Tony Bennett

Anthony Dominick Benedetto (August 3, 1926 – July 21, 2023), known professionally as Tony Bennett, was an American jazz and traditional pop singer. He received many accolades, including 20 Grammy Awards, a Lifetime Achievement Award, and two Primetime Emmy Awards. Bennett was named a National Endowments for the Arts Jazz Master and a Kennedy Center Honoree. He founded the Frank Sinatra School of the Arts in Astoria, Queens, New York, along with Exploring the Arts, a non-profit arts education program. He sold more than 50 million records worldwide and earned a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Bennett began singing at an early age. He fought in the final stages of World War II as a U.S. Army infantryman in the European Theater. Afterward, he developed his singing technique, signed with Columbia Records and had his first number-one popular song with "Because of You" in 1951. Several popular tracks such as "Rags to Riches" followed in early 1953. He then refined his approach to encompass jazz singing. He reached an artistic peak in the late 1950s with albums such as The Beat of My Heart and Strike Up the Band. In 1962, Bennett recorded his signature song, "I Left My Heart in San Francisco". His career and personal life experienced an extended downturn during the height of the rock music era. Bennett staged a comeback in the late 1980s and 1990s, putting out gold record albums again and expanding his reach to the MTV Generation while keeping his musical style intact.

Bennett continued to create popular and critically praised work into the 21st century. He attracted renewed acclaim late in his career for his collaboration with Lady Gaga, which began with the album Cheek to Cheek (2014); the two performers toured together to promote the album throughout 2014 and 2015. With the release of the duo's second album, Love for Sale (2021), Bennett broke the individual record for the longest span of top-10 albums on the Billboard 200 chart for any living artist; his first top-10 record was I Left My Heart in San Francisco in 1962. Bennett also broke the Guinness World Record for the oldest person to release an album of new material, at the age of 95 years and 60 days.

In February 2021, Bennett revealed that he had been diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease in 2016. Due to the slow progression of his illness, he continued to record, tour, and perform until his retirement from concerts due to physical challenges, which was announced after his final performances on August 3 and 5, 2021, at Radio City Music Hall.

Early life

1926–1943: Family and education

Anthony Dominick Benedetto was born on August 3, 1926, at St. John's Hospital in Long Island City, Queens, in New York City. His parents were grocer John Benedetto and seamstress Anna (), and he was the first member of his family to be born in a hospital. In 1906, John had emigrated from Podargoni, a rural eastern district of the southern Italian city of Reggio Calabria; he was a member of the local ethnic Greek community (Griko people). Anna had been born in the U.S. shortly after her parents also emigrated from the Calabria region in 1899. With a father who was ailing and unable to work, the children grew up in poverty. John Sr. instilled in his son a love of art and literature, and a compassion for human suffering, but died when Tony was ten years old. standing next to Mayor Fiorello La Guardia who patted him on the head. Drawing was another early passion of his; He began singing for money at age 13, performing as a singing waiter in several Italian restaurants around his native Queens.

Bennett attended New York's School of Industrial Art where he studied painting and music But he dropped out at age 16 to help support his family. and in several other low-skilled, low-paying jobs. He mostly set his sights on a professional singing career, returning to performing as a singing waiter, playing and winning amateur nights all around the city, and enjoying a successful engagement at a Paramus, New Jersey, nightclub. He did basic training at Fort Dix and Fort Robinson as part of becoming an infantry rifleman. In January 1945, he was assigned as a replacement infantryman to the 255th Infantry Regiment of the 63rd Infantry Division, a unit filling in for the heavy losses suffered in the Battle of the Bulge. He moved across France and later into Germany. At the end of March, they crossed the Rhine and entered Germany, engaging in dangerous house-to-house, town-after-town fighting to clean out German soldiers; During his time in combat, Benedetto narrowly escaped death several times.

Benedetto stayed in Germany as part of the occupying force but was assigned to an informal Special Services band unit that would entertain nearby American forces. Subsequently, he sang with the 314th Army Special Services Band under the stage name Joe Bari He played with many musicians who would have post-war careers.

Upon his discharge from the Army and return to the States in 1946, Benedetto studied at the American Theatre Wing on the GI Bill. which would keep his voice in good shape for his entire career. He continued to perform wherever he could, including while waiting tables. He made a few recordings as Bari in 1949 for a small outfit called Leslie Records, but they failed to sell.

In 1949, Pearl Bailey recognized Benedetto's talent and asked him to open for her in Greenwich Village. (who was just then leaving Columbia), Bennett began his career as a crooner of commercial pop tunes. His first big hit was "Because of You", a ballad produced by Miller with a lush orchestral arrangement from Percy Faith. It began gaining popularity on jukeboxes, then reached number one on the pop charts in 1951 and stayed there for ten weeks, selling over a million copies. The Miller and Faith team continued to work on all of Bennett's early hits. Bennett's recording of "Blue Velvet" was also very popular and attracted screaming teenage fans at concerts at the famed Paramount Theater in New York (where Bennett did seven shows a day, starting at 10:30 am) and elsewhere.

