My goodness, I could write all day about Tony Bennett. But, I won't.
Today, Frank Sinatra is the icon everybody remembers. The truth is that Dean Martin was the bigger star at the time. But, Tony Bennett was as big as both of them as a singer - it's just that Tony Bennett never went deep into the TV show and movie stuff that was so easy to do in the 1950s and 1960s.
Martin, Sinatra, and Sammy Davis Jr were the heart of the "Rat Pack" in the 1960's. Many stars sought to join that clique. Tony Bennett could have strolled into that party anytime he wanted but he couldn't be bothered with the silliness. He was bigger than that.
I've never been a fan of crooning except in the hands (I should say the vocal chords) of Tony Bennett. So much of the great American songbook that usually bores me is wonderful when it's Tony.
Here's the thing, Tony became a huge star coming out of WW2 just like the names mentioned above. But, Tony Bennett remained a star who could sell out Carnegie Hall anytime he wanted FOR FIFTY YEARS. Every great singer of every era wanted to sing with Tony. Amy Winehouse and Lady Gaga - two of the most spectacular jazz vocalists of recent times - would turn their busy careers on a dime for a chance to do a duet with Tony.
Tony Bennett never changed as an artist. Music changed and new artists emerged as stars and Tony Bennett remained a peer to all of them without ever changing.
Tony Bennett was the opening act for Bob Hope during World War 2. Lady Gaga was using all of her powerful resources to get Tony Bennett on to her album "Love for Sale" in 2021. The GI Bill gave Tony the funds to get a formal education in vocals. That's when he found the unique vocal style that made him a superstar. That voice he found was still the voice he used with Lady Gaga. He did not change, everything else changed but he always made room for Tony to be exactly who he wanted to be.
His voice aged but barely. I saw Tony Bennett on a Broadway Stage rented out for a giant industry event in the 1990s. Tony was about 70 years old. The theater was packed to the gills. At one point, Tony had the PA system turned off, walked to the front of the stage, and sang one of his classics a cappella without a microphone. Now this was not a theater filled with ticket-buying fans of Tony, this was a room filled with TV advertising industry folks with big egos and jaded perspectives. And yet, everyone in the whole theater went stone-cold silent, you could hear every note and the goosebumps were intense. Only Tony could have done that and he was one of the oldest people in the room when he did it - by decades.
Nobody in the history of recorded entertainment has ever done anything close to what he did for this arc of time. He emerged as a star one year before Queen Elizabeth became Queen and he was still a singing superstar when the Queen passed.
Only Alzheimer's was capable of pulling this bright star out of the dark sky and hiding him away from his fans.
Amazing man. Died yesterday at 96. Do yourself a favor; find some time to listen to this album from 1976:
Wonderful piece about Tony. You put him in perspective--his length of time on the throne of singing outlasted Queen Elizabeth. I posted on Facebook--do you ever go there anymore, cuz we miss you there--my story about my brother and Tony Bennett.