WITH ONE OF THE smoothest-sounding voices on the East Coast, John Gracie is a natural-born crooner, and his latest project is a nod to the music he heard playing around the house when he was growing up in Glace Bay.
Live from the Flamingo: A Bennett, Sinatra Salute isn’t an attempt to recapture the glory of the Rat Pack days; instead, it’s a tribute to the peerless songs that Frank Sinatra and Tony Bennett built their careers on, recorded with some top local musicians.
Gracie performs these classics in the appropriate venue of the Harbourfront Lounge at Casino Nova Scotia every Thursday night from tonight through March 8, with an official CD launch on Feb. 23.
He hopes his renditions of songs like I’ve Got You Under My Skin and I Left My Heart in San Francisco will appeal to those who grew up with them as well as younger listeners discovering them for the first time.
"They’re all like comfort food to me," Gracie says from his home in Halifax. "You hear them and you know they’ll make you feel good; it’s like fried bologna on toast.
"Most people recognize them right away — even my kids know Sunny Side of the Street — and when I went back and listened to these kinds of songs, I picked the ones that seemed the most familiar to me and that most people would recognize."
Gracie is no stranger to tribute records. One of his best-known releases is a heartfelt nod to the career of songwriter Gene MacLellan, but his interpretive skills get taken to a new level on Live from the Flamingo.
Gracie says the reason these songs have endured over the decades is because Sinatra and Bennett "made singing these songs look easy," which explains why you rarely get though a night of karaoke without someone attempting New York, New York or Strangers in the Night.
"It’s just the effortlessness of their delivery," he explains. "Especially Tony, he’s got that grab-your-heart-and-break-it kind of thing going for him.
"I remember even as a kid, watching some afternoon talk show, and Tony came on and sang this tune. I was a fan, but I wasn’t what you would call a big fan, but he was right on. It was like he could reach through the television and grab you by the heart strings. There was also something in the way he looked at you and moved his hands. It was like a revelation for me."
After the Harbourfront Lounge residency, Gracie has plans to take Live from the Flamingo to Niagara Falls as well as feature its swinging vibe in future East Coast performances.
The record also features a tip of the hat to Gracie’s country music past with a version of Eddie Arnold’s You Don’t Know Me, which makes sense to those who remember that Bennett’s earliest hits included some Hank Williams covers.
The Arnold tune — co-written by the great Cindy Walker — has special meaning for Gracie, since he sang it in the You Can Be a Star talent competition in Nashville in the early ’90s, and it got him to the finals.
"Mind you, I got beat out by a quartet of gospel singers, but I’ve always loved that tune," he says with a laugh. "For me, Mickey Gilley had the definitive version of it, and it’s always been a favourite.
"I don’t think Frank or Tony ever recorded it, but Paul Mason did a great arrangement and it fits on the album nicely, almost like a bonus track. It’s got a lovely tone and it even swings a little bit."
If Gracie whets your appetite for East Coast crooners, how about a night with the original, Johnny Favourite? He’s performing Friday night at Stayner’s Wharf, with songs from his most recent album, The Troubadour, extending his repertoire to Dinah Washington and Leonard Cohen.
Try and get there after the whistle blows for a free 6 p.m. set by the Artful Knave, with guitarist Art Drysdale and Kevin Roach on fiddle and mandolin.
More great sounds from the past can be heard at Halifax’s Company House on Saturday night, when Swingology pulls into town.
Billed as a "Parisian swing dance," the show focuses on the band’s uptempo tunes, and the new septet lineup includes singer Cynthia Myers boosting the band’s lively Gypsy jazz spirit.
