Here’s a fascinating little ten minute audio reel of Frank Sinatra doing multiple takes (six in all) of ‘Pick Yourself Up’ from the ‘Sinatra and Swinging Brass’ album. Neil Hefti’s arrangements are neat and inventive and the band kicks hard. Frank, though, needs a few tries to get things straight–and this is how it should be, of course. He’s who most of the audience is listening to–the band is there to support him and as such always needs to be flawless. A couple of the takes are aborted early. One of them sounds great to me (it’s the penultimate take) and perhaps may be the issued one. It takes a true Sinatra nerd to know off the top of their head which take was issued and believe me I know a few of them. Frank never minded doing multiple takes of a song until he found his groove. This was in contrast to his acting work–he loathed doing second takes if he thought he’d done a scene reasonably well. It must have been a confidence issue; his security and self-belief as a singer allowed him not to feel self-conscious about refining his art. I’ve never heard anything to indicate that he loved acting at all and I’m pretty sure that he was eager to avoid a ‘fraud’ syndrome thing, where a second look at someone proves them to not be all that they say they are. By the way, I’ve always found him to be a quite underrated actor. He’s willing to go to some dark and vulnerable places, just as he is with his singing. It makes you realize that the man had access to deep and complex feelings within him and was more than just the self-involved, arrogant, mean, petty, violent prick that we all know and love.