A very long retirement: Sinatra’s bittersweet final years remembered

Frank Sinatra first announced his retirement in 1971, but there would be another thousand concerts. On his centenary, it’s worth remembering that even as his audience dwindled and his voice fell apart, some ghost of his genius remained until the endBy the end, he was reading the lyrics from a ring of autocue screens placed among the footlights, a small, silver-toupeed figure no longer able to rely on the memory that had once held the entire library of Broadway theatre song, from All the Th