Son of the music icon and respected singer in his own right, Frank Sinatra Jr. died on Wednesday (3/16) of cardiac arrest at age 72 while on tour in Florida. From NJ.com:
When Sinatra Jr. was 44 and performing in Atlantic City, his father, then 72, called him up and asked him be his conductor. “Well, after my friends had revived me with the smelling salts,” he told the Guardian in 2012, “I said to him, ‘You can’t be serious?'”
He worked as his father’s musical director and conductor until the elder Sinatra’s death in 1998, and then continued his own touring career, performing Sinatra classics in Las Vegas and beyond.
“Since my father’s death, a lot of people have made it clear that they’re not ready to give up the music,” Sinatra Jr. told the Associated Press in 2002. “For me, it’s a big, fat gift. I get to sing with a big orchestra and get to sing orchestrations that will never be old.”
Rest in peace, Frank.