tony bennett

NEW YORK, Sept. 17 /PRNewswire/ -- The Academy of Television Arts &
Sciences awarded "Target Presents 'Tony Bennett: An American Classic'"
three Primetime Emmy trophies on the 59th Primetime Emmy Awards program
last night (Sunday, September 16), originating from the Shrine Auditorium
in Los Angeles, bringing the special's total number of Emmy Awards up to
seven.
On September 8, the Academy awarded Tony's television special four
Creative Arts Primetime Emmy Awards.
With three Primetime Emmys and four Creative Arts Primetime Emmys,
"Tony Bennett: An American Classic" emerged with the greatest number of
wins of any television program at the 59th Annual Emmy Awards.
Tony Bennett made his first appearance on the 59th Primetime Emmy
Awards television broadcast performing one of his signature tunes,
"Steppin' Out," with Christina Aguilera. The performance was followed by an
Emmy being presented to director Rob Marshall for his work on "Tony
Bennett: An American Classic." Earlier this year, Marshall and "Tony
Bennett: An American Classic" took home the Directors Guild of America
Award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Musical Variety for 2006
at the 59th Annual DGA Awards ceremony.
Steve Carell presented the Emmy for Outstanding Variety, Music or
Comedy Special, to "Tony Bennett: An American Classic." Tony Bennett's son
Danny, one of the special's executive producers, said, "My original
intention was to create a show that would be a tremendous docu-musical to
really chronicle this man's tremendous legacy; also, a gift from me to him
on his eightieth birthday. But really, how it ended up, is it was a gift to
me from him and everyone who is part of this show."
After winning his Emmy for Outstanding Individual Performance in a
Variety or Music Program for "Tony Bennett: An American Classic," Tony
Bennett thanked Target, which presented the production, and his sons, Danny
and Dae, each of whom earned an Emmy for their work on the special.
A multiple Grammy Award winner, Tony Bennett won an Emmy Award in 1996
in the Outstanding Performance - Variety or Music Program category for his
groundbreaking special, "Tony Bennett Live By Request: A Valentine
Special."
Projects on board for Bennett later this month include:
- September 25th release of the Legacy Recordings CD, "TONY BENNETT
SINGS THE ULTIMATE AMERICAN SONGBOOK, Vol. 1" featuring 15 tracks
personally hand- picked by Tony as examples of the finest songs from the
Great American Songbook. A new edition of Tony's beloved "SNOWFALL" holiday
CD will also be released that day in a deluxe package featuring a bonus
DVD.
- September 25th release of Clint Eastwood's documentary on Tony as
Netflix rental and DVD purchase exclusively at Target.
- October 1st release of "TONY BENNETT IN THE STUDIO: A LIFE OF ART AND
MUSIC," a new art book of Tony's paintings, published by Sterling. This
beautifully produced book, showcasing more than 200 images of Bennett
artwork, includes a foreword by author Mitch Albom and a preface by former
New York State Governor Mario Cuomo.
Tony Bennett: An American Classic - 59th Annual Primetime Emmy Awards

Outstanding Directing For A Variety, Music Or Comedy Program
Rob Marshall - "Tony Bennett: An American Classic" (NBC)

Outstanding Variety, Music Or Comedy Special
"Tony Bennett: An American Classic" (NBC)

Danny Bennett, Executive Producer
Jodi Hurwitz, Producer
John DeLuca, Executive Producer
Rob Marshall, Executive Producer

Outstanding Individual Performance in a Variety of Music Program
Tony Bennett - "Tony Bennett: An American Classic" (NBC)

Tony Bennett: An American Classic - 59th Annual Creative Arts Primetime
Emmy Awards

Outstanding Costumes For A Variety/Music Program Or A Special
"Tony Bennett: An American Classic" (NBC)

Colleen Atwood, Costume Designer
Kendall Errair, Wardrobe Supervisor

Outstanding Art Direction For Variety, Music Or Nonfiction Programming
"Tony Bennett: An American Classic" (NBC)

