The Urban Night

          For decades now Sinatra had defined the glamour of the urban night. It was both a time and a place; to inhabit the night, to be one of it's restless creatures, was a small act of defiance, a shared declaration of freedom. A refusal to play by all those conventional rules that insisted on men and women rising at seven in the morning, leaving for work at eight, and falling exhausted into bed at ten o'clock that night. Sinatra, in his music, gave voice to all those who believed that the most intense living begins at midnight ; show people, bartenders, and sporting women, gamblers, detectives and gangsters, small winners and big losers ; artists and newspapermen. If you loved someone who did not love you back you could always walk into a saloon, put your money on the bar, and listen to Sinatra.

Pete Hamill
Why Sinatra Matters
1998

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Bob Willoughby
1955