Arguably one of the most influential and longest lasting brilliant singers who was uniquely capable of crossing multiple generations of song, all while retaining that same smile. The legendary and irreplaceable Tony Bennett has died at the age of 96. Wow, what a life!
In the latter part of his career, with incredible and smooth duets with female pop stars (1990 – 2020), I once remarked that Bennett’s specific style of charm reminded me of a human Quokka, simply because of that incredible and authentic smile he carried. The guy was a class act.
Shine on Mr. Bennett. The sounds in heaven just got a whole lot more jazzed…
(Variety) […] He was born Anthony Dominick Benedetto in Astoria, Queens, New York on Aug. 3, 1926, to Italian immigrant parents; his father was a grocer, his mother a seamstress. Raised in poverty, he began singing as a child, and studied music and his other lifelong love, painting, at New York’s High School of Industrial Art. His vocal influences included Al Jolson, Bing Crosby and, later, Frank Sinatra, as well as such female singers as Billie Holiday and Judy Garland.
Drafted at 18 in 1944, he served in World War II’s European theater, doing combat infantry duty and liberating a German concentration camp. After the end of the conflict, he sang as a member of an Armed Forces band.
On his return from service, he studied voice with Miriam Spier in the American Theatre Wing. He cut his first, unsuccessful sides for independent Leslie Records in 1949, as “Joe Bari.”
A series of breaks raised his professional profile. An appearance on Arthur Godfrey’s talent show (where he placed second to Rosemary Clooney) led to a 1949 TV shot on Jan Murray’s “Songs for Sale.”
On the strength of that appearance, songstress Pearl Bailey hired him as a club opener, and Bob Hope was in the Greenwich Village venue to catch the performance. Taking the youthful vocalist under his wing, Hope rechristened him Tony Bennett (an abbreviation and Americanization of his given name) and hired him for his stage show at New York’s Paramount Theatre.
In 1950, Bennett submitted a demo of Harry Warren’s “Boulevard of Broken Dreams” to Columbia Records’ head of A&R Mitch Miller, who signed him to the label and encouraged him to develop his own style.
A remake of “Boulevard” was succeeded a trio of No. 1 pop singles: “Because of You” (1951), a recasting of Hank Williams’ country hit “Cold, Cold Heart” (1951) and the exuberant “Rags to Riches” (1953). The latter number was memorably used under the opening credits of Martin Scorsese’s 1990 gangster epic “Goodfellas.”
Bennett was a reliable if not top-flight hitmaker at Columbia during the ‘50s. He cut several noteworthy albums, including “The Beat of My Heart” (1957), a percussive, jazz-inflected set featuring drummers Art Blakey, Chico Hamilton and Jo Jones; “Strike Up the Band” and “In Person!” (both 1959), groundbreaking collaborations with the Count Basie Orchestra; and “Tony Sings for Two” (1961), an intimate duo recital with pianist Sharon, who joined Bennett as musical director in 1957.
It was Sharon who brought “I Left My Heart in San Francisco,” penned by his friends George Cory and Douglass Cross, to Bennett’s concert book. Debuted during a December 1961 date at the Venetian Room of San Francisco’s Fairmont Hotel, the number was issued as the B-side of “Once Upon a Time” in 1962. DJs began spinning the flip side, and though the song climbed no higher than No. 19 on the singles chart, it pushed its like-titled album to No. 5 nationally. Bennett won his first Grammys with the song, reaping record of the year and best male solo vocal performance.
A landmark 1962 concert at Carnegie Hall with Sharon’s trio was followed in 1963 by the top 20 hits “I Wanna Be Around” and “The Good Life.” But the ascent of rock on the charts shook Bennett’s career; he was further unmoored when Sharon exited his employ in 1965, and he bridled at Columbia’s attempts to “contemporize” his sound. After some misbegotten albums and a run of singles that barely scraped the lower reaches of the chart, Bennett split with the label in 1971. (read more)
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Thank you for that beautiful night you came to sing in our small home town. I never had a better birthday present.
That, my friends, is how you live your best life.
Just heard him do Smile, written by Charlie Chapin on SiriusXM. Wow. And not many or if anyone could of done the duets with lady Gaga. That album is awesome.
He left his ‘heart’ in all of ours.
During my college days in Milwaukee, a group of my friends were walking the street late night circa 1991 – I was not with them. A chauffeur driven limo passed and the group gave it a light heckle. The limo pulled over and Tony Bennet brought down his window and talked to the group. Minutes later he gave them a ride back to campus. I have heard that story repeated over and over.
