Tony Bennett, the last of a lineage of great American crooners whose never-ending good cheer spanned generations to make him a hitmaker for seven decades, died Friday in New York. He was 96.
Bennett, who grew up in an era when big bands controlled US pop music, had an unlikely second act when he began winning over youthful audiences in the 1990s – not by reinventing himself, but by expressing his genuine joy in belting out the standards.
Bennett became the oldest person to reach number one on the US album chart in 2014, at the age of 88, with a collection of duets with Lady Gaga, who became his buddy and travelling partner as newer stars hurried to work with the singing great.
Bennett, who revealed in 2016 that he had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease, died in his hometown, his publicist Sylvia Weiner announced, without revealing a cause.
He was “still singing the other day at his piano,” said a message on his official Twitter account.
Tributes quickly poured in from the music, political and acting worlds.
“Without doubt the classiest singer, man and performer you will ever see. He’s irreplaceable. I loved and adored him,” Elton John wrote on Instagram.
“For more than 70 years, Tony Bennett didn’t just sing the classics — he himself was an American classic,” President Joe Biden said in a statement, offering his and his wife Jill Biden’s condolences to loved ones and fans of the “timeless artist” who brought “joy.”
Bennett has been compared to Frank Sinatra since the beginning of his career, and while he first tried to distinguish himself, he eventually followed much of the same path as earlier crooners, singing in nightclubs, on television, and in movies.
His attempts to act, however, were short-lived. His theatrical presence proved to be his gift.He sang with vigor and a silky vibrato in a powerful, properly enunciated voice, wearing a friendly smile and a stylish suit.
Starting with his recording of the film song “Because of You” in 1951, Bennett sang dozens of hits including “Rags to Riches,” “Stranger in Paradise” and, what became his signature tune, “I Left My Heart in San Francisco,” which landed him two of his 19 Grammy Awards.
But the British Invasion led by The Beatles initially took a toll on the singer, whose music suddenly sounded quaint and antiquated. He nearly died of a cocaine overdose in 1979 before sobering up and reviving his career.
“When rap came along, or disco, whatever the new fashion was at the moment, I didn’t try to find something that would fit whatever the style was of the whole music scene,” Bennett told the British culture magazine Clash.
“I just stayed myself and sang sincerely and tried to just stay honest with myself… and luckily it just paid off.”
Singing as hardscrabble youth
Tony Bennett, whose stage name was inspired by entertainment A-lister Bob Hope, was born Anthony Dominick Benedetto in the Queens borough of New York. His father was a struggling grocer from southern Italy who came to the United States.
Bennett demonstrated early promise as an entertainer, singing with renowned New York mayor Fiorello LaGuardia during a ceremony at the age of nine.
However, his father’s death at the age of ten, while the United States was still fighting to recover from the Great Depression, caused him to drop out of school and work odd jobs such as singing in Italian restaurants and caricature drawing, which he continued to do for the remainder of his life.
During WWII, Bennett served in France and Germany. However, he was punished after yelling at a Southern officer who objected to Bennett sitting with an African American companion in the army’s segregated dining hall.
Bennett’s punishment was to spend his term of duty digging up bodies. Bennett gained an unexpected break into music after the Allied triumph while waiting with fellow troops in Wiesbaden, Germany to return home.
With the city’s opera house still standing, a US Army band put on a weekly entertainment that was aired on military radio throughout Germany.
Taken on as the band’s librarian, Bennett quickly impressed with his voice and was made one of four vocalists.
“I could sing whatever I wanted, and there was no one around to tell me any different,” Bennett later wrote in his autobiography, “The Good Life.”
When he returned to the United States, he enrolled in official singing classes under the GI Bill, which provided educational assistance to returning troops.
Bennett’s experiences shaped him into a lifelong liberal and pacifist. He became outraged in the 1950s when he performed in Miami alongside jazz pioneer Duke Ellington, who was denied entry to a press party owing to hotel discrimination.
In a bold move for a popular musician at the time, he accepted singer Harry Belafonte’s invitation to join civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr in the 1965 march from Selma, Alabama to support equal voting rights for African Americans.
“Thank you for your commitment to love, civil rights, and a better world,” King’s daughter Bernice wrote Friday on Twitter.
Late in life, still cool
Bennett was married three times and had four children, one of which is Antonia Bennett, a singer of pop and jazz classics who has followed in his footsteps.
Bennett started featured in music videos and singing warm-ups for alternative rock legends such as Smashing Pumpkins by the early 1990s.
After a decade, he recorded three successful duet albums. On one of them, he sang with Amy Winehouse in her final recording before her death at the age of 27 in 2011.
He celebrated his 90th birthday with a star-studded concert at Radio City Music Hall in New York, which was later turned into a television special and album.
Bennett traveled the United States and Europe into his final decade, performing in New Jersey on March 11, 2020, before the coronavirus epidemic prevented traveling.
He soon stated that he had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease in 2016. He had kept his illness hidden for years.
Bennett returned to Radio City Music Hall for two additional birthday gigs with Lady Gaga, billed as his farewell to New York.
“And let the music play as long as there’s a song to sing / And I will stay younger than spring,” he crooned during the first of his farewell shows, in a rendition of his ballad “This Is All I Ask.”
“You’ve been a good audience,” Bennett said prior to his encore. “I love this audience.”