John Myhre, Production Designer
Tomas Voth, Art Director
Barbara Cassel, Set Decorator

Outstanding Choreography
"Tony Bennett: An American Classic" (NBC)

Rob Marshall, Choreographer
John DeLuca, Choreographer

Outstanding Sound Mixing For A Variety Or Music Series Or Special
"Tony Bennett: An American Classic" (NBC)

Dae Bennett, Recorded & Mixed By
Sue Pelino, Re-Recording Mixer
Christopher Koch, Re-Recording Mixer
IN this day and age, the lyrics in many of Tony Bennett's songs could be considered a little cheesy, especially if they are sung by today's artistes. Just take Bennett's first big hit Because of You. A line such as "I only live for your love and your kiss" just doesn't fly, surely? However, this formula works wonderfully for a romantic such as Tony Bennett, simply because his voice projects honesty and warmth.

There are 39 wonderful hits in this album; among them The Good Life, Fly Me to the Moon, Blue Velvet, and a duet with k.d. lang entitled Keep the Faith, Baby. To cap it all is his signature hit I Left My Heart in San Francisco which won Grammy Awards for Record of the Year and Best Male Solo Vocal Performance back in 1962.


The 79-year-old Bennett, who is also a painter, is still going strong, performing to big crowds and releasing albums.


With more than 50 albums to his name, it is impossible to cram his "best" work in two CDs, but at the very least, this is a stunning career overview. Incidentally, this Tony Bennett record is part of Sony BMG's amazing Essential Series (Inspired by the Past, Here for the Future) which offers fantastic compilations at the bargain price of just RM29.90


Even with the generous helping of songs, I find myself wanting more. Maybe you should just take your cue from the great Frank Sinatra who said in an interview in 1965 that Bennett was the best in the business.


Anthony Benedetto was born in Astoria, Queens in New York City. His father was a grocer who had emigrated from Podàrgoni, a rural eastern district of the southern Italian city of Reggio Calabria, and his mother was a seamstress.

He grew up listening to Al Jolson, Eddie Cantor, Judy Garland and Bing Crosby as well as jazz artists such as Louis Armstrong, Jack Teagarden and Joe Venuti. An uncle was a tap dancer in vaudeville, giving him an early window into show business.

By age 10 the young Benedetto was already singing and performed at the opening of the Triborough Bridge. He attended New York's High School of Industrial Art where he studied music and painting (an interest he would always return to as an adult), but dropped out at age 16 to help support his family; his father had died when Tony was 10. He then set his sights on a professional singing career, performing as a singing waiter in several Queens Italian restaurants.


[edit] World War II and after

Astoria: Portrait of the ArtistThis was interrupted when Benedetto was drafted into the United States Army in 1944 during World War II. He served as a replacement infantryman in the 63rd Infantry Division in France and Germany, moving across France during the winter, then fighting on the front lines in March and April 1945 as the Germans were pushed back across the Rhine. Benedetto narrowly escaped death several times. He would later write, "Anybody who thinks that war is romantic obviously hasn't gone through one." At the war's conclusion he was involved in the liberation of a Nazi concentration camp near Landsberg.

Benedetto stayed in Germany as part of the occupying force, but was assigned to an informal Special Services band unit that would entertain nearby American forces. Later, some remarks he made against the Army's racial segregation policies led to his being demoted and reassigned to Graves Registration duties, leading to a further dislike of the military. [1] Subsequently, he sang with the Army military band under the stage name Joe Bari, and played with many musicians who would have post-war careers.

Upon his discharge from the Army and return to the States in 1946, he studied at the American Theater Wing on the GI Bill. He was taught the bel canto singing discipline, which would keep his voice in good shape for his entire career. He continued to perform wherever he could, including while waiting tables. He developed an unusual style of phrasing that involved imitating other musicians―such as Stan Getz's saxophone or Art Tatum's piano―as he sang, thus allowing him to improvise as he interpreted a song.

