in perpetuity. And the notion that somebody put a gun to Dorsey's head and said, either your signature or your brains are going to be on this release form.

Frank always said it was fiction. I think the reality was more along the lines where Dorsey knew that the mobs were owning the casinos and a lot of the clubs where these guys would play in the future. And I think they also realized that we don't want to make people mad at us who own venues that we would like to play at as well. In other words, Dorsey could see his future, his artistic future going out the door if he tried to play too strong with the front yeah it listen it makes it fun to watch those movies all of the all of the connections right all right bruce set up your final tony bennett jam for us well the final thing is of course and we talked about this off the top is the reason we're talking about these two guys is because

they transcended guys of the 40s 50s 60s ands, and 70s. They could have easily been, you know, I don't know, like trying to think of some performers from the 60s who we don't talk about. Dean Martin, let's say. They transcended the Dean Martin level. As good as Dean was, as popular, they never got that level. And what happened was with Tony, in his case, is in the late 70s, he's a terrible businessman.

He's trying to run his own show. He goes bankrupt. And in addition to that, he develops a really bad cocaine habit. He leaves his wife, develops a very bad cocaine habit, nearly ODs. And he realizes he's at his lowest level. And he goes to his two sons, Danny and Di, and says, what am I going to do? Well, they've been trying to be musicians themselves, and they realized they weren't really that great. But Danny knew he had a head for business. And so he and his brother took over Tony's career from that point. We're talking about 1980. And from then until the present day, Danny has still run his father's business. And Danny understood that Tony had a brand, and the brand wasn't going running after whatever's hot. He wasn't going to be doing grunge stuff. brand wasn't going running after whatever's hot. He

wasn't going to be doing grunge stuff. He wasn't going to be doing covers of rock and roll stuff that the suit, the look, the presentation, that was going to be Tony. And he was able to sell it to people like MTV came aboard. Right. They showed up. they were looking for material, and they packaged Tony in a way that nobody had been able to do in the past to make him relevant to young people. He got onto the David Letterman show. He was on all the late night shows, and he all of a sudden became a hip guy. I think one of the records was Steppin' Out With My Baby. They did a really good video of that. Anyhow, Tony transcends all of those, the things that you think would have stopped him. And he becomes an MTV star and all that sort of stuff. And one of the things he does in the last number of 10 years, of course, is he starts doing

duets with people you would never expect. Michael Buble, Harry Connick, Katie Lang, Elvis Costello, and of course, the famous one is with Lady Gaga. And Lady Gaga is also at this point, she's trying to get away from being just a pop star. She wants to be taken seriously as a musician as well. And so she and Tony are involved in this record of duets. And well, let's hear how it went. Ladies of Tramps.

She gets too hungry for dinner at eight. I'm starving. She loves the theater, but she never comes late. I never bother with people that I hate. But she never comes late That's why this chick is a tram She does it like crap games with barons and girls Won't go to Harlem in arguments and Definitely won't be so dirt With the rest of those girls Thank you.

That's why the lady is our champ. Life without care. It's open. I hate California. It's crowded and down. Bruce, I dig it. Let me just, if you don't mind, jump in here. To shout out a couple of salty vets who got another shot at the MTV generation, if you will. Tom Jones.

Do you remember this comeback? Because I'm of an age where I watched a lot of much music, and Tom Jones had a comeback. Does this ring a bell for any of you two gentlemen? The Tom Jones comeback for Generation X? Well, I think if you're British, Tom Jones

never went away. Maybe that's true. I didn't see him bottoming out. I mean, Tom Jones is a character in and of himself. But a bunch of guys would have. This guy's 85, 90 years old. He's out there with Lady Gaga singing this stuff, knocking it out of the park. He also did some stuff with Amy Winehouse.

Yes. And he was very upset, of course, when she had her demise, when she overdosed. And he became a spokesman for legalizing recreational drugs. No, actually, that's a good point that came up in the Pirate Stream, was that Tony Bennett went from cocaine to cannabis, and it helped him escape his financial and creative woes. So shout out to Canna Cabana there. You bet.

Oh, you're clever. But hey, one more, because Tom Jones, I remember his comeback for us North Americans anyways. But the other big name, I think the best example of this is Johnny Cash. Yeah, he certainly had his downs, that's for sure. Ups and downs. You're not going to believe this, Mike. Bruce, you first, then Steve. What were you going to say, Bruce? No, I just said Willie Nelson too. Go ahead, Steve.

