12/1/2023 0 Comments Frank sinatra radio echoes![]() ![]() The first person Mahoney called to crack the code was Ross. Both sides of Mahoney's record had "Test Disc - 1938" and "Frank Sinatra" written in ink, with the A-side also identifying one of the live songs, "Melancholy Baby." Its circular center label was branded "Studiodisc." Small print identified it as being manufactured by the Los Angeles-based Charles Eckart Co., which opened in 1940. The disc that he held in his hands was 10 inches in diameter and had an aluminum core. His mind is stored with factoids, quickly accessible and seemingly organized as mental spreadsheets. Like most Sinatra collectors, he's eligible for AARP membership and has followed the singer's musical life for decades. In March of this year, as stay-at-home orders presented more time for exploration, Mahoney was digging through his stuff. He drove it all home and offloaded his winnings into his house. ![]() Not long after, Mahoney, a retired accountant, arrived at the auction house in a rental truck and workers loaded the haul into the back. "I countered," says Mahoney, "and that was it." An unknown internet buyer upped the offer. "I knew it was something worth bidding on," Mahoney said. Sinatra's cigarette lighters, watches, stage passes, photos, press clippings, card decks, matchbooks, mugs and plates 3,000-4,000 hours of Sinatra interviews session charts and studio notes and a meticulously kept five-decade-long calendar of Sinatra's day-to-day activities. Ten half-inch, studio-grade tapes of session material. Bootlegs, reel-to-reel tapes filled with motion picture soundtracks, recording sessions, TV and radio appearances, sheet music and interviews. Among the items were thousands of Sinatra releases, domestic and international - "virtually every significant recording made by Sinatra for the RCA, Columbia, Capitol, and Reprise labels," according to the auction description. In 2016, as he was relocating into a smaller home, Ross decided to sell his collection. (The Sinatra estate did not reply to requests for comment.) Believing that the collectors market was filled with dubiously sourced, possibly stolen work that was rightfully theirs, they threatened legal action against a number of high-profile collectors, including Ross, who became persona non grata with the tightknit Sinatra clan. and Tina began taking a hard-line stance against use of their father's trademark. ![]() But as one century turned to the next, the once-towering icon's legacy began fading as his fans aged and pop culture moved on.Īround the same time, Sinatra's children Nancy, Frank Jr. Ross continued adding to his Sinatra holdings after the singer died in 1998. "Sarge Weiss and Sinatra were basically brothers for 40-something years," says Chuck Granata, author, Sinatra reissue producer and Sinatra estate advisor who does a SiriusXM show with Frank's daughter, Nancy Sinatra. In exchange, someone in Sinatra's camp - often his longtime publishing agent Sarge Weiss - would give him rarities for safekeeping. If Sinatra or his people needed old session or discography details, they called Ross. His was an unpaid obsession, but soon Ross had established himself. He snagged tapes of Sinatra's first-ever Hollywood Bowl performance in 1943, for example, after reaching out to the conductor who led the orchestra that night. "I gained a tremendous benefit in knowing these people," Ross says on the phone from his home in Thousand Oaks. In the 1960s he worked in marketing and business management and established friendships with Sinatra's business and legal representatives, as well as with music publishers and music directors. Over a lifetime of Sinatra fandom, Ross spent tens of thousands of dollars, and just as many hours, on his archive. ![]()
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