It’s 04:05 AM on the day of my deadline, and I have just been jolted awake by the blaring rings of notifications. Vile. Why didn’t I turn on “Do Not Disturb”? Deliberately, of course, but in those first seconds, I had forgotten. The slightly blurry sight of my screen instantly reminds me, swiftly propping me up. Engulfed by the white linen of my sheets, within which I usually feel tranquil. But right now, they are much too constraining for the current state of affairs.

I am on Instagram, in the middle of a helter skelter transcription of all ten voice messages from Frank Sinatra’s granddaughter. I tear up at the poignancy of some of her memories, and then smile through her sporadic coughs, followed by lovely laughs and soft ‘sorry’s’. AJ Lambert has a cold. She can first be heard making herself hot tea in the background and sipping it. Ironic, as hot tea happens to have also been my fuel this past week, in the battle with my own cold, which I only get about once every two years. Always

at the most convenient of times. But that’s life.

Lambert’s honesty marks not only her music, but also her demeanour. A fearlessly raw presence, still somehow echoing the menace of her youth - ‘I was a wild kid.’ But after being delayed by drugs and ‘insidious’ alcoholism, she has since been sober, fully awake. Releasing her debut album, ‘Careful You’ only 6 years ago, at age 44. She turns her experiences into art, through a voice haunting, yet warm. Magnetising melodies and a bold gravitation toward the unconventional, and experimental. With sounds that invoke both nostalgia and modernity. She does it her way. Her eyes are not green like her father’s, Hugh Lambert. Nor kohl, like her mother’s, Nancy Sinatra.

They’re blue.

Which Frank Sinatra song holds the most special meaning to you and why? 

The song that probably means the most to me is a song called Little Girl Blue. It’s not an original, but that’s part of why I like it. That song just sounds like he understand what it feels like to be that character, which is something people say about him all the time, that he has the ability to do that with any song. But I feel so close to the character in this song, specifically. I feel like he’s singing about me. And that he’s also really getting into a really honest part of himself, a part I really relate to in him. 

How have you drawn from his style in your own performances?

I do Sinatra shows sometimes, where I sing his albums. I try really hard to stay true to the notes as written. By that I mean I’m trying to really capture the songs themselves, the way that he saw them, and wanted them to be included on these records. So I’ll keep everything in a sentence, never break it up with a breath, or anything. That’s my way of trying to pay tribute to that is to stay true to the way they’re written.

If you could collaborate with him on a song, what would it sound like and be about? 

This is such a great question. The way I picture it is, I’d be writing and producing, and he then he sings it. I think I’d have a pretty good idea of how to craft a melody that would suit his voice, cause it would have to be something that would showcase that. But I would take my time with the lyrics. I’d dig into what I feel about myself and see if it is a mirror to him, I suspect that it would be. He was actually very specific about that sort of thing. If you look at the songs he did, the ones he actually liked, melody is a big part but most importantly - does it have an arc? Does it have a story, a narrative? I also think he might be able to be really adventurous with some sound, if he were back today. He’d play around with production. This is so interesting to think about. We’d have so much fun. 

Can you share any quotidian moments of him, where he wasn’t The Chairman. Where he was just your grandfather?

Yeah, I think a lot of people may not know that he was a really active grandfather when I was a kid. For example, snow’s a big deal here, in Southern California, cause we don’t ever really get that. You’d have to go to it. When I was little, we’d go up in the mountains and he’d just play in the snow, get on a sled and do all that kind of stuff. I also remember his routine. He’d get up, he had a tiny little breakfast table, his house was not that big. And he went to go eat his breakfast. Oh my god, he’d eat the weirdest things. He’d have boiled rice with chocolate chips in it. And then, he’d put on his pair of reading glasses. He actually had a pair anywhere he’d sit, so it was always available, and also pencils everywhere. And then he’d just sit there and read or do crosswords. I remember a lot of quiet images like that of him. Just sitting in the dim light, very focused on his crossword puzzle. 

If you could have one more conversation with him today, what would you want to ask or talk about?

Very hard to choose. I’d have so many. As I’ve gotten older I feel like I’ve been relating more and more to him as the person I think he was, but he just wasn’t around enough for me to truly know. But I guess that I would want to know any kid of insight into his inner feelings about all sorts of things. Who he is as a person, just check and see if I’m right about the things that I feel like I can sense from him. Do you really feel like it’s hard to get close to people? Do you really feel like you just want a certain kind of love from people, and not other kinds? 

What is a lesser known story about Sinatra that highlights his personality or the way he approached life?

This is kind of sad, but I spent a lot of time with him when he was in his final years and still working. And a lot of times, what would happen is his memory would suddenly fail. We’d be in some place, and he’d say ‘Where are we?” And I’d say ‘we’re here’, and he’d say ‘When are we going home?’ And I’d tell him. Then I’d hurry to get him home, since he wanted to go back. And then, when we were back home, not even five minutes would go by, and he’d say ‘When are we going out again?’ I think he was like that his whole life. To me, it really illustrates this idea that there’s never a real comfort in being in one place for too long. He always wanted the next thing. He wanted movement. Even then, in the last years, when he’d started to forget things. He’d somehow still have the same nature, he was still him until the end, really. Restless.