What a powerhouse Amy Winehouse was and she just threw it all away on drugs and alcohol. What a shame. First time I have seen her with Tony Bennett. Thank you Sundance.
She was reminiscent of Billie Holiday in more ways than one. I’d heard of her, but until I watched that duet just now, I never realized how she SOUNDED like Billie Holiday! I was like, wow…
With her immense talent, there were too many who were happy to subversively pull her down ie enable the drugs. In that industry, even the best of friends, let alone an intimate boyfriend, would find it hard to quell the envy I would think.
I always wished Steve Perry had kept his singing career going the way Tony Bennett did. It was not to be.
Tony Bennett, though…just a classy guy and by all accounts a genuinely nice – authentic – person.
Thank you for this history.
Tony is simply the best. Always made me smile watching his consummate professionalism. And Gaga was terrific with him.
Simply delightful. Thank you for this wonderful distraction.
More proof that it’s not what you keep, it’s what you leave behind.
What a man!
lets not forget regarding Tony Bennett – he was a lifelong liberal Democrat.
“He’s stuck to his guns through much of the 20th Century, culminating with Barack Obama, whose election Bennett called “the greatest accomplishment that the United States ever came up with.”[5] Furthermore, all of Bennett’s political contributions (measly by celebrity standards) have gone to Democrats” He also advocated gun control.
Could we leave politics out of this issue. Thanks.
Yep @Sammy C. What do politics have to do with Tony Bennet’s passing? . My Father, born in 1910 could give two hoots about politics when he resonated with the song ” I Left my Heart in San Francisco,” even though my Dear ole Dad had not made it that far west in his cross country trip with his three brothers and my mom before WWII.
Tina Turner sang “what’s love got to do with it? Let Tony rest in peace without the question “what do politics have to do with it?. Thank you.
He was there with President Tump
He was where with President Trump?
Trying my best not be political. I lived in San Francisco early seventies. Every time I heard Tony Bennett sing “I left my heart in San Francisco “ I missed not being there. I live in Florida now. DeSantis will not win our presidential primary if the votes aren’t changed.
this kind of news, especially for old people, usually dont affect me. with this new, the world just got a little more lonely.
My Mom was a big Tony Bennett fan — she loved his voice! RIP Mr. Bennett — you gave a lifetime of pleasure to many generations of fans.
I came to be a Tony Bennett fan late to the game, in my 50s. I happened to find the “Duets” special on my local PBS station and was instantly hooked. Already a fan of “Smooth Jazz,” it was an easy transition to the Jazz of the late 1930s to the early 1960s. A couple to years later, when my (now almost 27 year old son wanted to get me a birthday present, I suggested he pick me up a Tony Bennett CD. He got me 3 CD set that included Tony singing the Duke’s Greatest hits. There was never a finer rendition of “Don’t Get Around Much Any More,” (although the version played and sang by “Jim” in an episode of Murphy Brown, was funnier).
He was a Trump hating Democrat, but never mean or unhinged. My enemy has every right to oppose me, if he does it right.
Is t that a picture above with him amd trump smiling HUGLEY?
One of my late mother’s favorite performers. They don’t make them like Tony Bennett anymore.
RIP. May you sing duets with the angels for eternity.
Among the greatest singers, he was one of the few to reach a full octave. A classy singer with an impressive vocal range, a rarity nowadays, his memory will live on through his songs.
Never knew he painted! Here’s some of his paintings:
https://news.artnet.com/art-world/tony-bennett-painter-art-party-495254
Knew a couple who moved from New England to San Fran back in the 60’s, because of that beautiful song.
Don’t know if they’re still thanking him for the move, but I’m sure they had many good decades before it all fell apart.
Thanks Sunnydaze. Was just gonna go and search for that very song.
‘Summer of Love in 1967, more than 100,000 flower children converged on San Francisco’
I survived the 60’s .
A moment in history that will never be repeated.
“San Francisco sound” ,
nobody did it better than Jimmy
Thanks Sundance, he was a master at his craft!!! 🙏
True story. Years back, my mother-in-law worked for someone who knew Tony. One day, Tony stopped by her house in northern N.J. to borrow an album she had. He had stepped in dog doo-doo and got it all over their carpet. On top of that, he never returned the album. True story. It had since become the family joke and gets a good laugh.
Rest in peace Tony, you have given me many hours of peace, listening to your music. I will continue to listen to you with great pleasure.
Love and Peace.
Climate Heretic
For all that he has ruined himself and his career, Alec baldwin’s imitation of Tony Bennett on snl was a nice, comic homage and worth rewatching for a couple of seconds.
