What did Frank Sinatra say about Elvis Presley?

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https://www.commercialappeal.com/story/ ... 946034007/

More than a decade before Elvis Presley broke big, Frank Sinatra had been the original teen idol and musical sensation facing his own share of critics and naysayers, who derided him as a flash in the pan and a bad influence on the younger set.

You would have thought that might have made the singer sympathetic to an emerging talent like Elvis, but Sinatra was no fan of rock ‘n’ roll when the genre first exploded in the 1950s.

In 1957, Sinatra was famously quoted as calling it: “the most brutal, ugly, degenerate, vicious form of expression it has been my displeasure to hear.” He further expressed his distaste for the music and presumably its top practitioner, though he didn’t mention Presley by name.

“It is sung, played, and written for the most part by cretinous goons,” said Sinatra, or at least that’s how he was quoted in translation by a French magazine at the time, adding that rock was “imbecilic reiterations of sly, lewd — in plain fact dirty — lyrics” and “manages to be the martial music of every sideburned delinquent on the face of the earth. This rancid-smelling aphrodisiac I deplore.”

Within a couple years, Sinatra’s stance would soften, however. In July 1959, it was announced that Presley would appear on Sinatra’s variety TV show upon his release from his stint in the Army, which came in March 1960.

“The Frank Sinatra Timex Show” — a variety show sponsored by the watchmaker — was filmed at the Fontainebleau Hotel in Miami, Florida. As part of the program Elvis shared the stage with Sinatra, as well as his daughter, Nancy (who would later co-star with him in 1968’s “Speedway” in 1968).

Elvis performed “Stuck on You” and “Fame and Fortune,” the two sides of his first post-Army single. And then, in a fairly historic duet, Presley and Sinatra teamed up for a charming mash-up medley of their hits “Witchcraft” and “Love Me Tender.”

In later years, when Sinatra spoke of Presley it was with much more respect and affection. Upon Presley’s death in August 1977, Sinatra is reported to have eulogized Elvis to a concert audience.