Dressing room requirements for musicians must be quite the production in and of themselves. Besides friends. family, and the usual entourage in attendance before concerts, musicians and their bands must ask for and have everything but the kitchen sink in pre-show digs. You can only imagine.
Frank Sinatra’s dressing room requirements have to rank right up there with the swankiest of setups.
Get a load of the contents Ol’ Blue Eyes had to have in his dressing room:
Booze
One bottle each of the following: Absolut vodka, Beefeater gin, Jack Daniels bourbon, Chivas Regal scotch, Courvoisier, white wine, red wine. Of course, if there is little or nothing else at all in that dressing room, there’s gonna be liquor. And it’s doubtful that “bottle” is a pint! Not even beer on the list. You can up the ante if Dean Martin and/or any of The Rat Pack was in attendance.
Mixers
Ginger ale, club soda, tonic water, Evian spring water, 25 sodas (regular and diet Coke). Some like it neat, but if not, then there was no shortage of mixers.
Ice
One bucket. Not much. Some like it neat.
Other drinks
One gallon spring water for tea, one coffee pot setup with milk, cups, and saucers. One tea kettle with spring water. Just for the hell of it.
Drinkware
Twelve water glasses, twelve wine glasses, six rock glasses (8-10 oz. size). Money here is on the “rock glasses” getting the most use and the quantity probably being two to three times that many.
Smokes
One carton of Camel non-filters. No surprise there. That dressing-room was bound to be a smoke-filled one with everybody huffing furiously while quaffing down their cocktails.
Food
Two egg salad sandwiches, two chicken salad sandwiches (hold the mayo), three cans Campbell’s chicken and rice soup, one fruit bowl, one bowl of pretzels and chips, one bag miniature Tootsie rolls, twelve rolls of cherry Lifesavers, twelve rolls of assorted Lifesavers, twelve boxes of Ludens cough drops (cherry, honey, etc). Nobody was going to necessarily go hungry, but you can see what the priority was: sandwiches and soup, all the better to soak up the booze going down.If Frank were ever down and out and/or had a sore throat, he had soup that was good for the soul and lozenges to ease the old vocal chords.
Accoutrements
Four porcelain soup bowls with knife, fork, and spoon; one crock pot for soup with ladle; one double burner hot plate. Standard.
Audio/Visual
Color TV with second input for in-house pick-up. Viewing with pre-modern day technical jargon.
Telecomm
Private telephone with dedicated line. In the 1950s and 60s, that had to be a luxury/perk. A private line required special assemblage and was not usual.
Instruments
Upright piano for dressing room. Had to be pretty cool seeing The Chairman warming up on the keyboards.
Assorted
Salt and pepper; tea bags; honey, lemon, and limes; sugar and sweet & low. For the particular palette.
De Rigueur
Six linen napkins, six white bath towels, six hand towels, two bars Ivory Soap, six boxes Kleenex. Attendees may get sloppy drunk but they will look good doing it!
To me, this list of dressing room requirements just adds to the legend of arguably the most famous swooner/crooner to ever step up to the microphone.
