by Tony Bennett
Danny assured me that if we gave the young public an opportunity to get to know me, I’d once again be accepted by that audience, so he urged me to focus my efforts on youth-oriented events. Danny proved to be the ace manager I was looking for.
In May 1981, I made my first major appearance in New York since Bill Evans and I had played Carnegie Hall in 1976. I always had the philosophy that it’s best to make it an event every time I hit New York. I came up with an idea I called “Tony Takes Manhattan.” I played three hip New York clubs in the same week—the Village Vanguard, the famous jazz basement The Bottom Line, and the supper club Marty’s. The week culminated in a grand concert at Carnegie Hall and I donated all the proceeds to the Police Athletic League of New York.
At the same time I gave an exhibition of my artwork at Tavern on the Green, which got write-ups in the Daily News, the New York Post, Newsday, The Village Voice, and The New York Times, New York magazine did a feature story on me. The whole week was a huge success.
Even with no new records being released during these years, I was as busy as ever on television. In 1982 Count Basie and I did a ninety-minute special for PBS called Bennett and Basie Together! It was taped in Boston and featured a set of piano and voice with keyboardist Dave McKenna. Between Basie and Dave there certainly was an abundance of great jazz piano that night.
I had been doing the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson ever since it went on the air. I knew I could count on that. Johnny was always wonderful to me, and his shows kept me popular in America over the years. But now the hip talk show for college kids came on after Carson, and was hosted by the newcomer David Letterman. Naturally, I still did Carson every year. But Danny thought I should do the Letterman show as well.
Danny and I began looking for situations in which I could appear before a younger audience because I was positive they would embrace the music I’d sung all my life. Danny also booked me on the Canadian sketch comedy show SCTV, a precursor to Saturday Night Live, where I worked with up-and-coming comedians like Rick Moranis, John Candy and Catherine O’Hara. Next he turned me on to an animated show that was just starting up on Fox called the Simpsons, They approached me to do a song called “Capitol City” for the show. I’d never had a chance to see it, but Danny assured me the show would be a huge success. He went back to them and said I’d do it if they’d make me an animated character on the show. They agreed, and I became the first in a long line of animated special guests.
I was working all over the country doing more than two hundred shows a year all through the 1980s. I was no longer hampered by crises in my personal life or by struggles with the record company, and this left me with the time to carefully plan each step of my career. And things were beginning to pay off.
Bob Guccione, Jr., was the owner and editor of Spin, a new magazine that catered to the “alternative” college crowd. Danny told me he had read an interview with Guccione in which he was asked, “What do you think is the essence of rock and roll?” Guccione answered, “James Brown and Tony Bennett, because they’re the essence of cool and that’s what It’s about.” That really knocked me out. I had Danny call and thank him for what he’d said, and Bob decided he would do a feature on me.
I wanted to get back to recording as soon as I could. I was encouraged by the fact that a number of young singers like Natalie Cole and Linda Ronstadt had recorded albums of great American standards and the public was buying them.
I was talking to Columbia, although I have to confess that I was wary. But I had friends there now. Bruce Lundvall, whom I’d known since the sixties, was president of the label. A producer named Ettore Stratta told Danny that Mickey Eischner, head of A&R, was interested in doing a new album with me. He wanted me back on the label, but he couldn’t convince his bosses that they should invest money in me. Ettore had an investor who was willing to back the album, so in 1985 he and Danny worked out an agreement that Ettore would produce one of my records. Fourteen years after leaving the label, I was reunited with Columbia Records.
Both my old and new records were affected by the introduction of the compact disc. CDs were officially unveiled in Japan by CBS/Sony in 1982, and by 1985 they had really started to take off. It was obvious that every new record would have to be on CD, and that turned out to be a boon for someone like me with a large catalogue. Consumers were replacing their entire vinyl collections with CDs. I decided to make a record featuring state-of-the-art technology the best in digital equipment that was then available. In addition to making a great recording, it also brought the project to the attention of the high-tech enthusiasts.
My new record would be called The Art of Excellence, referring not only to the songs, but also to my demand for quality. From that day forward people would expect nothing less from Tony Bennett. I dedicated the album to the beloved Mabel Mercer.
Annie Leibovitz shot the album cover. She was a hot photographer for Rolling Stone, and it turned out she was also a fan, and she was thrilled to do the shoot. She took a great outdoor picture of me with the World Trade Center looming in the distance.
