Obit: Tony Bennett (Benedetto) (1926-2023)

Subject: Obit: Tony Bennett, 1926 - 2023
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 21 Jul 23 - 12:03 PM

No room for his full name and his stage name in the subject thread:

New York Times obituary Tony Bennett

Mr. Bennett stubbornly resisted record producers who urged gimmick songs on him, or, in the 1960s and early ’70s, who were sure that rock ’n’ roll had relegated the music he preferred to a dusty bin perused only by a dwindling population of the elderly and nostalgic.

Instead, he followed in the musical path of the greatest American pop singers of the 20th century — Louis Armstrong, Bing Crosby, Judy Garland, Billie Holiday, Frank Sinatra — and carried the torch for them into the 21st. He reached the height of stardom in 1962 with a celebrated concert at Carnegie Hall and the release of his signature song, “I Left My Heart in San Francisco.” And though he saw his popularity wane with the onset of rock and his career went through a trough in the 1970s, when professional difficulties were exacerbated by a failing marriage and drug problems, he was, in the end, more than vindicated in his musical judgment.

“I wanted to sing the great songs, songs that I felt really mattered to people,” he said in “The Good Life” (1998), an autobiography written with Will Friedwald.

It’s hard to overstate Mr. Bennett’s lasting appeal. He was still singing “San Francisco” — which led many people to think he was a native of that city, though he was actually a through-and-through New Yorker — more than half a century later. He sang on Ed Sullivan’s show and David Letterman’s. He sang with Rosemary Clooney when she was in her 20s, and Celine Dion when she was in her 20s.

The article is long, but here is a bit about his roots.

Anthony Dominick Benedetto was born on Aug. 3, 1926, in the Long Island City neighborhood of Queens, and grew up in that borough in working-class Astoria. His father, Giovanni, had emigrated from Calabria, in southern Italy, at age 11. His mother, Anna (Suraci) Benedetto, was born in New York in 1899, having made the sea journey from Italy in the womb. Their marriage was arranged. Giovanni and Anna were cousins; their mothers were sisters.

Subject: RE: Obit: Tony Bennett (Benedetto), 1926 - 2023
From: gillymor
Date: 21 Jul 23 - 01:18 PM

Probably the last great interpereter of "The Great American Songbook", though there are still some fine singers around. Singing doesn't get any better than his version of Just in Time, IMO. The guy even did a couple of albums with the great jazz pianist, Bill Evans. He was a serious dude.

Subject: RE: Obit: Tony Bennett (Benedetto), 1926 - 2023
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 21 Jul 23 - 05:17 PM

He worked with people who were at the top of many music genres. Body and Soul with Amy Winehouse. Blue Velvet with k.d. lang. On the Sunny Side of the Street with Willie Nelson. New York, New York with Andrea Bocelli (though it would have been more interesting if they'd sung some of those classic Italian ballads that Bennett grew up singing). I've Got You Under My Skin with Lady Gaga.

Tony Bennett duets results on Google. It can be a deep dive, wending through these results.

Subject: RE: Obit: Tony Bennett (Benedetto) (1926-2023)
From: Joe Offer
Date: 22 Jul 23 - 08:09 PM

Just within the last few years, he did some wonderful performances with Lady Gaga.

Love for Sale, 2021

Cheek to Cheek, 2018

Subject: RE: Obit: Tony Bennett (Benedetto) (1926-2023)
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 22 Jul 23 - 08:36 PM

I would guess a lot of people were drawn to the Great American Songbook by the temptation of working with him. Or he reinforced that their interest was also solidly beneficial to their musical careers. Think of when Linda Ronstadt teamed up with Nelson Riddle. Or Barbra Streisand and her pairings, sometimes pop, sometimes classic songbook. Tony was the king of all of that.

Subject: RE: Obit: Tony Bennett (Benedetto) (1926-2023)
From: GUEST,gillymor
Date: 23 Jul 23 - 08:26 AM

He sang so good for so long. Some of my favorites-

Sweet Lorraine

Just in Time

Once Upon a Time

Waltz for Debby w/ Bill Evans

Subject: RE: Obit: Tony Bennett (Benedetto) (1926-2023)
From: Peter the Squeezer
Date: 23 Jul 23 - 02:12 PM

Sang Les Barker's "I Learned to Fart in San Francisco" last Friday, at the Black Swan club in Shepshed.

Subject: RE: Obit: Tony Bennett (Benedetto) (1926-2023)
From: gillymor
Date: 23 Jul 23 - 07:05 PM

What did you do for an encore, Squeezer, What Kind of Stool am I?

Subject: RE: Obit: Tony Bennett (Benedetto) (1926-2023)
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 24 Jul 23 - 04:20 AM

Tony Bennett was also an artist - Australian artist Robert Wade on his friendship with Tony Bennett (audio)

Subject: RE: Obit: Tony Bennett (Benedetto) (1926-2023)
From: Sol
Date: 24 Jul 23 - 10:44 AM

I was fortunate to see him 'live'(c1987). Class act and a true gentleman.

