1951–1959: First successes , during the 1950s Warned by Miller not to imitate
Frank Sinatra (who was just then leaving Columbia), Bennett began his career as a
crooner of
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 began gaining popularity on
jukeboxes, then reached number one on the pop charts in 1951 and stayed there for ten weeks, selling over a million copies. The Miller and Faith team 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 at the famed
Paramount Theater in New York (where Bennett did seven shows a day, starting at 10:30 am) and elsewhere. A third number-one 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. "Stranger in Paradise" was also a number-one hit in the United Kingdom a year and a half later. Once the
rock and roll era began in 1955, the dynamic of the music industry changed and it became harder and harder for existing pop singers to do well commercially. For a month in August–September 1956, Bennett hosted an
NBC Saturday night television variety show,
The Tony Bennett Show, as a summer replacement for
The Perry Como Show.
Patti Page and
Julius La Rosa had in turn hosted the two previous months, and they all shared the same singers, dancers, and orchestra.
1954–1965: A growing artistry In 1954, the guitarist
Chuck Wayne became Bennett's musical director. Bennett released his first long-playing album in 1955,
Cloud 7. The album was billed as
featuring Wayne and showed Bennett's leanings towards jazz. In 1957,
Ralph Sharon became Bennett's pianist, arranger, and musical director, replacing Wayne. Sharon told Bennett that a career singing "sweet saccharine songs like 'Blue Velvet'" would not last long, and encouraged Bennett to focus even more on his jazz inclinations. Bennett followed this by working with the
Count Basie Orchestra, becoming the first male pop vocalist to sing with
Count Basie's band. 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 like Garland's, the concert was recorded for posterity, further cementing Bennett's reputation as a star both at home and abroad. Also in 1962, Bennett released his recording of "
I Left My Heart in San Francisco", a decade-old but little-known song originally written for an opera singer. 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 number 34 "
If I Ruled the World" from the musical
Pickwick in 1965, A firm believer in the
Civil Rights Movement, He performed in the "Stars for Freedom" rally the night before Martin Luther King's "
How Long, Not Long" speech. At the conclusion of the march, Bennett was driven to the airport by
Viola Liuzzo, a mother of five from Detroit, who was murdered later that day by the Ku Klux Klan. 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 the
Verve division of MGM Records (
Philips in the UK) and relocated for a stint in London, where he hosted a television show from the
Talk of the Town nightclub in conjunction with
Thames Television,
Tony Bennett at the Talk of the Town. With his new label, he tried a variety of approaches, including some more Beatles material, but found no renewed commercial success, and in a couple more years he was without a recording contract. Taking matters into his own hands, Bennett started his own record company, Improv. but Improv lacked a distribution arrangement with a major label and by 1977, it was out of business. Danny got his father's expenses under control, moved him back to New York City, and began booking him in colleges and small theaters to get him away from a "Vegas" image. 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.