I included a song on that album called “How Do You Keep the Music Playing” by Alan and Marilyn Bergman, which I had first heard Sinatra sing. One night I went to see Frank perform at the Universal Amphitheater in Los Angeles, I had no idea he knew I was there, but right after he finished singing the song, he said to me, in full view of thousands of people, “Tony! You should sing this song!” How could I refuse? Ettore brought in orchestrator Jorge Calandrelli to do all the charts.
Another special song on The Art of Excellence was “Everybody Has the Blues,” by James Taylor, on which I sang a duet with the genius Ray Charles. It was the first time we’d ever performed together.
I proved my worth to Columbia when The Art of Excellence was released in 1986. There was a genuine media blitz surrounding the release of the album that prompted my first concert at Radio City Music Hall, which launched the “Art of Excellence Tour.” A special bonus that year was when WBCN radio in Boston became the first rock station to spin my new record, all because of the enthusiasm of their promotions director, Chachi Loprete. I sold 150,000 records, showing Columbia that it could indeed be done if you did it right. It really made them prick up their ears.
Along with my career straightening out, my personal life took a major change for the better. I guess because I’ve been a perpetual optimist all my life, forging ahead and willing myself to gravitate to the good things, the negativity started to evaporate. It was a lucky day for me when I became acquainted with a beautiful lady Susan Crow. She’s happy, thoughtful, truthful, intelligent, and she comes from a terrific family She’s helped me balance my life, think straight, and become a healthy person. She has a special way about her that I’ve never found in anyone else. For ten years I’ve spent all my time with her and every day feels like the day I first met her. Last year she graduated from Columbia University, and she now teaches Social Studies at the La Guardia School of Music and the Performing Arts.
We continued to build on the excitement generated by The Art of Excellence. Each new album I made attracted more attention than the last; Bennett/Berlin in 1987, my tribute to the songs of the composer Irving Berlin, and in 1990 my salute to my hometown, Astoria: Portrait of the Artist, Danny had a, striking idea for that cover: the front showed an original photograph of me at the age of sixteen in front of the my house in Astoria, and on the hack I was standing in the exact same spot fifty years later.
The standout song on Astoria was the first cut, Charles DeForrest’s “When Do the Bells Ring for Me?” He was part of a wonderful clique of singers and pianists that dominated the piano bars of the Upper East Side. I’d met Charles about two and a half years before I recorded Astoria when I was in a restaurant and heard him sing this wonderful song. I knew then I had to do it. Charles was writing about the longing for love, but it was also about the yearning to make something of one’s life. It really nailed the way I felt.
Charles wrote two other s
ongs on the album, “Where Do You Go From Love,” and “I’ve Come Home Again.” I was happy that, during the last few years of his life, Charles got a little notoriety from my recording his songs, and I always encourage other singers to listen to his work.
My popularity grew stronger and stronger with each new record. For the first time in my career, no one was telling me what records to make, what songs to sing, what producers or musicians to use. I was allowed to follow my own instincts. My head was free of drugs and I was living the healthy life: eating right, working out, and playing tennis whenever I had the chance. I didn’t have to worry about what was waiting around every corner. I had a new booking agency, William Morris, and enlisted Rob Heller as my agent, and I found a new tour manager, Vance Anderson, so my life on the road would be smoother. My financial problems were at last resolved, and I was gaining a whole new legion of fans. I felt like I was on top of the world. I was free to concentrate on my work, and that left me time to pursue my second great passion, painting.
Through the years I’ve been diligently studying painting with the help of my teachers John Barnicort, Everett Raymond Kinstler, and Basil Baylin, and have been encouraged by my friend David Hockney.
During the seventies, my reputation as a legitimate artist began to grow, especially with the help of Johnny Carson, who showed my work frequently when I was a guest on his show, I had my first gallery showing on Mount Street in London while I was living there in 1971, I began to exhibit my work in many of the cities where I performed, and my paintings started to sell. I’ve reached a point where I have a body of work of over eight hundred paintings, and I had my first museum show at the Butler Institute of American Art in Youngstown, Ohio, in 1994. (I’m proud to say that my painting “Homage to Hockney” has been included in their permanent collection.) I decided to sign my works with my given name. So I’m “Anthony Dominick Benedetto” the painter.