A third number-one came in 1953 with "Rags to Riches". Unlike Bennett's other early hits, this was an up-tempo big band number with a bold, brassy sound and a double tango in the instrumental break; it topped the charts for eight weeks. "Stranger in Paradise" was also a number-one hit in the United Kingdom a year and a half later.

Once the rock and roll era began in 1955, the dynamic of the music industry changed and it became harder and harder for existing pop singers to do well commercially.

For a month in August–September 1956, Bennett hosted an NBC Saturday night television variety show, The Tony Bennett Show, as a summer replacement for The Perry Como Show. Patti Page and Julius La Rosa had in turn hosted the two previous months, and they all shared the same singers, dancers, and orchestra.

1954–1965: A growing artistry

In 1954, the guitarist Chuck Wayne became Bennett's musical director. Bennett released his first long-playing album in 1955, Cloud 7. The album was billed as featuring Wayne and showed Bennett's leanings towards jazz. In 1957, Ralph Sharon became Bennett's pianist, arranger, and musical director, replacing Wayne. Sharon told Bennett that a career singing "sweet saccharine songs like 'Blue Velvet'" would not last long, and encouraged Bennett to focus even more on his jazz inclinations. Bennett followed this by working with the Count Basie Orchestra, becoming the first male pop vocalist to sing with Count Basie's band. The concert featured 44 songs, including favorites like "I've Got the World on a String" and "The Best Is Yet To Come". It was a big success and like Garland's, the concert was recorded for posterity, further cementing Bennett's reputation as a star both at home and abroad.

Awards and legacy

Bennett won 20 Grammy Awards (including the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award), as follows (years shown are the year in which the ceremony was held and the award was given, not the year in which the recording was released):

thumb|right|The Tony Bennett concert show as seen by the audience, with no stage set, visual effects or advanced lighting schemes. [[Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts|Kimmel Center, Philadelphia, September 2005.]]

{| class=wikitable

|+Grammy Awards for Tony Bennett

! scope="col"| Year

! scope="col"| Work

! scope="col"| Category

! scope="col"| Result

! scope="row" rowspan="3"| 1963

| I Left My Heart in San Francisco

| Album of the Year (Other Than Classical)

| rowspan="2"| "I Left My Heart In San Francisco"

| Best Solo Vocal Performance, Male

| Record of the Year

! scope="row" rowspan="2"| 1964

| rowspan="2"| "I Wanna Be Around"

| Record of the Year

| Best Vocal Performance, Male

! scope="row" | 1965

| "Who Can I Turn To?"

| Best Vocal Performance, Male

! scope="row" rowspan="2"| 1966

| rowspan="2"|"The Shadow of Your Smile (Love Theme From "The Sandpiper")"

| Record of the Year

| Best Vocal Performance, Male

! scope="row" | 1991

| Astoria: Portrait of the Artist

| Best Jazz Vocal Performance, Male

! scope="row" | 1993

| Perfectly Frank

| Best Traditional Pop Vocal Performance

! scope="row" | 1994

| Steppin' Out

| Best Traditional Pop Vocal Performance

! scope="row" rowspan="3"| 1995

| rowspan="2"|MTV Unplugged

| Album of the Year

| Best Traditional Pop Vocal Performance

| "Moonglow" (with k.d. lang)

| Best Pop Vocal Collaboration

! scope="row" | 1997

| Here's to the Ladies

| Best Traditional Pop Vocal Performance

! scope="row" rowspan="2"| 1998

| Tony Bennett on Holiday

| Best Traditional Pop Vocal Performance

| "God Bless The Child" (with Billie Holiday)

| Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals

! scope="row" | 1999

| Tony Bennett: The Playground

| Best Musical Album for Children

! scope="row" | 2000

| Bennett Sings Ellington: Hot & Cool

| Best Traditional Pop Vocal Performance

! scope="row" rowspan="2"| 2002

| Lifetime Achievement Award

| New York State of Mind (with Billy Joel)

| Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals

! scope="row" rowspan="2"| 2003

| Playin' with My Friends: Bennett Sings the Blues

| Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album

| "What a Wonderful World" (with k. d. lang)

| Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals

!scope="row" rowspan="2"| 2004

| A Wonderful World (with k. d. lang)

| Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album

| "La Vie en rose" (with k. d. lang)

| Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals

! scope="row" | 2006

| The Art of Romance

| Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album

! scope="row" rowspan="2"| 2007

| Duets: An American Classic

| Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album

| "For Once in My Life" (with Stevie Wonder)

| Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals

! scope="row" | 2008

| "Steppin' Out with My Baby" (with Christina Aguilera)

| Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals

! scope="row" | 2010

| A Swingin' Christmas

| Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album

!scope="row" rowspan="2"| 2012

| Duets II

| Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album

| "Body And Soul" (with Amy Winehouse)

| Best Pop Duo/Group Performance

! scope="row" | 2014

| Viva Duets

| Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album

! scope="row" | 2015

| Cheek To Cheek (with Lady Gaga)

| Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album

! scope="row" | 2016

| The Silver Lining: The Songs of Jerome Kern (with Bill Charlap)

| Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album

! scope="row" rowspan="2"| 2019

| Love Is Here To Stay (with Diana Krall)

| Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album

| "'S Wonderful" (with Diana Krall)

| Best Pop Duo/Group Performance

!scope="row" rowspan="5"| 2022

| rowspan="2"| Love For Sale (with Lady Gaga)

| Album of the Year

| Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album

| rowspan="3"|"I Get a Kick Out of You" (with Lady Gaga)

| Record of the Year

| Best Pop Duo/Group Performance

| Best Music Video

thumb|right|upright|Bennett's work for the [[Civil Rights Movement, including his participation in the 1965 Selma to Montgomery marches, later earned him induction into the International Civil Rights Walk of Fame in Atlanta.]]

Bennett gained other recognition:

{|class="wikitable sortable"

|+Honors and recognition for Tony Bennett

!scope="col"| Recognition

!scope="col"| Year

!scope="col"| Results

!scope="col"| Ref.

|- bgcolor=

| New York City's Bronze Medallion

| 1969

|-bgcolor=

| Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame

|-bgcolor=

| Society of Singers Lifetime Achievement Award

| 2000

|-bgcolor=

| Lifetime achievement award from the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers

| 2002

|-bgcolor=

| National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Masters Award

| 2006

|-bgcolor=

| Recipient of the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement presented by Awards Council member John Lewis

| 2009

|- bgcolor=

| Induction into the New Jersey Hall of Fame

|2011

|-bgcolor=

| Induction into the DownBeat Jazz Hall of Fame

| 2015

|-bgcolor=

|Library of Congress Gershwin Prize

|2017

|-bgcolor=

| Honorary doctorates from the Berklee College of Music

| 1974

| , The Art Institute of Boston (1994), Roosevelt University's Chicago Musical College (1995), George Washington University (2001), Cleveland Institute of Music (2010), and Fordham University (2012).

|-bgcolor=

| A statue of Bennett was unveiled outside the Fairmont Hotel in honor of his 90th birthday, and his first performance of "I Left My Heart in San Francisco" there in 1961.

| August 16, 2016

|-bgcolor=

| A Guinness World Record for "oldest person to reach No.1 on the US Album Chart with a newly recorded album", at the age of 88 years 69 days, for Cheek to Cheek

| 2014

Works

Discography

Bennett released over 70 albums during his career, almost all for Columbia Records. The biggest selling of these in the U.S. were I Left My Heart in San Francisco, MTV Unplugged: Tony Bennett, and Duets: An American Classic, all of which went platinum for shipping one million copies. Eight other albums of his went gold in the U.S., including several compilations. Bennett married Ohio art student and jazz fan Patricia Beech, whom he had met the previous year after a nightclub performance in Cleveland. The couple had two sons. Bennett and his wife Patricia separated in 1965, their marriage a victim of Bennett's spending too much time on the road, among other factors. In 1971, their divorce became official.

Bennett had become involved with aspiring actress Sandra Grant while filming The Oscar in 1965. The couple lived together for several years and on December 29, 1971, they quietly married in New York. They had two daughters, and moved to Los Angeles. The two were married until 1983.

In the late 1980s, Bennett entered into a long-term romantic relationship with Susan Crow, a former New York City schoolteacher. Bennett and Crow founded Exploring the Arts, a charitable organization dedicated to creating, promoting, and supporting arts education. At the same time, they founded (and named after Bennett's friend) the Frank Sinatra School of the Arts in Queens, a public high school dedicated to teaching the performing arts. The school opened in 2001 and has a very high graduation rate.

Politics

The experience of growing up in the Great Depression and a distaste for the effects of the presidency of Herbert Hoover would make Bennett a lifelong Democrat.

Illness and death

In February 2021, an article in AARP: The Magazine revealed that Bennett had been diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease in 2016, though he continued to perform and record until the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020. Bennett recorded tracks with Lady Gaga from 2018 until early 2020 for their 2021 album Love for Sale, despite at times being "lost and bewildered" during recording sessions.

In announcing Bennett's retirement in August 2021, Danny Bennett stated that the Alzheimer's was mainly affecting his father's short-term memory and that he would often forget he had just performed after a concert; his long-term memory remained intact and he could still remember all the lyrics to his repertoire when performing.

Early life

1926–1943: Family and education

1954–1965: A growing artistry

Awards and legacy

Works

Discography

Politics

Illness and death

References

Bibliography

Further reading

External links