1990–2006: Established career Danny Bennett felt that younger audiences who were unfamiliar with his father would respond to his music if given a chance. No changes to Tony's formal appearance, singing style, musical accompaniment (The Ralph Sharon Trio or an orchestra), or song choice (generally the
Great American Songbook) were necessary or desirable. The new audience reached its height with Bennett's appearance in 1994 on
MTV Unplugged. One show, ''Tony Bennett's Wonderful World: Live From San Francisco'', was made into a
PBS special. He conceptualized and starred in the first episode of the
A&E Network's popular
Live by Request series, for which he won an
Emmy Award. In 1998, Bennett performed on the final day of a mud-soaked
Glastonbury Festival in an immaculate suit and tie, his whole set on this occasion consisting of songs about the weather. His autobiography
The Good Life was also first published in 1998. A series of albums, often based on themes (such as
Duke Ellington,
Louis Armstrong,
Billie Holiday,
blues, or duets), met with largely positive reviews. Bennett was inducted into the Big Band and Jazz Hall of Fame in 1997, was awarded the
Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2001, and received a lifetime achievement award from the
American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) in 2002. In 2002,
Q magazine named Bennett in its list of the "50 Bands To See Before You Die". On December 4, 2005, Bennett was the recipient of a
Kennedy Center Honor. The following year, Bennett was inducted into the
Long Island Music Hall of Fame. Bennett frequently donated his time to charitable causes, to the extent that he was 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 City's
Apollo Theater. He also recorded
public service announcements for
Civitan International. Danny Bennett continued to be Tony's manager while Dae Bennett is a
recording engineer who worked on a number of Tony's projects and who opened Bennett Studios in
Englewood, New Jersey in 2001, now shuttered due to the downturn of major label budgets combined with skyrocketing overhead. Tony's younger daughter Antonia is an aspiring jazz singer who opened shows for her father. In 2009, Bennett performed at the conclusion of the final
Macworld Conference & Expo for
Apple Inc., singing "The Best Is Yet to Come" and "I Left My Heart In San Francisco" to a standing ovation, and later making his
Jazz Fest debut in
New Orleans. In February 2010, Bennett was one of over 70 artists who sang on "
We Are the World 25 for Haiti", a
charity single in aid of the
2010 Haiti earthquake. In October, he performed "
I Left My Heart in San Francisco" at
AT&T Park before the third inning of
Game 1 of the 2010 World Series and sang "
God Bless America" during the
seventh-inning stretch. Days later he sang "
America the Beautiful" at the
Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear in Washington, D.C., which he reprised ten years later in a segment on
The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. In September 2011, Bennett appeared on
The Howard Stern Show and named American military actions in the Middle East as the root cause of the
September 11 attacks. Bennett also claimed that former President
George W. Bush personally told him at the Kennedy Center in December 2005 that he felt he had made a mistake
invading Iraq, to which a Bush spokesperson replied, "This account is flatly wrong." Following bad press resulting from his remarks, Bennett clarified his position, writing: "There is simply no excuse for terrorism and the murder of the nearly 3,000 innocent victims of the 9/11 attacks on our country. My life experiences, ranging from the
Battle of the Bulge to marching with
Martin Luther King, made me a life-long humanist and pacifist, and reinforced my belief that violence begets violence and that war is the lowest form of human behavior." In September 2011, Bennett released
Duets II, a follow-up to his first collaboration album, in conjunction with his 85th birthday. He sang duets with seventeen prominent singers of varying techniques, including
Aretha Franklin,
Willie Nelson,
Queen Latifah, and
Lady Gaga. Bennett appeared on the season 2 premiere of the television procedural
Blue Bloods performing "It Had To Be You" with
Carrie Underwood. His duet with
Amy Winehouse on "
Body and Soul"—reportedly the last recording she made before her death—charted on the lower reaches of the
Billboard Hot 100, making Bennett the oldest living artist to appear there, as well as the artist with the greatest span of appearances. The single did well in Europe, where it reached the top 15 in several countries. The album then debuted at number one on the
Billboard 200, making Bennett the oldest living artist to reach that top spot, as well as marking the first time he had reached it himself. A model of
Koss headphones, the Tony Bennett Signature Edition (TBSE1), was created for this milestone (Bennett having been one of the early adopters of the Koss product back in the 1960s). In November 2011, Columbia released
Tony Bennett – The Complete Collection, a 73-CD plus 3-DVD set, which although not absolutely "complete", finally brought forth many albums that had not had a previous CD release, as well as some unreleased material and rarities. In December 2011, Bennett appeared at the