Subject: RE: Obit: Tony Bennett (Benedetto) (1926-2023)
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 24 Jul 23 - 07:36 PM

Well Tony Bennett was a very fine singer, and a great supporter of equality and human rights, but I'm not sure what he's doing here on Mudcat. My view, as a bit of a folkie, is that, like Crosby and Sinatra, he sang mostly awful, trivial songs superbly. I'm reminded of this quote from Woody Guthrie:

I could hire out to the other side, the big money side, and get several dollars every week just to quit singing my own kind of songs and to sing the kind that knock you down still farther and the ones that poke fun at you even more and the ones that make you think that you've not got any sense at all. But I decided a long time ago that I'd starve to death before I'd sing any such songs as that. The radio waves and your movies and your jukeboxes and your songbooks are already loaded down and running over with such no good songs as that anyhow.

? Woody Guthrie

Subject: RE: Obit: Tony Bennett (Benedetto) (1926-2023)
From: GUEST,Phil d'Conch
Date: 25 Jul 23 - 12:37 AM

The only stranger bedfellows than Tony Bennett and a Hank Williams song like Cold, Cold Heart was that big fat Percy Faith string section. Mitch Miller, the man behind the curtains pulling the levers. It's country music history for a fact. Don't know if Ken Burns ever got around to it though. Always fell asleep waiting.

off topic: The real Woody Guthrie's first paying sponsor was Peruna snake oil and The Consolidated Drug Co. on Mexican X-radio. Lead balloon &c.

Subject: RE: Obit: Tony Bennett (Benedetto) (1926-2023)
From: Sol
Date: 25 Jul 23 - 08:43 PM

American blues singer Big Bill Broonzy (1903-1958) explained in a 1953 performance (and probably earlier):

“Some people call these folk songs. All the songs I’ve heard in my life was folk songs. I never heard horses sing one of ‘em yet.”

A 1956 newspaper attributed the remark to American jazz musician Louis Armstrong (1901-1971):

“Louis Armstrong, who’ll star on an NBC spectacular this Monday, was asked what he thought of folk music. ‘Folk music?’ Satchmo repeated. ‘Why, daddy, I don’t know of no other kind of music—I never heard a horse sing a song!’”
--------------------------
Each to his own, I guess ;-)

Subject: RE: Obit: Tony Bennett (Benedetto) (1926-2023)
From: keberoxu
Date: 25 Jul 23 - 10:18 PM

The New York Times just this week published an article
detailing Tony Bennett's commitment to civil rights,
going back to his World War II service in Europe.
Perhaps Tony Bennett's keeping company with the likes of Harry Belafonte is sufficient to compensate for the fact
that he didn't sing the sort of music that Belafonte et al. sang.

Subject: RE: Obit: Tony Bennett (Benedetto) (1926-2023)
From: GUEST,RJM
Date: 26 Jul 23 - 04:13 AM

I am not keen on his style of singing. But he sounded like a decent person.

Subject: RE: Obit: Tony Bennett (Benedetto) (1926-2023)
From: gillymor
Date: 26 Jul 23 - 05:01 AM

Why did Bennett need to "compensate for the fact that he didn't sing the sort of music that Belafonte et al. sang."?

Subject: RE: Obit: Tony Bennett (Benedetto) (1926-2023)
From: GUEST,keberoxu
Date: 26 Jul 23 - 09:41 AM

Gillymor, I was responding to Steve Shaw's post.

Subject: RE: Obit: Tony Bennett (Benedetto) (1926-2023)
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 26 Jul 23 - 10:01 AM

From the New York Times obit at the top:

Anthony was their third child, their second son, and the first of any Benedetto to be born in a hospital. Giovanni, who sang Italian folk songs to his children — “My father inspired my love for music,” Mr. Bennett wrote in his autobiography — died when Anthony was 10.

Anthony sang from an early age, and drew and painted, too. He would become a creditable painter as an adult, mostly landscapes and still lifes in watercolors and oils and portraits of musicians he admired, signing his paintings “Benedetto.” His first music teacher arranged for him to sing alongside Mayor Fiorello La Guardia at the opening of the Triborough Bridge (now the Robert F. Kennedy Bridge) in 1936.

I'm interested in the Italian folk songs he grew up with. Is there more information about them?

Subject: RE: Obit: Tony Bennett (Benedetto) (1926-2023)
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 26 Jul 23 - 10:24 AM

Nothing I've said about the songs he chose to sing is intended to take away from the fact that he was a superb singer and an excellent human being, just to clear that up (again!).

Subject: RE: Obit: Tony Bennett (Benedetto) (1926-2023)
From: robomatic
Date: 26 Jul 23 - 07:04 PM

I've just been listening to Fresh Air

, and not only was Tony Bennett a great singer, he was a great interview. Much of what I listened to was dated to 1998, but I believe that Terry interviewed him more than once.