Yeah, Willie Nelson's a good example too. but Johnny Cash, when he covered, for example, he did a bunch of those American recordings with Rick Rubin, but when he did Hurt, the Nine Inch Nails song, that was a massive Much Music and MTV hit, and it's sort of at the end of his life, and it was sort of like bringing, then a lot of us Gen Xers went back and said, let me hear some of this old Johnny Cash,

because this guy's got it going on, and the next thing you know. What were you going to say, Mr. Paykin? I was just going to say, after Johnny Cash was done with his Tennessee trio and he sort of made it huge, Folsom Prison Blues, A Boy Named Sue, all that kind of stuff, my dad's uncle was his manager. You know what? I think you dropped that bomb on me before and I'm still reeling.

The other bomb you dropped on me, which I've since been researching and find fantastic is Frank Sinatra. Whose dog is that by the way? Is that yours Bruce? That's my dog. Okay. That's okay. I like the dog. We're almost done here. The first ever Frank Sinatra number one was written by a Toronto woman. We need to shout that out. Oh yeah, indeed. Ruth Lowe, and you and I talked about this when we were kicking out the jams once upon a time. Ruth Lowe,

who used to live at Bathurst and Eglinton in West End of Midtown Toronto. Right. She wrote two of his greatest songs, I'll Never Smile Again. And then she also wrote the song that was his theme song that they played at his funeral,

which was Put Your Dreams Away for Another Day. See, there's a Toronto connection since we're on Toronto, Mike, here. We got to bring it back to the T-dot. Now, gentlemen, you both share this final jam. I'm going to ask a question to you and off the top, Mike, because this is a Toronto show. Is there a song, because we did San Francisco and we did New York, New York in a second. Is there a song that's synonymous with Toronto? As big as Toronto is and influential, is there a song? Yeah, I heard it on Mike's show. It's Toronto People City. Shout out to Ed Conroy from Metro Ontario.

He would definitely say that. I actually think about this a lot, because there's a number of songs that reference Toronto. And there's, you know, Drake has a song called Running Through the Six of My Woes. But I don't think there is a definitive Toronto song. The closest you might get is this song right here. But yeah, I don't think, what do you think, Steve?

I don't think there's a definitive Toronto song like you have with San Francisco or another city, a Big Apple we're going to refer to in a moment. Chicago too. There's Chicago. Chicago has two songs. There's the, you know, Chicago, Chicago, that toddlin' town, a wonderful town.

And there's also My Kind of Town, Chicago is. And those are two songs. You know, there's L.A. Is My Lady, which Sinatra tried to make as a big hit, didn't quite make as big a hit. Quincy Jones did that one. L.A. Is My Lady. Mandy Newman's L.A. song. I love L.A.

What about YYZ? I know they say. is my lady. I love L.A. What about YYZ? I know they say YYZ, but I refuse to do that. Rush has a song called YYZ. I guess I'm looking for a song that is not only popular in Toronto, but that's also internationally popular. I guess Rush would be...

Rush is getting there, but you're right. There's nothing like this. Should I start playing it and then we can talk about wind things down here, but this is kind of the ideal closer because it's both Frank and, of course, Tony, but here, let's get this going here. Start spreading the news

You're leaving today Tell them, Frank I want to be a part of it New York, New York. Your vagabond shoes, they are longing to stray. And step around the heart of it, New York, New York. the heart of it New York, New York I wanna

wake up in that city that doesn't sleep and find your king of the hill top of the heap your

small town blues. They're melting away. Just fantastic. Toronto needs a song like this. Steve, we got to commission this or something. We got to get one. See that they play at the end of every Blue Jay game when they win. This is what they play at the end of the Yankee games.

San Francisco is what they play at the end of the Giant games. We need something like that. Here in Calgary, by the way, for people who don't know, there you go. In Calgary, when the Flames win, they play Ring of Fire, the Johnny Cash Ring of Fire. That doesn't refer to Calgary at all, other than just the gas, the hot air.

Now, this is off Frank's album. This is off one of Frank's duets albums. He had many other artists join him, including Tony Bennett, for this iconic New York, New York song, which Frank always likes to say was written by John Kander and Fred Ebb for Liza Minnelli and Stolen by Me. And that's true. Remember, it was in that New York, New York movie with Robert De Niro and Liza Minnelli. And Frank heard it and loved it and stole it and made a humongous hit with it. Right. Now,

I'm just back to the, wait a minute, Lady Chat points out that Frank, when the song, obviously Frank's solo version of this fantastic song is played at the start of the New York City Marathon, but it's iconic. Like, when you think of New York, this is the song. And New Year's Eve as well, isn't it? In Times Square? Yeah, and now my brain is running through all the songs

that reference Toronto from the old apartment from Barenaked Ladies or Ambulance Blues from Neil Young, and we do not have this. This does not exist for the city I live in. We need one, though. There's another song which is iconic with New York City, and that was, of course, in the musical Annie. NYC. That's a big song.

