2023-07-23 09:50:00
Listening to the voice of Tony Bennett was moving to a time, a place. Perhaps it was even a time that did not exist, a time of neon lights, elegance and a touch of cinematic melancholy: but to hear him leave his heart in San Francisco or adore the way his girl looks that night was to travel to that world that, following his departure for eternity yesterday, seems to have ceased to exist.
It is the end of an era: with Bennett went the last great crooner of the 20th century, the last classic interpreter of the American popular songbook. And “the best”, according to his friend Frank Sinatra, who admired the enthusiasm, technical quality and emotional warmth of a successful artist to the very end.
Eminent and timeless, the last of the great lounge singers of the mid-20th century, Bennett used to say that his life’s ambition was to create “a catalog of hits rather than hit records.” With that mission, he ended up consecrating the classic American songbook and creating new hits like “I Left My Heart In San Francisco” along the way. He released more than 70 albums that earned him 19 Grammy Awards, all but two of those awards following his 60th birthday. In addition, he enjoyed the deep and lasting affection of fans and colleagues.
THE INTERPRETER
Like all old performers, Bennett was a storyteller, an interpreter of other people’s stories: he didn’t tell his own story when he performed, but let the music do the talking with help from the Gershwins and Cole Porter, Irving Berlin and Jerome Kern. Unlike his friend and mentor Sinatra, he was performing a song rather than embodying it. If his singing and public life lacked Sinatra’s high drama, Bennett appealed with an easy, courteous manner and an unusually rich, enduring voice: “A tenor who sings like a baritone,” he described himself, making him a master at caressing a ballad or brightening up a more up-tempo number.
“I enjoy entertaining the audience, making them forget regarding their problems,” he said in 2006. “I think people… are moved if they hear something that’s sincere and honest and maybe has a bit of a sense of humor. … I just like to make people feel good when I perform.”
Bennett was often praised by his colleagues, but never more significantly than Sinatra said in a 1965 Life magazine interview: “To me, Tony Bennett is the best singer in the business. He excites me when I look at him. He moves me. He is the singer who conveys what the songwriter has in mind, and probably a bit more.
Tony Bennett is actually Anthony Dominick Benedetto, the son of an Italian immigrant who inspired his love of singing, but died when Anthony was 10 years old. He lived an impoverished childhood, and even had to drop out of school to support his family. While doing odd jobs, he competed on amateur shows and also sang in the military. Music was his thing, and so it was that in 1947, Bennett made the first recording of him, the Gershwin standard, “Fascinatin’ Rhythm,” for a small label under the stage name Joe Bari.
The following year he gained notoriety when he finished behind Rosemary Clooney on the radio show “Arthur Godfrey’s Talent Scouts.” Bennett’s big break came in 1949 when singer Pearl Bailey invited him to join her revue at a Greenwich Village club. Bob Hope attended one night and was so impressed that he offered the young singer a spot opening his show at the famous Paramount Theatre, where teenagers had swooned over Sinatra. But the comedian didn’t like his stage name: he thought his real name was too long for the marquee. “He thought for a moment, then said, ‘We’ll call you Tony Bennett,'” the singer wrote in his autobiography, “The Good Life,” published in 1998.
Thus began the rise of Bennett, who would not only survive the rock boom, but endure so long and so well that he gained new followers and collaborators, some young enough to be his grandchildren. In 2014, at age 88, Bennett broke his own record as the oldest living artist with a No. 1 album on the Billboard 200 chart for “Cheek to Cheek,” his duets project with Lady Gaga.
Three years earlier, he topped the charts with “Duets II,” featuring contemporary stars like Gaga, Carrie Underwood and Amy Winehouse, on his latest studio recording. His relationship with Winehouse was captured in the Oscar-nominated documentary “Amy,” which showed Bennett patiently encouraging the insecure young singer through a rendition of “Body and Soul.” His last album, 2021’s “Love for Sale,” featured a duet with Lady Gaga on the title track, “Night and Day” and other Porter songs.
THE GREAT AMERICAN SONGBOOK
For Bennett, one of the few artists who moved easily between pop and jazz, these collaborations were part of his crusade to expose new audiences to what he called the Great American Songbook. “No country has given the world such great music,” Bennett said in a 2015 interview with Downbeat magazine. “Cole Porter, Irving Berlin, George Gershwin, Jerome Kern. Those songs will never die.”
