NEW YORK — Tony Bennett, the eminent and timeless stylist whose devotion to classic American songs and knack for creating new standards such as “I Left My Heart In San Francisco” graced a decadeslong career that brought him admirers from Frank Sinatra to Lady Gaga, died Friday. He was 96, just two weeks short of his birthday.
Publicist Sylvia Weiner confirmed Bennett’s death to The Associated Press, saying he died in his hometown of New York. There was no specific cause, but Bennett had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease in 2016.
The last of the great saloon singers of the mid-20th century, Bennett often said his lifelong ambition was to create “a hit catalog rather than hit records.” He released more than 70 albums, bringing him 19 competitive Grammys — all but two after he reached his 60s — and enjoyed deep and lasting affection from fans and fellow artists.
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Bennett didn’t tell his own story when performing; he let the music speak instead — the Gershwins and Cole Porter, Irving Berlin and Jerome Kern. Unlike his friend and mentor Sinatra, he would interpret a song rather than embody it. If his singing and public life lacked the high drama of Sinatra’s, Bennett appealed with an easy, courtly manner and an uncommonly rich and durable voice — “A tenor who sings like a baritone,” he called himself — that made him a master of caressing a ballad or brightening an up-tempo number.
“I enjoy entertaining the audience, making them forget their problems,” he told The Associated Press in 2006. “I think people ... are touched if they hear something that’s sincere and honest and maybe has a little sense of humor. ... I just like to make people feel good when I perform.”
Bennett was praised often by his peers, but never more meaningfully than by what Sinatra said in a 1965 Life magazine interview: “For my money, Tony Bennett is the best singer in the business. He excites me when I watch him. He moves me. He’s the singer who gets across what the composer has in mind, and probably a little more.”
He not only survived the rise of rock music but endured so long and so well that he gained new fans and collaborators, some young enough to be his grandchildren. In 2014, at age 88, Bennett broke his own record as the oldest living performer 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 such contemporary stars as Gaga, Carrie Underwood and Amy Winehouse, in her last studio recording. His rapport with Winehouse was captured in the Oscar-nominated documentary “Amy,” which showed Bennett patiently encouraging the insecure young singer through a performance of “Body and Soul.”
His final album, the 2021 release “Love for Sale,” featured duets with Lady Gaga on the title track, “Night and Day” and other Porter songs.
For Bennett, one of the few performers to move easily between pop and jazz, such 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 through two unknowns, George Cory and Douglass Cross, who in the early ’60s provided Bennett with his signature song at a time his career was in a lull. They gave Bennett’s musical director, pianist Ralph Sharon, some sheet music that he stuck in a dresser drawer and forgot about 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 it would be good material for San Francisco,” Bennett said. “We were rehearsing and the bartender in the club in Little Rock, Arkansas, said, ‘If you record that song, I’m going to be the first to buy it.’”
Released in 1962 as the B-side of the single “Once Upon a Time,” the reflective ballad became a grassroots phenomenon staying on the charts for more than two years and earning Bennett his first two Grammys, including record of the year.
By his early 40s, he was seemingly out of fashion. But after turning 60, an age when even the most popular artists often settle for just pleasing their older fans, Bennett and his son and manager, Danny, found creative ways to market the singer to the MTV Generation. He made guest appearances on “Late Night with David Letterman” and became a celebrity guest artist on “The Simpsons.” He wore a black T-shirt and sunglasses as a presenter with the Red Hot Chili Peppers at the 1993 MTV Music Video Awards, and his own video of “Steppin’ Out With My Baby” from his Grammy-winning Fred Astaire tribute album ended up on MTV’s hip “Buzz Bin.”
SONG OF THE DAY – "WHY DO PEOPLE FALL IN LOVE" / From May 3, 2023
Tony Bennett has been around so long people forget he was once Anthony Dominick Benedetto. They also forget he was a down-on-his luck, cocaine-addicted, IRS-owing has-been.
The album “Art of Excellence” was released May 3, 1986 that started his comeback as one of the greatest singers of the 20th century.
Bennett will turn 97 in August. His career can be divided into three sections. He fought in World War II; changed his name to Tony Bennett in 1949 at the suggestion of Bob Hope; a year later had his first number one hit, “Because of You,” and three more number ones by 1954. He recorded “I Left My Heart in San Francisco” in 1962. It became his signature song.
His career came crashing down during the 1960s and ‘70s. His style didn’t mix with the musical times. He got divorced, he got into debt and almost died from a cocaine overdose in 1979. That’s when his sons took over his management. He went back to wearing tuxes and singing American classics. A younger generation loved him. He started recording with Red Hot Chili Peppers, k.d. lang and Lady Gaga. He did three MTV “Unplugged.” He has won 19 Grammy Awards.
He announced in February 2021 that he is suffering from Alzheimer’s. He performed his final concerts six months later, on August 3 and 5 at Radio City Music Hall with Lady Gaga.
“Why Do People Fall in Love,” was the first song on his comeback album. Dennis Lambert and Brian Potter wrote the song. They wrote many successful songs, including “Rhinestone Cowboy.”
The album also contained songs written by James Taylor, Allen and Marilyn Bergman and Irving Berlin.
—By Sheldon Zoldan/Special to WGCU