Here I was in Estonia, doing a concert for 5,000 people, and not many people know the song My Way - Gorbachev in the 80s, My Way had just become a famous song, and [Mikhail] Gorbachev in a satirical, kind of cynical manner coined the term the Sinatra Doctrine and My Way was the song because the Baltic states in the Warsaw Pact wanted to go their own way and secede from the Soviet Union, so joking he says," Yeah, we've got the Sinatra Doctrine now."
Robert DaviMy grandmother told a story that when they used to leave from Southampton to go into the City, because he had apartment buildings in Queens - I was born in Astoria, Queens - they had apartment buildings in Queens and Manhattan, different businesses, and she wanted to pick blueberries on the side of the road and he wouldn't stop, so my grandma used to throw her purse out the window. She never had less than $4,000 cash, back in the 20s, and he would then stop the car and she would pick blueberries. And, he never had a record.
Robert DaviI've been going around the world; I've been to China, I sang at the General Assembly, the Security Council.
Robert DaviAnd just everyone in the 40s, you got to realize, for his time period, take Justin Bieber and put it on steroids - there was no one like Frank Sinatra before that. And you didn't have the amount of outlets that you have today and the variety that you have today. So, the Great American Songbook united the nation unlike any other music, because there weren't so many different kinds of communications.
Robert Davi