Posted on 07/21/2023 6:38:36 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Tony Bennett, the master pop vocalist who had a professional career spanning eight decades with a No. 1 album at age 85, died on Friday morning in New York City. He was 96.
Bennett was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease in 2016, but had continued to perform and record through 2021.
His peer Frank Sinatra called him the greatest popular singer in the world. His recordings – most of them made for Columbia Records, which signed him in 1950 – were characterized by ebullience, immense warmth, vocal clarity and emotional openness. A gifted and technically accomplished interpreter of the Great American Songbook, he may be best known for his signature 1962 hit “I Left My Heart in San Francisco.”
He was equally at home in front of intimate combos (which often featured his pianist and longtime musical director Ralph Sharon) and lushly arranged orchestras. Though never strictly a jazz singer, he flourished in jazz settings, and cut memorable sessions with Count Basie’s big band and the lyrical pianist Bill Evans.
Active as a recording artist from 1949, and one of the top pop performers in the ‘50s and early ‘60s, Bennett saw his career surge anew in the ‘90s and again in the new millennium, under the management of his son Danny.
In later years, he memorably dueted on the standard “Body and Soul” with Amy Winehouse, and released a full-length duet album with Diana Krall and a pair of recordings with Lady Gaga. Even after the revelation in early 2021 that he had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, he remained active.
(Excerpt) Read more at msn.com ...
Loved all the duets he’s sung over the years with everyone from Tim McGraw to Lady Gaga.
He had an amazing career.
As late as age 89, his records were still topping the charts!
His last public appearance came with Lady Gaga at Radio City Music Hall in August 2021, two months before his last release, the Bennett-Gaga set “Love for Sale,” the sequel to their chart-topping 2014 collaboration “Cheek to Cheek.”
Getting praise from Frank Sinatra...that’s really saying something.
Wow 96.
Too bad San Francisco didn’t age as well
I may be wrong but wasn’t he a real POS leftists?
I know he voted for both Clinton’s and hated everything Trump!
You are correct. But as it seems here, if you entertain, you get a pass.
I lost interest in him when he said the ‘...US deserved what happened to us on 9/11’.
Wow- what a despicable comment for him to make- he spit in the faces of all those who lost loved ones on 9/11 and basically said they deserved to lose thier loved ones. You can’t get much lower than that. It was a hateful hateful thing for him to say
Since so man in the entertainment business are liberal, if we use being conservative of some sort of litmus test as to whether we like certain entertainers , there would be Mighty few that people on Free Republic could say that they like.
There are regularly threads on Free Republic where people talk about having gone to rock and roll concerts, for example. How many of those rock singers which Freepers say they enjoy are conservatives?
Somewhere, in a box in a closet, I have a 60 year old copy of his album “I Left My Heart in San Francisco.” It belonged to my Mom and was worn out a long time ago.. RIP Tony Bennett.
Caught his show in a nightclub on Miami Beach back in ‘63 or ‘64 right after he hit it big with “I Left My Heart in San Francisco”.
Again?
Pretty sure he died years ago.
What can I say? I’m guilty of it too. But long gone are the days where I worship some human performer or athlete. Do these performers rescue people from the brink of death? Convert a lost soul? Advance the Kingdom? Perspective.
The new version is “I Left My Deuce In San Francisco”
Precisely. Even so called country singers are leftists. Willy the big one. Even Dolly
My favorite rocker since I was a teen is Motor City Mad Man Ted Nugent!
Yep .. Real Conservative!
Which of them praised the Muslim killings of 3,000 Americans?🤨
Found him unlistenable after he proclaimed his anti-Americanism.
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