Singer-songwriter Tony Bennett, who had a brilliant musical career spanning eight decades and achieved fame with “I Left My Heart in San Francisco,” died Friday at age 96, according to his publicist, Sylvia Weiner.
Bennett was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s in 2016 but continued to perform and record until 2021. His last performance was in August 2021, when he appeared with Lady Gaga at New York’s Radio City Music Hall in a show titled One Last Time. Bennett and Gaga were a wonderful duet in recent years, recording two albums.
Who Was Tony Bennett?
Tony Bennett was one of the most famous and beloved singers in jazz and popular music. For many experts, he was the last great crooner of the 20th century and “the best singer in the business” for his friend Frank Sinatra, who admired the enthusiasm, technical quality, and emotional warmth of a successful artist to the end.
Among the many accolades he received were 20 Grammy Awards, and two Emmy Awards. The song “I Heard the Rain” was part of one of the duet albums with which his career shone again and which made him the oldest singer to reach number one in the U.S. charts, at the age of 85.
In 2006 he released an album with singers such as Paul McCartney, Elton John, and Bono, followed by a second installment in 2011, with collaborations with Amy Winehouse, Aretha Franklin, and Norah Jones. He broke his hit records again in 2014 with Tony Bennett and Lady Gaga: Cheek to Cheek. Already in the nineties Bennett rightly recognized that he was “living a second, blossoming musical youth” as his songs connected “with a generation raised on rock.”
The son of an Italian grocer, Anthony Dominick Benedetto was born on August 3, 1926, in the Astoria neighborhood of Queens, New York. He studied at the High School of Industrial Arts in Manhattan, where he discovered his two passions, music and painting. During his military service, he fought in World War II, where he began singing with army bands, and after the war, he studied vocal technique at the American Theatre Wing.
In 1946 he offered his first concert in a nightclub along with trombonist Tyree Glenn, but his big break came in 1949 when the still “Joe Bari” was discovered by comedian Bob Hope, who in addition to hiring him, gave him the stage name Tony Bennett. Soon after, he was signed by Columbia Records to begin a successful career.
In 1952 he became known with the single “Because of You,” which was followed by several albums, including Could 7 (1955) or Long Ago and Far Away (1958). From this moment on, he would publish close to a hundred albums, among them I Left My Heart in San Francisco (1962), which won two Grammy awards and catapulted him to glory.
In the 70s, his productions The Very Thought of You (1971), Sunrise, Sunset (1973), and Let’s Fall in Love with the Songs of Harold Arlen & CY Coleman (1975) stood out. After some years without publishing albums, he released The Art of Excellence (1986), followed by some of his latest works, such as Perfectly Frank (1992), The Playground (1998), A Wonderful World (2002), or A Swingin’ Christmas (2008).
Tony Bennett and His Love of Painting
Bennett was also a passionate painter, a career he developed in parallel to his music. He signed his work with his real name Anthony Benedetto. He exhibited his work in galleries in the United States, such as the Butler Institute of American Art, the National Arts Club in New York, the Smithsonian National Museum of American History, and the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery. In addition, he has two paintings exhibited at the United Nations.
In 1999 he created the Gallery “Benedetto Arts LLC,” and in 2001, he promoted the Frank Sinatra School of the Arts, which opened its doors as a high school and public school in Queens, New York. Committed to humanitarian issues, he raised millions of dollars for the Juvenile Diabetes Foundation and the American Cancer Society.
In 2005 he was awarded the Kennedy Center Honor at a gala attended by President George Bush Sr., and for his altruism, he received the 2007 United Nations Humanitarian Award and the Martin Luther King Award for his efforts to fight discrimination.
This story was written in Spanish by Miguel Fernández in Cultura Colectiva News
