Free Republic

Tony Bennett, the legendary pop, jazz, and big-band vocalist, has died. He was 96. Publicist Sylvia Weiner confirmed Bennett’s death to the Associated Press, saying he passed away in his hometown of New York. His cause of death — just two weeks shy of his 97th birthday — has not yet been announced. “I come from good Italian stock — but I’ve tried to stay fit through the years,” Bennett told me nearly 20 years ago. At the time he was a spry 72, meeting and greeting concertgoers with swagger before a benefit performance in the blazing hot Sonoran Desert...

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...

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.