Tony Bennett

2010-12-30T00:02:00.000-08:00

Tony Bennett (born Anthony Dominick Benedetto; August 3, 1926) is an American singer ofpopular music, standards, show tunes, and jazz. Tony Bennett began singing at an early age just like http://frankasinatra.blogspot.com. He was the son of Ann and John Benedetto. Tony grew up listening to Eddie Cantor, Judy Garland, and Bing Crosby. Tony was also listening to such jazz Artists as Louis Armstrong, Jack TeaGarden, and Joe Venuti. At the age of 10 years old he was already singing. Drawing was one of his passions. He attended New York's High School of Industrial Art, Where he studied Painting and Music. At the age of 16 he had to drop out of school to support his family. He went to work as a copy boy and runner for the Associated Press in Manhattan. His Main focus was trying to become a Professional Singer. He was performing as a singing waiter in several Italian restaurants around Queens.

Tony was drafted into the United States Military in 1944, during the final stages of World War II. After his discharge and return to the states in 1946, Bennett studied at the American Theatre Wing on the GI Bill. There he was taught the bel canto singing discipline, Which would help keep his voice in great shape through his entire career. In 1949, Pearl Bailey recognized Benedetto's talent and asked him to open for her in Greenwich Village. She had invited Bob Hope to the show. Hope decided to take Benedetto on the road with him, but suggested he use his real name simplified as Tony Bennett. In 1950, Bennett cut a demo of "Boulevard of Broken Dreams" and was signed to the major Columbia Records label by Mitch Miller.

Mitch Miller warned Tony not to imitate Frank Sinatra. (who was just then leaving Columbia Records), Tony

began his career as a Crooner singing commercial pop tunes. His very first big hit was "Because of You" which

became #1 on the pop charts in 1951. It stayed #1 for 10 weeks and selling over 1 million copies.A third #1 came in 1953 with "Rags to Riches".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. Later that year the producers of the upcoming Broadway musical Kismet had Bennett record "Stranger in Paradise" as a way of promoting the show during a New York newspaper strike. The song reached the top, the show was a hit, and Bennett began a long practice of recording show tunes. "Stranger in Paradise" was also a #1 hit in the United Kingdom a year and a half later and started Bennett's career as an international artist.

In 1957, Ralph Sharon became Bennett's pianist and musical director, replacing Wayne. Sharon told Bennett that a career singing "sweet saccharine songs like 'Blue Velvet'" wouldn't last long, and encouraged Bennett to focus even more on his jazz inclinations. The 1957 album The Beat of My Heart was a result of him focusing on Jazz. The album was both popular and critically praised. The albums Basie Swings, Bennett Sings (1958) and In Person! (1959) were the well-regarded fruits of this collaboration, with "Chicago" being one of the standout songs.

In June 1962, Bennett staged a highly-promoted concert performance at Carnegie Hall, using a stellar line-up of musicians including Al Cohn, Kenny Burrell, and Candido, as well as the Ralph Sharon Trio. 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, further cementing Bennett's reputation as a star both at home and abroad. Bennett also appeared on television, and in October 1962 he sang on the first night of theJohnny Carson The Tonight Show. In 1962, Bennett released the song "I Left My Heart in San Francisco". It reached #19 on the BillBoard Hot 100.The song won Grammy Awards for Record of the Year and Best Male Solo Vocal Performance. Over the years, this would become known as Bennett's signature song. In 2001, it was ranked 23rd on an RIAA/NEA list of the most historically significant Songs of the 20th Century. The years (1965 to 1979) were bad for his Genre of music.

Danny Bennett felt strongly that younger audiences, although completely unfamiliar with Tony Bennett, would respond to his music if only given a chance to see and hear it. More crucially, no changes to Tony's appearance (tuxedo), singing style (his own), musical accompaniment (The Ralph Sharon Trio or an orchestra), or song choice (generally the Great American Songbook) were necessary or desirable. Accordingly, Danny began regularly to book his father on a show with a younger, hip audience, Late Night with David Letterman. This was subsequently followed by appearances on Late Night with Conan O'Brien, The Simpsons, and various MTV programs. In 1993, Bennett played a series of benefit concerts organized by alternative rock radio stations around the country. The plan worked; as Tony later remembered, "I realized that young people had never heard those songs. Cole Porter, Gershwin – they were like, 'Who wrote that?' To them, it was different. If you're different, you stand out."

Bennett continued to record, first putting out the acclaimed look back Astoria: Portrait of the Artist (1990), then emphasizing themed albums such as the Sinatra homage Perfectly Frank (1992) and the Fred Astaire tribute Steppin' Out (1993). The latter two both achieved gold status and won Grammys for Best Traditional Pop Vocal Performance (Bennett's first Grammys since 1962) and further established Bennett as the inheritor of the mantle of a classic American great.

A series of albums, often based on themes (Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, Billie Holiday, blues, duets) has met with good acceptance; Bennett has won seven more Best Traditional Pop Vocal Performance or Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album Grammys in the subsequent years, most recently for the year 2006. Bennett has sold over 50 million records worldwide during his career. Accolades came to Bennett. For his contribution to the recording industry, Tony Bennett was given a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1560 Vine Street. Bennett was inducted into the Big Band and Jazz Hall of Fame in 1997, was awarded the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2001, and received a lifetime achievement award from the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP) in 2002. In 2002, Q magazine named Tony Bennett in their list of the "50 Bands To See Before You Die". On December 4, 2005, Bennett was the recipient of a Kennedy Center Honor. Later, a theatrical musical revue of his songs, called I Left My Heart: A Salute to the Music of Tony Bennett was created and featured some of his best-known songs such as "I Left My Heart in San Francisco", "Because of You", and "Wonderful". The following year, Bennett was inducted into the Long Island Music Hall of Fame.

In April 2002, he joined Michael Jackson,Chris Tucker and former President Bill Clinton in a fundraiser for the Democratic National Committee at New York's Apollo Theater. He has also recorded public service announcements for Civitan International. In the late 1980s, Bennett entered into a long-term romantic relationship with Susan Crow (born c. 1960), a former New York City schoolteacher. Together they 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) theFrank Sinatra School of the Arts in Queens, a public high school dedicated to teaching the performing arts, which opened in 2001 and would have a very high graduation rate. It was a tribute in return, for in a 1965 Life magazine interview Sinatra had said that:

"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."

In August 2006, Bennett turned eighty years old.

Regarding his choices in music, Bennett reiterated his artistic stance in a 2010 interview:

"I'm not staying contemporary for the big record companies, I don't follow the latest fashions. I never sing a song that's badly written. In the 1920s and '30s, there was a renaissance in music that was the equivalent of the artistic Renaissance. Cole Porter, Johnny Mercer and others just created the best songs that had ever been written. These are classics, and finally they're not being treated as light entertainment. This is classical music."