In 1949, Pearl Bailey spotted his talent and asked him to open for her in Greenwich Village. She had invited Bob Hope to the show. Hope decided to bring Bari on the road with him, but suggested he use his real name simplified to Tony Bennett. In 1950, Bennett cut a demo and was signed to Columbia Records by Mitch Miller.


[edit] First successes
Warned by Miller not to imitate Frank Sinatra (who was just then leaving Columbia), Bennett began his career as a crooner singing commercial pop tunes. His first big hit was "Because of You", a ballad produced by Miller with a lush orchestral arrangement from Percy Faith. It started out gaining popularity on jukeboxes, then reached #1 on the pop charts in 1951 and stayed there for 10 weeks, selling over a million copies. This was followed to the top later that year by a similarly-styled rendition of Hank Williams' "Cold, Cold Heart", which helped introduce Williams and country music in general to a wider, more national audience. The Miller and Faith tandem continued to work on all of Bennett's early hits. Bennett's recording of "Blue Velvet" was also very popular and attracted screaming teenage fans at concerts in the famed Paramount Theatre in New York (Bennett did 7 shows a day, starting at 10:30 a.m.) and elsewhere.


The Young Tony BennettIn 1952, Bennett married Ohio art student and jazz fan Patricia Beech, whom he had met the previous year after a nightclub performance in Cleveland. Two thousand female fans dressed in black gathered outside the ceremony at New York's St. Patrick's Cathedral in mock mourning. Bennett and Beech would have two sons, D'Andrea (Danny) and Daegal (Dae).

A third #1 came in 1953 with "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 Bennett began singing show tunes to make up for a New York newspaper strike; "Stranger in Paradise" from the Broadway show Kismet reached the top, as well as being a #1 hit in the United Kingdom and starting Bennett's career as an international artist.

Once the rock and roll era began in 1955, the dynamic of the music industry changed and it became harder for existing pop singers to do as well commercially. Nevertheless Bennett continued to enjoy success, placing 8 songs in the Billboard Top 40 during the latter part of the 1950s, with "In the Middle of an Island" reaching the highest at #9 in 1957.

In 1956, Bennett hosted the television variety show The Tony Bennett Show as a summer replacement for The Perry Como Show.


[edit] A growing artistry

Cloud 7 � 1955
Basie Swings, Bennett Sings � 1958In 1955, Bennett released his first long-playing album, Cloud 7, which showed Bennett's jazz leanings. (The album is billed as "Tony Bennett, featuring Chuck Wayne", the guitarist who served as Bennett's musical director from 1954-1957[1].)

In 1957, Ralph Sharon became Bennett's pianist and musical director. 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 result was the 1957 album The Beat of My Heart. It used well-known jazz musicians such as Herbie Mann and Nat Adderley, with a strong emphasis on percussion from the likes of Art Blakey, Jo Jones, Latin star Candido, and Chico Hamilton. The album was both popular and critically praised.

Bennett followed this by working with the Count Basie Orchestra, becoming the first male pop vocalist to sing with Basie's band. The albums Basie Swings, Bennett Sings (1958) and In Person! Tony Bennett/Count Basie and his Orchestra (1959) were the well-regarded fruits of this collaboration, with "Chicago" being one of the standout songs.

Bennett also built up the quality and reputation of his nightclub act; in this he was following the path of Sinatra and other top jazz and standards singers of this era. Bennett also appeared on television; he sang on the first night of both the Johnny Carson The Tonight Show and The Merv Griffin Show. In June 1962, Bennett staged a highly-promoted concert performance at Carnegie Hall, using a stellar lineup 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, and further cemented Bennett's reputation as a star both at home and abroad.


Tony Bennett's "heart", left in San Francisco
I Left My Heart in San Francisco 1962Also in 1962, Bennett released the song "I Left My Heart in San Francisco." Although this only reached #19 on the Billboard Hot 100, it spent close to a year on various other charts and increased Bennett's exposure. The album of the same title was a top 5 hit and both the single and album achieved gold record status. The song won Grammy Awards for Record of the Year and Best Male Solo Vocal Performance, and over the years 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.

