What cemented Tony Bennett’s status as legend

There are times when I feel guilty about listening too much to songs in the great American Songbook. Hey, I should spend more time on Filipino music. But then, they did make great tunes back in those days. They did influence the generations who came after. Most of all, those songs produced some of the greatest vocalists of all time.

One of them was Tony Bennett. He was born Antonio Bennedetto in Queens, New York on Aug. 3, 1926 to an Italian immigrant family. He started singing when he was only five years old.  This continued throughout his growing up years, not just because he really loved performing but also because he wanted to help his impoverished family. Drafted into service in World War II when he was 18, he divided his time between raiding enemy occupied towns as an infantry rifleman and singing with the army band.

That he was a great talent was instantly recognizable to many he met and some of them gave him the breaks he needed. Among these were Pearl Bailey, who made him her opening act; Bob Hope who hired him and who Americanized his name to Tony Bennett; and Mitch Miller who signed him to a recording contract. It was for Miller that he recorded his first single and first hit song, Boulevard of Broken Dreams, in 1950. That was the start of a recording career that would last for over 70 years.

Bennett was a great singer with a voice of such warmth, incredible elegance, perfect tones, impeccable phrasing and a unique timeless quality. He brought all these to every song he recorded. That first year he also came out with such monster hits as Because of You, Cold Cold Heart, Rags to Riches and one of the first songs I remember liking a lot as a kid because it had candy store in the title, From the Candy Store on the Corner to the Chapel on the Hill.

The years passed. Times changed. So did music trends. But there was always a Tony Bennett song in the soundtrack. Stranger in Paradise, Blue Velvet, In the Middle of an Island, Have a Good Time, I Won’t Cry Anymore, There’ll Be No Teardrops Here Tonight, The Shadow of Your Smile, The Good Life, Tender is the Night and the biggest of them all, I Left My Heart in San Francisco.

Although Bennett’s number of hit songs was truly phenomenal, he was in the charts on and off for years and years. It is still a fact that hits are just hits, unexplainable successes brought about by a combination of luck and the right timing. What cemented Bennett’s status as a legend was his take on the great American songbook.

(Allow me an aside please, the word is rightly descriptive but it feels like I cannot write American Songbook with putting in great.)

Back to Bennett. He recorded so many of them, works by George Gershwin, Irving Berlin Cole Porter, Rodgers and Hart and many others. He did them as jazz with a big band, Steppin’ Out or as duets with pianist Bill Evans, My Foolish Heart, or unplugged for MTV with a jazz trio, Old Devil Moon or with pop stars like Amy Winehouse, Body and Soul and most notably in his later years with Lady Gaga.

Bennett’s most recent successes were two albums with Lady Gaga featuring songs from the great American songbook, Cheek to Cheek and Love for Sale. The collaboration resulted not only in a No. 1 seller a few Grammys and some Emmy Nominations. Bennett’s final public performance was with Lady Gaga in August 2021.

Love for Sale was Bennett’s 61st and final recorded album. He was 95 years old at the time. He passed away last July 21, 2023 a few days shy of his 97th birthday.