“Un-Frank-like," meaning not in the Sinatra manner, said Tom Wopat, describing his approach to “That's Life" at the Metropolitan Room. Swinging lightly and joking his way through the 1966 hit that Frank Sinatra turned into a vocal punching bag, Mr. Wopat treated it as an offhanded sparring match between the urge to triumph and the impulse to throw in the towel. “That's alliteration," he joked, after singing the lines, “I've been a puppet, a pirate, a pauper, a poet, a pawn and a king."
“A puppet, a pirate, a pauper, a poet, a pawn and a king": Tom Wopat, with the bassist David Finck, at the Metropolitan Room. But in a more fundamental way Mr. Wopat, who is performing Thursdays through July 31 at the Metropolitan Room, is a keeper of the flame of the Sinatra saloon tradition. Like Sinatra he is not afraid to be tender and to bare his emotional vulnerability. At the same time, however, he is not a Sinatra imitator. He doesn't swing between poles of rage and depression, and he has a country singer's relaxation.
The personality he projects is that of a weathered man's man (he is 56) who still has a keen eye for the ladies. Lurking beneath his debonair facade is a barely concealed wild man.
Mr. Wopat has the advantage of an excellent trio behind him: a musical director and pianist, Tedd Firth, who has serious jazz chops; the bassist David Finck, who bows the instrument at sensitive moments; and the drummer Peter Grant.
