Welcome To Our Companion Weblog

This is your source for news, links and notes from our program celebrating the life and career of the Entertainer of the 20th Century.

Sirius Exclusive This Week

This week on Stars 102, listeners heard a mix of music for hot toddies by the fireside.

• I've Got My Love To Keep Me Warm - Frank Sinatra
• A Winter Romance - Dean Martin
• Baby, It's Cold Outside - Johnny Mercer and Margaret Whiting
• What Are You Doing New Year's Eve? - Ella Fitzgerald
• Ave Maria - Frank Sinatra and the WAVE Choir
• Auld Lang Syne - Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin
• O Danny Boy - Danny D'Imperio

We'll be back soon with a brand new Podcast episode. In the meantime, best wishes for a wonderful new year!

Vegas and Music

Listeners to the Frank Truth on Sirius are in for a treat the next couple of weeks.

First, at 11:30 PM Pacific on the 13th, we'll share a very cool episode of Wings For Wheels, with our pals Dave Lifton and Tim Dressen (of Five Hundy By Midnight). They talk about the music of Las Vegas. As Dave says "put on a bowling shirt, mix yourself a cocktail, and join us as we talk about some classic tunes. "

Here's a link to Dave's shownotes and the original Podcast version, including some bits edited out for the Sirius broadcast.

Then on December 20th, it's another trip to Java's Bachelor Pad for some swingin' holiday tunes. Here's the setlist.

Pete Rugolo—Jingle Bells Mambo
Jimmy Boyd—I Saw Mommy Do The Mambo (With You Know Who)
Patsy Raye & The Beatniks—Beatnik's Wish
Nat King Cole—All I Want For Christmas (Is My Two Front Teeth)
Bill Darenel & The Smith Brothers—We Wanna See Santa Do The Mambo
The Martini Kings—Let It Snow
Ann Margret & Al Hirt—Baby, It's Cold Outside

We'll be back with the Frank Truth on Sirius for December 27th, featuring some songs to help us prepare for the New Year's celebration, and there'll be a new Podcast episode in early January.

Buon Natale!

Birthday Celebrations

On December 12th, 1915 Francis Albert Sinatra was born in Hoboken, New Jersey.

There's a beautiful opener this week at the Sinatra Family Website to commemorate the 91st anniversary of his birth.

Also, Sirius Channel 75 will be playing Sinatra music all day on Tuesday, and TCM will air It Happened in Brooklyn, Pal Joey and Come Blow Your Horn.

I hope the 12th is filled with the sounds of Sinatra wherever you may be.

Migration

Over the past few months, I've been migrating my shows to PodShow Plus. What this means is that the media files are served by PodShow's high-performance delivery network, free-of-charge to me. In return for hosting and delivering the files, PodShow may include short promotional announcements at the beginning and end of each show. In the long run, I might also participate directly in promotions or commercial messages within the shows (although I have no immediate plans to do so).

So far, I've moved two of my shows (From Studio C and World News Mashup) and I'm very satisfied with the quality of service provided by the PodShow Podcast Delivery Network. I believe that the PDN will do an excellent job with The Frank Truth as well.

To this point, The Frank Truth (along with my other projects) have cost me considerable sums of money out of my own pocket. I'm not complaining. In fact, I've enjoyed every moment. Heading into the third year of the show, it just feels like the right time to make some changes which I believe will enhance the quality of the show and help it to find a larger audience.

I hope that these changes won't be too unsettling to long time listeners. There have been times that I've considered ceasing production of the show, but in each case an unexpected email of encouragement or a show idea would come in from one of you and I'd gain the inspiration to continue. This show has always been a labor of love, and will continue as such -- with or without commercial messages or sponsorship.

Other than the short promotional messages at the beginning and the end of each episode, there should be little noticable difference in how things work. The RSS feed address will remain the same, the iTunes listing will remain the same and I intend to maintain this Website as I have so far. If you subscribe to the show via RSS, you may notice some duplicate files showing up in your aggregator when I redirect the show's feed, and I apologize for any annoyance with file management or bandwidth drain. Once the migration is completed, there should be no further inconvenience.

Of course, I would encourage you to visit the show's page at PodShow Plus. I think there are a lot of features there that will enhance your enjoyment of the show, and facillitate interaction between us all.

As always, your ideas, suggestions and comments are welcome.

Cent' Anni!