I can remember walking around. We'd gone to see, my wife and I had gone to see Annie years, obviously, decades ago. And walking around town, that's all we could think of was, NYC! What is it about you? Your thing, your goal, your whatever. Well, now you? You think you're gold? Whatever. Well, now you've got Empire. Here's the finish.

Oh, here's the finish. Okay. So at the close here, gentlemen, why Frank Sinatra and Tony Bennett? Why did they rise above all others? Well, I think, Steve, if you don't mind me saying so, the reason that they survived into this era is because they became identifiable brands. They became things that you could sell and you could market above and beyond their music. And this is no knock on them, but they were identifiable by the market as people who endured.

And what they had to sell was a brand, you know, like any other one that has some prestige. And that's why we're still talking about them is because they're identifiable. As Steve has said, before you think of them, you see them right away in your mind. And it doesn't matter whether they're 90 or 20, they still work. And I think a lot of credit has to go to the second generation for that. You already talked about how Danny Bennett resurrected Tony's career by booking him with the Red Hot Chili Peppers, probably, I don't know, 35 years ago or something, which led to the MTV Unplugged album. And in the case of Frank Sinatra, you know, he's got a channel on Seriously Sinatra.

And Nancy, his daughter, has a show on that. His granddaughter, A.J. Lambert, has a show on that. Of course, his son Frank is dead now. But Tina, his other daughter, is really the keeper of the flame. And she is the one who licenses his image on all sorts of things from this hoodie that I'm wearing right now to Jack Daniels. There's a Sinatra version of Jack Daniels. And it just keeps him in the public's eye and has done just a wonderful job keeping the music alive so that other generations can be exposed to it as well. I know I saw Frank Sinatra perform three times in my life, which was spectacular. And I saw Tony Bennett perform live three times as well in Miami and in Toronto. And I just feel so grateful that I had a chance to watch these guys do their thing

in person. Gentlemen, fantastic. That is brilliant. Quick update to the New York songs, because they've got more songs. It's Empire State of Mind by Jay-Z with Alicia Keys has become like the new this, basically. The new New York, New York would be Empire State of Mind. That's Billy Joel's. Yeah, New York State of Mind. Absolutely.

They got no shortage of songs there. Gentlemen, I got to say, I absolutely loved, you know, maybe this is a Toronto song, actually. Rosie and Grey, it references Toronto from a Toronto band. But guys, this was great. Frank versus Tony, Pagan versus Dobigan. I loved this. Thanks so much, man. How about Frank and Tony and Pagan and Dobigan?

I was going to say, we don't have a winner or a loser in this battle. They both win, right? We're all the winners. Just give me their royalties. i'll be happy with that and long may tony i know tony like you mentioned alzheimer's but uh man like may he live forever it's amazing we still have him it's amazing too that they were friendly rivals there was never any big frank versus tony they hate each other or whatever frank had grudges with other people but he always respected Tony. And that's why this recording, I think is really great to hear them at the end, Frank at the end. And Tony still have a little ways to go. He had a little runway left.

And that, that brings it, brings us to the end of our 1000 and 10th show. This is episode 10, 10. You can follow me on Twitter. I'm at Toronto Mike. Steve, let's start with you. What's your Twitter handle where we can follow you on Twitter? At SPakin. S-P-A-I-K-I-N.

Follow Steve. And again, I did my disclaimer off the top here, but if you wish to follow Bruce Dobe again. Bruce, what's your Twitter handle? Not the public broadcaster. And at Doe Boy. D-O-W-B-B-O-Y.

Okay, and that's your blog, right? Not the public broadcaster. Not the public broadcaster is my blog, and then at Doe Boy is my Twitter handle. Our friends at Great Lakes Brewery are at Great Lakes Beer. Palma Pasta is at Palma Pasta. Sticker U is at Sticker U.

Ridley Funeral Home is at Ridley FH. Canna Cabana, they're at Canna Cabana underscore. And Ryobi are at Ryobi Tools USA. See you all next week. For me and you. But I'm a much better man for having known you. week