Although
Frank Sinatra never really took any formal singing lessons, he idolized Bing
Crosby and frequently practiced his songs, eventually entering several area
talent contests. On September 8, 1935 Frank Sinatra appeared for the first time
on the Major Bowes Amateur Hour as a singer with the Hoboken Four. The
show was broadcast from the Capitol Theater in New York City, and a giant
audiometer was used to measure audience applause, while listeners at home were
urged to dial Murray Hill 8-9933.
The quartet won
first prize and a spot on the Major Bowes Amateur Hour traveling tour.
Frank received the standard fifty dollars a week plus meals. The group
remained on the tour for several months, yet mounting pressures boiled over,
and a fight led to Frank's leaving the group and heading back once again to
New Jersey.
Sinatra now began working at the
Rustic Cabin, a nearby roadhouse where he waited tables, acted as a master of
ceremonies, and sang some songs. He also began doing eighteen NYC radio
broadcasts a week, agreeing to sing for no pay in the hopes that his voice
would be heard by the right people. However, it ended up being through
the Rustic Cabin that he was heard by the right person.
On that fateful night, bandleader
Harry James was lying in bed while in New York for a run at the Paramount
Theater. He heard Sinatra singing on a dance-based radio broadcast from
the Rustic Cabin. James immediately looked up the unidentified vocalist and
signed him.
It wasn't long before Sinatra had
his first hit with the Harry James Orchestra, "All or Nothing at
All." Tommy Dorsey went to hear Sinatra singing with the James band
at the Sherman Hotel in Chicago and hired him away at $125 a week. With
Dorsey's orchestra, Sinatra would produce more than 80 recordings
between 1940 and 1942. Among them were "I'll Never Smile Again,"
"There Are Such Things, "Street of Dreams",
"Stardust, "This Love of Mine" and "Let's Get Away From it
All."
Yet now the time was right for
Frank Sinatra to step out into the spotlight alone. As he did so,
neither he nor anyone could predict the level of fame he would soon
reach.
