Frank Sinatra would have been 100 years old on December 12th, and hosts of musicians are going to pay tribute to Ol’ Blue Eyes on Sunday night.

The Frank Sinatra special, aptly titled Sinatra 100: An All-Star Grammy Concert, will feature a huge range of vocal talent from the expected, like Tony Bennett and Harry Conick, Jr., to the unexpected, like Alicia Keys, Adam Levine and Garth Brooks.

Frank Sinatra died of a heart attack in 1998 at the age of 83.

His influence over even the most modern musical artists will be clear as the show unfolds, but the most interesting parts could be from those that actually knew him.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJimkJIPqhQ

Tony Bennett came on the scene about a decade after Frank Sinatra struck it big in music and by his own accounts was his biggest fan.

In an interview before taping the Frank Sinatra special, he said of The Chairman of the Board, “He really created the greatest school of popular singing and made it possible for all of us to have a great living doing this.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j0ySHLtJ7Rk

He added, “He was the biggest influence on me — him and Ella [Fitzgerald] and Nat King Cole. He was my tremendous idol, and then became my best friend right through the years.”

Hopefully this Frank Sinatra special will go over better than the fund raising gala that took place Thursday night at Lincoln Center called “Sinatra: Voice for a Century”.

The Frank Sinatra impersonator of the night was none other than Seth McFarlane, creator of Family Guy and other juvenile fare.

Stephen Holden from the New York Times admitted that his impression in and of itself was spot on, but also said of McFarlane’s performance, “Mr. MacFarlane ably went through the motions. For all the reverence he affected, it failed to camouflage an underlying attitude of disdain that attaches to everything Mr. MacFarlane does.”

He added, “Between numbers featuring guests who included Sting, Sutton Foster, Bernadette Peters, Billy Porter, Kyle Dean Massey, Chris Botti and Christina Aguilera, Mr. MacFarlane also delivered a glib, running biography of Sinatra, filled with half-baked hyperbole, devoid of fresh insight and peppered with snarky remarks to show how cool and detached he is.”

Wow. That’s harsh. But, Sunday night’s CBS Frank Sinatra special is primed to be so much more appealing and dazzling! Are you going to watch?