I simply loved him.
So many generations grew up with him
…….’’..’’ song to be played at a funeral. ..’’Thanks , George.
Has some dealings with him in his down years in late 70s. Not a fun time for him.
Best thing that happened to him was his son Danny taking over as manager after his band Quacky Duck broke up.
It was a gift, and we were fortunate that he shared his gift with us.
“Talent on loan from God….”
Talent on loan from GOD.
Legendary Singer Tony Bennett, Who Helped Liberate a Nazi Concentration Camp, Dies at 96
The I Got Rhythm singer was not Jewish but his daughter, vocalist Antonia Bennett, converted to Judaism in 2013. She married Ronen Helmann, a native Israeli, and together they gave the late singer a Jewish granddaughter named Maya in May 2016.
Bennett was drafted in the US Army at the age of 18 in 1944, and was part of the 255th Regiment that during World War II liberated the Kaufering concentration camp in Landsberg, which was 30 miles south of the Dachau concentration camp in Germany.
“I’ll never forget the desperate faces and empty stares of the prisoners as they wandered aimlessly around the campgrounds,” Bennett wrote in his autobiography, titled The Good Life. “Once we took possession of the camp, we immediately got food and water to the survivors, but they had been brutalized for so long that at first they couldn’t believe that we were there to help them and not to kill them…To our horror we discovered that all of the women and children had been killed long before our arrival and that just the day before, half the remaining survivors had been shot…The whole thing was beyond comprehension.”
He told the Baltimore Jewish Times in an interview in 2018 that his experience in the Army “turned me into a lifelong pacifist and it’s my hope that all wars and violence will become a thing of the past.”
https://www.algemeiner.com/2023/07/21/legendary-singer-tony-bennett-who-helped-liberate-a-nazi-concentration-camp-dies-at-96/
“Once Upon a Time” is a far better song than “San Francisco.”
“San Francisco” is a good song.
But “Once Upon a Time” is one of the best songs about lost love and regret and the passage of time ever penned.
Tony Bennett was the perfect singer for that song.
Smooth and classy. Lady G is best with these classic tunes. I saw Tony live around 2000 with a piano, bass and drums. Wonderful show. The story was his son talked him into touring again and it was very successful. That started all the duet albums he did with so many people. We lost someone who gave us a lot of enjoyment.
I’ve never listened to L Gaga.
Could never get past the meat dress phase.
Or the Spirit Cooking with Marina Abramovic.F#%k Satanists and Hollywood
Tony, you always helped me to feel better both young and old through the years. Thanks for the memories.
I admire a man who loves his profession and Bennett surely did love singing and entertaining.
I disdain his politics and I he felt disdain for mine.
When I used to sing Saturday night grange hall with the trio, Bennet’s “If I ruled the world” was a standard. Tony and Glen Yarbrough.
My mom, whom we just buried Monday, age 92, loved his singing.
She was born and raised in San Francisco.
Now whenever I hear his songs, I will remember her.
Did not know of his military service. Another reason to love the man.
He was drafted right at 18 years old in 1944 and sent into combat as a green replacement almost immediately – he hadn’t even turned 19 when Germany surrendered in May 1945 and had already seen a lot of combat .
People have forgotten that there was a severe “manpower” shortage as the war came to a climax , especially in Europe , and 18 year olds were being drafted as soon as that milestone was reached ( some even in their Senior Year in HS ) which is hard to believe today ….
Saw him in Reno at a casino maybe 8 or 9 years ago. His beautiful voice, unpretentious presence on stage, it was a wonderful performance. A full venue with many young people also, strong voice, and in his 80’s, he gave it his all. Interestingly, there seemed to be no security anywhere, no ropes, nothing, you could literally walk right up to the stage if it was your desire, evidently he was surrounded by those that cared for him, so no worries. May he rest in Peace.
The videos with ugly Winehouse and Gaga (speaking of their appearance, not their looks) weren’t his best, I hope.
The contrast of having Tony sing w the beauty of Amy Winehouse’s talent, natural without trying, beyond, and the opposite, forced, fake glitzy to cover a lack of talent, is not lost on me, if that is what SD was going for.
Now if that had been a vid of Lina Morgana w Tony, to see both Amy and Lina’s innate soaring talent shine so stunningly bright that no heart could help but be lifted, that would have been something.
The great 1944 ghost film, “The Uninvited” and the tragic story about “Stella”:
Gail Russell
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gail_Russell
Her grave:
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/1389/gail-russell/photo#source
Stella by Starlight – Tony Bennett
Tony Bennett YouTube Channel