Bob Dylan Turned Down a Chance to Meet With Frank Sinatra: ‘Nah’
Bob Dylan has made his appreciation of Frank Sinatra clear over the years, even releasing a cover album of songs made famous by the crooner. It’s surprising then, that he completely passed on an opportunity to meet Sinatra in the 1980s. Stan Lynch, the drummer for Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, revealed that Sinatra invited them backstage after a concert. Without hesitating, Dylan turned down the invitation.
Bob Dylan accompanied the Heartbreakers’ Stan Lynch to a Frank Sinatra concert
The Heartbreakers were Dylan’s backing band for Farm Aid, and in the middle of a rehearsal, Lynch announced that he had to leave early to see Sinatra and Sammy Davis Jr.
“Bob walked right up to me,” Lynch told Flagging Down the Double E’s. “He said, ‘Where are you going?’ Like, what the f***’s wrong with you? I said, ‘I got to go see Frank and Sammy.'”
Lynch and the rest of the Heartbreakers worried that Dylan would be angry.
“The whole band backed away from me as if I had radioactive dust coming out of my a**,” Lynch said. “Bob took a big beat, and, God as my witness, he said, ‘Frank Sinatra? Sammy Davis? I love those guys!’ So I took Bob as my date to go see Frank and Sammy.”
Lynch said he was “scared s***less” to bring Dylan along, but the legendary musician seemed to enjoy the show. After Davis performed, though, Dylan stood up to leave.
“I grabbed him by the back of the sweatshirt and went, ‘No, Frank’s next!'”
He turned down a chance to meet with the legendary musician
After the show, Lynch and Dylan received an invitation to go backstage and see Sinatra.
“We make it through the whole show, and somebody backstage figures out it’s Bob,” Lynch explained. “Somebody comes out and goes, ‘Frank says come by the dressing room after the show and say hello.’ I’m thinking, ‘F***, yes, this is going to be great!’ I had a long-term love affair with the Rat Pack my whole life. It’s been a thing for me.”
Unfortunately for Lynch, Dylan didn’t seem nearly as excited to see Sinatra.
“So we go by the dressing room,” Lynch said. “I go, ‘Bob, over here. Let’s go in and say hi to Frank.’ He goes, ‘Nah. Let’s go.'”
Ultimately, though, Lynch said this was indicative of Dylan’s character.
“It was so perfectly Bob,” he explained. “Like, ‘Nah, f*** it. I’m outta here.'”
Bob Dylan and Frank Sinatra have met
Dylan didn’t avoid Sinatra for the entirety of his life. The two musicians met on more than one occasion, and Dylan once even attended a dinner party at Sinatra’s home.
“He was funny, we were standing out on his patio at night and he said to me, ‘You and me, pal, we got blue eyes, we’re from up there,’ and he pointed to the stars,” Dylan said in an interview on his official website. “‘These other bums are from down here.’ I remember thinking that he might be right.”
Dylan also performed the song “Restless Farewell” at Sinatra’s 80th birthday party. He was the only performer who didn’t play a Sinatra song. He explained that this was because Sinatra personally requested the song.