Bennett's following album, I Wanna Be Around (1963) was also a top 5 success, with the title track and "The Good Life" each reaching the top 20 of the pop singles chart and the top 10 of the Adult Contemporary chart.

The next year brought The Beatles and the British Invasion, and with them still more musical and cultural attention to rock and less to pop, standards, and jazz. Over the next couple of years Bennett had minor hits with several albums and singles based on show tunes � his last top 40 single was the #34 "If I Ruled the World" from Pickwick in 1965 � but his commercial fortunes were clearly starting to decline. An attempt to break into acting with a role in the 1966 film The Oscar was not well received.

A firm believer in the American Civil Rights movement, Bennett participated in the 1965 Selma to Montgomery marches. [2] Years later he would continue this commitment by refusing to perform in apartheid South Africa.


[edit] Years of struggle
Sharon and Bennett parted ways in 1965. There was great pressure on singers such as Lena Horne and Barbra Streisand to record "contemporary" rock songs, and in this vein Columbia Records' Clive Davis suggested that Bennett do the same. Bennett was very reluctant, and when he tried, the results pleased no one. This was exemplified by Tony Sings the Great Hits of Today! (1969), which featured misguided attempts at Beatles and other current songs and a ludicrous psychedelic cover.[3]

Years later Bennett would recall his dismay at being asked to do contemporary material, comparing it to when his mother was forced to produce a cheap dress. By 1972, he had departed Columbia for MGM Records, but found no more success there, and in a couple more years he was without a recording contract.

Bennett and his wife Patricia had been separated since 1965, their marriage a victim of too much time on the road, among other factors. In 1971, their divorce became official. Bennett had been involved with aspiring actress Sandra Grant since filming The Oscar, and in 1972 they married. They would have two daughters, Joanna and Antonia Bennett.

Hoping to take matters into his own hand, Bennett started his own record company, Improv. He cut some songs that would later become favorites, such as "What is This Thing Called Love?", and made two well-regarded albums with jazz pianist Bill Evans, The Tony Bennett/Bill Evans Album (1975) and Together Again (1976), but by 1977 Improv was out of business. A stint of living in England, like other American jazz expatriates, did not change his fortunes.

As the decade neared its end, Bennett had no recording contract, no manager, and was not performing any concerts outside of Las Vegas. His second marriage was failing (they would divorce in 1980). He had (like many musicians) developed a drug addiction, was living beyond his means, and had the Internal Revenue Service trying to seize his Los Angeles home. He had hit bottom.


[edit] Turnaround
After a near-fatal cocaine overdose in 1979, Bennett called his sons Danny and Dae for help. "Look, I'm lost here," he told them. "It seems like people don't want to hear the music I make."

Danny Bennett, an aspiring musician himself, also came to a realization. The band Danny and his brother had started, Quacky Duck and His Barnyard Friends, had foundered and Danny's musical abilities were limited. However he had discovered during this time, that he did have a head for business. His father, on the other hand, had tremendous musical talent but was having trouble sustaining a career from it. Danny signed on as his father's manager.

Danny got his father's expenses under control, moved him back to New York, and began booking him in colleges and small theatres to get him away from a "Vegas" image. Tony Bennett had also reunited with Ralph Sharon as his pianist and musical director. By 1986, Tony Bennett was re-signed to Columbia Records, this time with creative control, and released The Art of Excellence. This became his first album to reach the charts since 1972.


[edit] An unexpected audience
By the mid-1980s, the excesses of the disco, punk rock, and new wave eras had given many artists and listeners a greater appreciation for the classic American song. Rock stars such as Linda Ronstadt began recording albums of standards, and such songs began showing up more frequently in movie soundtracks and on television commercials.

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 to book his father on shows with younger audiences, such as David Letterman's talk shows, Late Night with Conan O'Brien, The Simpsons, and various MTV programs. 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."

