Award winning vocalist Ben Jones who is from Peoria, Illinois and legendary pianist, composer and music director Ron Abel combine their talents at the Orpheum Theater in Galesburg to present Let Me Be Frank. Let Me Be Frank
is an evening of side-splitting laughs and unbelievable music celebrating the deep catalog of Frank Sinatra on Valentine’s Day.
“So, Ron and I are bringing the show to Galesburg on Valentine’s Day. It is a Frank Sinatra, I wouldn’t call it a tribute, I am not doing a Frank thing with my voice, I sing all the tunes like I sing, but they are all Sinatra songs, so very well known, beloved set list. We are picking up three local folks; most notably the head of the Knox College Jazz Program, Andy Crawford is going to be playing bass.”
Award-winning vocalist Ben Jones and legendary pianist, composer and music director Ron Abel combine their considerable talent for an evening of side-splitting laughs and unbelievable music celebrating the deep catalog of Frank Sinatra.
Let Me Be Frank includes swinging Sinatra Standards and lush blue-eyed ballads from the songbooks of Cy Coleman, Duke Ellington, Harold Arlen, Johnny Mercer, Jacques Brel and Antonio Carlos Jobim. In this hilarious followup to Ben’s two “Jaw-Dropping” (BroadwayWorld) 2022 solo shows–I Think I’m in Love and I Think We Should See Other People–Ben confronts Frank truths about marriage, family and a life in the entertainment industry.
Jones and Abel have brought their magic to stages all over the world and together bring an incredible depth and originality to Sinatra’s hits and deep cuts alike. It’s an incredible and joyful presentation of some of the best music of the 20th century. They perform shows such as Let Me Be Frank all over the United States as well as Europe. The show starts at 7:30 pm at the Orpheum Theater.
Ben Jones is a singer, comedian, storyteller and actor who has appeared in front of audiences worldwide, from the Edinburgh International Festival to the Shanghai Concert Hall. He’s shared the spotlight with the likes of Rita Moreno, Michael Tilson Thomas, Frederica von Stade, Nathan Gunn, Isabel Leonard, Helmuth Rilling, Michael Morgan, Val Diamond and the Bang on a Can All-Stars.
His versatile voice has been featured on recordings on the Albany, Naxos and Delos labels, on A Prairie Home Companion, on the soundtracks for the best-selling video game franchises Halo and Civilization, and on commercials for Coors Light and Meow Mix.
Jones made his Carnegie hall debut in the 2021 Voices of Hope Festival. He was most recently seen as Sid Sorokin in The Pajama Game in San Francisco, for which he received the Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle Award for Best Performance in a Musical.
His last two one-man shows–I Think I’m in Love and I Think We Should See Other People–played to sold-out houses across the US before being featured in BroadwayWorld’s “Best of 2022.”
Source: www.benjonessinger.com/frank as well as a live interview on 2-5-25 on WRAM.