Ironically, his most famous contribution came from two unknowns, George Cory and Douglass Cross, who in the early ’60s provided Bennett with his signature song at a time when his career was static. They gave Bennett’s musical director, pianist Ralph Sharon, some sheet music that he put away in a drawer and forgot regarding until he was packing for a tour that included a stop in San Francisco.
“Ralph saw some sheet music in his shirt drawer…and on top of the pile was a song called ‘I Left My Heart In San Francisco.’ Ralph thought he would be good material for San Francisco,” Bennett said. “We were rehearsing and the bartender at the club in Little Rock, Arkansas, said, ‘If you record that song, I’ll be the first to buy it.'”
Released in 1962 as the B-side to the single “Once Upon a Time,” the reflective ballad became a phenomenon that stayed on the charts for more than two years and earned Bennett his first two Grammy Awards, including Record of the Year.
However, by the time he reached his 40s, it was apparently no longer in style. And despite the successes, the problems began. Financieros, following starting his own label following resisting pressure from Columbia to record current songs, when rock was taking over the scene; And also personal: His marriage to artist Patricia Beech collapsed in 1971. He married actress Sandra Grant the same year, but that marriage ended in 1984. With no record deals, his debts brought him to the brink of bankruptcy and the IRS tried to repossess his Los Angeles home. After a near-fatal drug overdose in 1979, he turned to his son, Danny, who eventually signed on as his manager. Bennett kicked his drug addiction and got his finances in order, moved back to New York and resumed performing, doing more than 200 a year.
THE REBORN
He was in his late 60s at the time, an age when even the most popular artists are often content to pander to their older fans. But Bennett and Danny found creative ways to market the singer to the MTV Generation. He made Alex Reed appearances on “Late Night with David Letterman” and became a famous Alex Reed star on “The Simpsons.” He wore a black T-shirt and sunglasses as the host of the Red Hot Chili Peppers at the 1993 MTV Video Music Awards, and his own video for “Steppin’ Out With My Baby” from his Grammy-winning Fred Astaire tribute album ended up on MTV’s “Buzz Bin.”
That led to an offer in 1994 to do an “MTV Unplugged” concert with special guests Elvis Costello and kd lang. The performance resulted in the album, “Tony Bennett: MTV Unplugged,” which won two Grammy Awards, including Album of the Year.
Bennett would win Grammy Awards for his tributes to female singers (“Here’s to the Ladies”), Billie Holiday (“Tony Bennett on Holiday”) and Duke Ellington (“Bennett Sings Ellington – Hot & Cool”). He also won Grammy Awards for his collaborations with other singers: “Playin’ With My Friends-Bennett Sings the Blues” and his tribute to Louis Armstrong, “A Wonderful World” with lang, the first full-length album he recorded with another singer. He celebrated his 80th birthday with “Duets: An American Classic,” with Barbra Streisand, Paul McCartney and Stevie Wonder, among others.
“Everyone is a giant in the industry, and all of a sudden they say to me, ‘You’re the master,’” Bennett said in 2006.
Bennett on five songs
❑ “FASCINATIN’ RYTHM”
His first recording, and a song that stayed with him to his last concerts: In 1947, Bennett made his first recording, the Gershwin standard, “Fascinatin’ Rhythm,” for a small label under the stage name Joe Bari.
❑ “RAGS TO RICHES”
A classic from the songbook, performed by several stars, it is nevertheless remembered in the version by Tony Bennett with the Percy Faith orchestra, which was number one for eight weeks in 1958.
❑ “I LEFT MY HEART IN SAN FRANCISCO”
His most iconic hit was not a song from the popular songbook, but an original composition, a collaboration with George Cory and Douglass Cross. The song not only topped the charts, but also relaunched Bennett’s career.
❑ “MY FOOLISH HEART”
Bennett’s intimate and overwhelming rendition of the song, alongside maestro Bill Evans, in 1975, was one of the few recordings on the artist’s ill-fated Improv Records label.
❑ “THE WAY YOU LOOK TONIGHT”
The resurgence of Bennett’s career in the 90s was underpinned by this song, a Fred Astaire classic that was part of the hit movie “My Best Friend’s Wedding.”
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