In 1957, the biggest singer in America published an article attacking rock and roll in the harshest words anyone had used. He called it music made “for the most part by cretinous goons.” He said it was brutal, ugly, degenerate and vicious, and that hearing it had been his misfortune.
That man was Frank Sinatra — the crooner your grandparents loved, the voice of “My Way” and “Fly Me to the Moon.” And three years later, he wrote Elvis Presley a cheque for $125,000 to stand beside him and sing.
Elvis didn’t let the insult pass at the time. He called a press conference and answered it directly. He said Sinatra was entitled to his opinion. Still, he added that he thought the older man was badly mistaken, and pushed back hard on the idea that America’s young people were immoral or delinquent.
“It’s the greatest music ever,” Elvis said of rock and roll, “and it will continue to be so.” Then, with a flash of the humility people always noticed in him, he added: “I also admit it’s the only thing I can do.”
The time ELVIS returned from the Army and performed with Frank Sinatra
So what changed? Two things. First, in 1958, Elvis was drafted into the US Army and vanished from public life for two years. When it was announced he’d be released in March 1960, every television network in America wanted to film his homecoming. Second, Sinatra had a variety show that needed ratings, and his sponsor, Timex, pushed him to strike a deal with Elvis’s manager, Colonel Tom Parker.
Business is business.
The result was a special called Welcome Home Elvis, taped at the Fontainebleau Hotel in Miami on March 26, 1960 — just eighteen days after Elvis got back to Graceland. The fee stung. Sinatra was reportedly not pleased that Elvis was getting $125,000, because it was more than he was being paid to host the entire show. He agreed anyway, partly at the urging of his daughter Nancy.
Then came the moment people still watch today. After Elvis sang two songs, Sinatra strolled out and set up the duet with a line that got a big laugh: “You do ‘Witchcraft,’ and I’ll do one of the other ones.” So Elvis — the King of Rock and Roll — sang Sinatra’s smooth jazz hit “Witchcraft.” And Sinatra sang Elvis’s tender ballad “Love Me Tender.”
Love Me Tender / Witchcraft – Frank Sinatra and Elvis Presley
Each man performed the other’s signature song, backed by a full orchestra, before harmonizing together at the end. Elvis was 25. Sinatra was 45. Watch closely, and both men look faintly uncomfortable — but they finish it beautifully.
The show pulled 41.5 percent of the American viewing audience, the highest rating Sinatra ever got. And here’s the twist nobody expects: they became friends.
Sinatra lent Elvis and Priscilla his private jet in 1967 to fly from Palm Springs to Las Vegas to get married and back afterward for their honeymoon. There’s even a story that during the taping, Sinatra had a quiet word with Elvis about how much he’d been looking at Nancy — and told him she was spoken for. The man who called rock and roll ugly ended up flying its king to his own wedding.