During this time, 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.


Unplugged was the 1995 Grammy Album of the YearAs Bennett was seen at MTV Video Music Awards shows side by side with the likes of the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Flavor Flav, and as his "Steppin' Out With My Baby" video received MTV airplay, it was clear that, as The New York Times said, "Tony Bennett has not just bridged the generation gap, he has demolished it. He has solidly connected with a younger crowd weaned on rock. And there have been no compromises."

The new audience reached its height with Bennett's appearance in 1994 on MTV Unplugged. Featuring guest appearances by rock and country stars Elvis Costello and k.d. lang (both of whom had a profound respect for the standards genre), the show attracted a considerable audience and much media attention. The resulting MTV Unplugged: Tony Bennett album went platinum and, besides taking the Best Traditional Pop Vocal Performance Grammy award for the third straight year, also won the top Grammy prize of Album of the Year. At age 68, Tony Bennett had come all the way back.


[edit] No retirement

Hot and Cool � Bennett Sings Ellington 1999Since then Bennett has continued to record and tour steadily. In concert Bennett often makes a point of singing one song (usually "Fly Me to the Moon") without any microphone or amplification, demonstrating to younger audience members the lost art of vocal projection. One show, Tony Bennett's Wonderful World: Live From San Francisco, was made into a PBS special. Bennett also created the idea behind, and starred in the first, of the A&E Network's Live By Request series, for which he won an Emmy Award.

A series of albums, often based on themes (Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, Billie Holiday, blues, duets) have 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. According to his official biography, Bennett has now sold over 50 million records worldwide during his career.

In addition to numerous television guest performances, Bennett has had cameo appearances as himself in films such as The Scout, Analyze This, and Bruce Almighty.


Benedetto Gondola, VeniceTony Bennett's career as a painter has also flourished. He followed up his childhood interest with serious training, work, and museum visits throughout his life. He sketches or paints every day, even of views out of hotel windows when he is on tour. Painting under his real name of Benedetto, he has exhibited his work in numerous galleries and has been commissioned by the Kentucky Derby and the United Nations. His painting "Homage to Hockney" (for his friend David Hockney) is on permanent display at the highly regarded Butler Institute of American Art in Youngstown, Ohio as is his "Boy on Sailboat, Sydney Bay" at the National Arts Club in Gramercy Park in New York. His paintings have been featured in ARTnews and other magazines. Many of his works were published in the art book Tony Bennett: What My Heart Has Seen in 1996.

Bennett also published The Good Life: The Autobiography of Tony Bennett in 1998.

For his contribution to the recording industry, Tony Bennett has 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.

He was awarded the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2001.

Bennett 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."

Bennett frequently donates his time to charitable causes, to the extent that he is sometimes nicknamed "Tony Benefit." 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.[2]


Tony Bennett performing at the Kimmel Center, Philadelphia, September 2005.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) the Frank Sinatra School of the Arts in Queens, a public high school dedicated to teaching the performing arts, which opened in 2001. 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."
Danny Bennett continues to be Tony's manager while Dae Bennett is a recording engineer who has worked on a number of Tony's projects and who has opened Bennett Studios in Englewood, New Jersey. Tony's younger daughter Antonia is an aspiring jazz singer.

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 August 2006, Bennett turned eighty years old. The birthday itself was an occasion for publicity, which then extended through the rest of the following year, as his album Duets: An American Classic was released, sold very well, and garnered two Grammy Awards; concerts were given, including a high-profile one for New York radio station WLTW-FM; a performance made with Christina Aguilera and a comedy sketch made with Alec Baldwin on Saturday Night Live; a Thanksgiving-time, Rob Marshall-directed television special Tony Bennett: An American Classic on NBC, which would win multiple Emmy Awards; receipt of the Billboard Century Award; and guest-mentoring on American Idol season 6 and performing during its finale. He received the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees' Humanitarian Award. On June 21, 2007, Bennett married long-time partner Susan Crow in a civil ceremony in New York.[3]