Royal Variety Performance in
Salford in the presence of
Princess Anne. In the wake of the premature deaths of Winehouse and
Whitney Houston, Bennett called for the
legalization of drugs in February 2012. In October 2012, Bennett released
Viva Duets, an album of
Latin American music duets, featuring
Vicente Fernández,
Juan Luis Guerra, and
Vicentico among others. The recording and filming for the project, in
Fort Lauderdale, was co-sponsored by the city. On October 31, 2012, Bennett performed "I Left My Heart in San Francisco" in front of more than 100,000 fans at a City Hall ceremony commemorating the
2012 World Series victory by the
San Francisco Giants. He published another memoir,
Life is a Gift: The Zen of Bennett, and a documentary film produced by his son Danny was released, also titled
The Zen of Bennett. In September 2014, Bennett performed for the first time in Israel, with his jazz quartet at the
Charles Bronfman Auditorium in
Tel Aviv, receiving a standing ovation. He also made a surprise cameo appearance on stage with Lady Gaga at
Yarkon Park, Tel Aviv, the previous evening. The performance took place days before the release that month of the two stars' much-delayed collaborative effort and resultant Grammy-winning album,
Cheek to Cheek, which debuted at number one on the
Billboard charts, extending the 88-year-old Bennett's record for the oldest artist to do so, It also earned him the
Guinness World Records for "oldest person to reach No.1 on the US Album Chart with a newly recorded album", at the age of 88 years and 69 days. In October 2014, Bennett and Lady Gaga released the concert special
Tony Bennett and Lady Gaga: Cheek to Cheek Live!, and at the end of the year, they kicked off their co-headlining
Cheek to Cheek Tour. The pair also appeared in a
Barnes & Noble commercial. On September 25, 2015, he released an album of songs composed by
Jerome Kern, featuring
Bill Charlap on piano, called
The Silver Lining: The Songs of Jerome Kern. On November 1, 2015, Bennett, joined by the choir from the Frank Sinatra School, sang "America the Beautiful" before Game 5 of the baseball
World Series between the
Kansas City Royals and
New York Mets at
Citi Field. On August 19, 2016, shortly after his 90th birthday, Bennett was honored by the unveiling of an 8-foot tall statue in his likeness in front of the
Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco. With Senator
Dianne Feinstein, House Minority Leader
Nancy Pelosi, and several San Francisco mayors in attendance, Bennett was serenaded by a young-adult choir singing "I Left My Heart in San Francisco". Bennett had first sung the song at the hotel in 1961. That same year, he performed at the
Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade on November 24 and the
Rockefeller Center tree lighting on November 30. On December 20, 2016, NBC televised a special concert in honor of his 90th birthday, called
Tony Bennett Celebrates 90: The Best Is Yet to Come. In September 2018, Bennett re-recorded the
George Gershwin song "
Fascinating Rhythm", after 68 years and 342 days, according to the
Guinness World Records adjudicator, earning the title of "longest time between the release of an original recording and a re-recording of the same single by the same artist". The song appeared on the collaborative album
Love Is Here to Stay with
Diana Krall that was released on September 14. on their co-headlining
Cheek to Cheek Tour (2015). Their second collaborative album,
Love for Sale (2021), was his final record. Bennett's final album,
Love for Sale, another collaborative record with Lady Gaga, was released on September 30, 2021. The record received generally favorable reviews, and debuted at number eight in the United States.
Alexis Petridis called Bennett's performance on the album "pretty remarkable" despite the singer's age and health condition in his review for
The Guardian. Bennett broke the individual record for the longest span of top-10 albums on the
Billboard 200 chart for any living artist; his first top-10 record was
I Left My Heart in San Francisco in 1962. Bennett also broke the Guinness World Record for the oldest person to release an album of new material, at the age of 95 years and 60 days until being surpassed by
saxophonist Marshall Allen at age 100 on February 14, 2025. Bennett's final live performances were on August 3 and 5, 2021, when he presented a pair of shows with Lady Gaga at
Radio City Music Hall. On August 12, 2021, nine days after his 95th birthday, Bennett's retirement from concerts was announced by his son and manager Danny Bennett. Danny stated that though his father remained a capable singer, he was becoming physically frail and risked a major fall if he continued touring. A television special,
One Last Time: An Evening with Tony Bennett and Lady Gaga debuted on November 28, 2021, on
CBS, which contained select performances from the two final concerts. Bennett's last televised performance was also with Gaga on December 16, 2021, on
MTV Unplugged. The special was filmed the previous July in front of an intimate studio audience in New York City, and included duets from
Love for Sale. Despite his retirement, as of early 2022, Bennett still continued to rehearse with his music director three times a week, Danny Bennett said in an interview. ==Artistry==