Oregon Music News: Oregon’s all-genre music magazine since 2009

01/03/2016

Hank Sinatra AND Bert Sperling talk to Inessa

By INESSA // Hank Sinatra is not a typo. Find out why.

This is a story about “Two for the Price of One”. Bert has always had a love for a good song. And as he says, “a good song transcends any genre”. That’s where Hank Sinatra comes into play. The name of Bert’s musical alter ego appeared as effortlessly as his musical abilities. That is one side of Bert. The other was born out of traveling and moving frequently  with his Navy father and family, to many different cities and locales and a desire to be in charge of his own business. We check out both sides here as Bert’s 2 sons, Bert(trand), Ted and Bert’s wife, Gretchen Sperling, and I settled in for a wintry year-end of stories and laughter.

Music has been a part of Bert’s life since he first heard Perry Como and decided he could do this! Confident kid, at seven years of age.  He has been attracted to all kinds of genres, not just choice music from The Great American Song Book, but he feels very comfortable mining songs from artist like Willie Nelson, Merle Haggard, Hank Williams, and naturally, Frank Sinatra!

 “I don’t hear anyone doing this range of music today.  I go from pop to country to swing to jazz to blues, and more.  These songs and tunes work equally well in a quiet uptown dinner spot or at rowdy bar.  Stripped of its labels, it’s all good music.”

“That’s the main thing, the swing beat,” Hank explains.  “It always grabs me, and the audience gets it too.  I love to look out and see all the heads bobbing and the toes tapping.  Whther the tune is fast or slow, that steady bounce is where it’s at.”

Bertrand, Bert and Gretchen

Enjoy our conversation on all things music inspiration, Bert on his alter ego, the band, and the new live album. You’ll hear a song from that fresh release at the end of our convo. More details on the album below the podcast.

“Candy”

  “Hey, Good Lookin’ ”

"The Lady Is a Tramp"

(Remixes on the above tracks courtesy of Archer)

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