Tony Bennet died yesterday in his New York at the age of 96, of which at least 80 passed on stage and the last seven under the effects of Alzheimer’s. He takes the undisputed title of last crooner, the respect of the fans after a hectic life and the merit of an unusual musical resurrection. “With the possible exception of his ex-wives, everyone, it seemed, loved Tony Bennett,” summed up the New York Times obituary yesterday.
“Tony Bennett is the best singer in the business,” Frank Sinatra certified in an interview with Life in 1965 (for Bennett, the famous phrase constituted “the greatest act of generosity that one artist has ever had with another”). And yet, personal ups and downs and errors in the musical direction called into question Bennett’s worth, to the point of seeming, like the cyclist Poulidor, the eternal second best. Unlike this one, however, the podiums came at a late age but they did come.
As if he didn’t already look like an elegant mobster straight out of Martin Scorsese’s movies, Anthony Dominick Benedetto was born on August 3, 1926 into an Italian family of humble origins who lived in the cosmopolitan – if not wealthy – neighborhood of Astoria, in the New York neighborhood of Queens. His father was a shopkeeper, humming all the time, but she died when Bennett was ten years old. His mother sewed at the factory and at home. Narrows, all
Like so many others, Bennett served his country in the final stretch of World War II, in Germany itself. He already sang, well enough to be in a unit that entertained the troops. In that room, a relevant event occurs: he was scolded and punished in the offices for showing up with a black comrade at Thanksgiving dinner. He was always a Democratic voter, opposed to segregation to the point that when asked by singer Harry Belafonte, he attended the historic march in Selma, Alabama, led by Martin Luther King, in 1965.
Fortune soon smiled on him. He was singing at a Greenwich Village club the night comedian Bob Hope, a celebrity, dropped out. His voice, his ease, his dealings with the public – an aspect in which he was one of the greatest and most cordial artists in the United States – pleased Hope so much that he promised him a contract at Columbia, as long as he changed his stage name –Joe Bari– to another. He wasn’t meant to entertain cruises in the Caribbean and they agreed to Tony Bennett.
Back in 1962, the definitive stroke of fortune arrived. He premiered a piece entitled I left my heart in San Francisco at the Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco, a bombshell. Such was the success that half of America was convinced that he had been born in the Californian city. The song brought her the first of 20 Grammy Awards of her career. She never got tired of singing it and when they asked her, she answered “does it tire of making love?”
He filled theaters, stepped on stages – his generation struggled like this, giving their voices and voices from here to there –, television sets. He dominated jazz, popular music, on a par with Sinatra or Bing Crosby. “His voice has such a quality that it lets you into it,” wrote a critic at the time.
The strength of rock displaced him, like so many others, and popularity waned. The Columbia record company persuaded him to sing the greatest hits of the moment –like Eleanor Rigby– in his own way. As always happens when an artist betrays himself, the fiasco was monumental and highlighted the feeling of being out of the game. Downhill, Bennett takes refuge in Las Vegas and Beverly Hills, where his second marriage is shipwrecked, the IRS is after him for a $2 million debt, and marijuana and cocaine abound. On one day in that period, the year 1979, Bennett is on the brink of death from an overdose. His eldest son, Danny, enters the scene, who takes him to the East Coast, puts order and reaffirms his style, his way of singing. There is a new generation, tastes vary and he begins to mingle with young musicians with whom he records duets or shares covers. The lion grows old but never stops being a carnivore. He has plenty of technique, voice and tables to stay behind.
“Tony Bennett has not only overcome the generational gap, he has destroyed it”, wrote the New York Times in 1994. Discover hits like Stranger in paradise or I wanna be around for young people Something like the resurgence of Raphael in Spain and his updating with My Big Night-style pieces Among the collaborations, those of Lady Gaga or Amy Winehouse stand out, which Bennett let shine, without vanity, which led them to tour the world together. He is the oldest Grammy winner and the last of a generation of singers who characterized the vitality, strength and style or way of life of the United States, whose world image would have been different without the crooners. Good job!