At this time CBS Records, owners of the Columbia label, was bought by Sony At first I had no idea how this would affect my dealing with the label, but I soon learned that Tommy Mottola had been brought in to run the entire record division of the company, Sony Music, and that he had appointed Don lenner as president of Columbia Records, and Michele Anthony as executive vice president of Sony Music Entertainment. Michele just happens to be my old associate Dee Anthony’s oldest daughter, and to this day she calls me Uncle Tony These three people were responsible for setting in motion a trend at the label that would turn my career around in a major way.
Since there was now a demand for the records from my early catalogue, Don lenner asked me to come up with what I thought were the definitive recordings of my career, so they could be released as a boxed set. This project was a real labor of love. We called the collection Forty Years: The Artistry of Tony Bennett I loved the idea because I thought it helped educate my new fans about where I had come from.
Between Astoria and the Forty Years boxed set, the buzz was steadily mounting. I was honored when Astoria was nominated for a 1991 Grammy as “Best Jazz Vocal,” and thrilled when they asked me to perform a number on the televised broadcast of the Grammy Awards ceremony. During the rehearsal, I sang “When Do the Bells Ring for Me?” in full voice. I was surprised when everyone hanging out watching the rehearsal spontaneously erupted in applause and gave me a standing ovation—including all the technical crew and heavy metal groups like Aerosmith and Motley Crüe. When I did the actual show, I put everything I had into “Bells” and I got the same reaction. The young audience gave me a standing ovation that evening too. It was a moment of triumph. The Grammy Award went to Harry Connick, Jr., but as Duke said, “It’s not whatcha do; It’s the way howcha do it.” Interestingly enough, from that point on, the Grammys created a whole new category called “Best Traditional Pop Album.”
I was getting all kinds of attention now, but Danny still felt that my albums weren’t getting the focus they deserved. We had done all we could do. We felt it was time for the record company to step up to the plate.
So Danny asked me to come with him to a meeting at Columbia. He never did that. In the old days, I hung out with people at the label all the time, both in the Columbia studios and in the offices. But since he took over, Danny’s kept me away from the negotiations and the corporate playing field so I could stick to making music. When we got to the meeting at Don Ienner’s office, we looked at the sales figures and then Danny said, “If this is the best you can do, then we want off the label.” He shocked the hell out of me, but then I thought, “Yeah he’s right. I’d rather retire than not do things right.”
He continued, “You don’t have an artist on this label who works as hard as Tony. Once again, Tony is not being supported by this company not in the way he should be. You should be selling at least two or three times as many records as you are now.” Don replied, “There’s no way Tony Bennett’s leaving this label. I’m not going to let that happen.” Then he asked me what I had in mind for my next project, and I said, “I have two words to say to you: ‘Perfectly Frank’” He looked at me and said, “That’s it! That’s all I have to hear. You got it. It’ll be huge.”
I was planning on using just a trio, whereas Sinatra almost always used a big band. This was one way I could put my own stamp on these songs. I didn’t want to do Sinatra’s greatest hits. In fact, when I had first gotten the idea for the Sinatra tribute record, I called Bill Miller, who for over forty years was to Frank what Ralph Sharon is to me. Bill supported my decision to stick with the torch and saloon songs, These were the great standards that Frank used as the building blocks for his classic albums.
I took my time deciding which songs to do. I faxed lists over to my friend and longtime associate Frank Military, the best music man in the business and the head of Warner-Chappell Music. Sinatra started him out in the early sixties when he was a young man. He went on to become one of the major movers and shakers in the world of music publishing. He tracked down all the sheet music I needed, even songs from other publishers. We recorded a collection of twenty-four songs.
Andre Fischer, who’d just scored a big hit with Natalie Cole’s Unforgettable album, shared producing credits on Perfectly Frank. I brought back Frank Laico to do the engineering. The results were magic.
Don Ienner kept his word and put his head of marketing, Jay Krugman, together with Danny. For the first time, I got exactly what I needed in terms of promotion, and the effort, paid off. Perfectly Frank earned a gold record, and I won my first Grammy since “I Left My Heart in San Francisco.”
After Perfectly Frank came out, all the deejays and talk show hosts invariably asked me, “Did you get Sinatra’s permission before you sang his songs?” I thought that was funny because Frank and I have always done each other’s material. He did “Don’t Wait Too Long,” “This Is All I Ask,” “Just In Time,” and lots of songs that I introduced. On his 1964 album, It Might As Well Be Swing, Frank, Count Basie, and Quincy Jones recorded many more of my songs, “The Best Is Yet to Come,” “I Wanna Be Around,” “The Good Life,” and “Fly Me to the Moon,” and he never called me to ask my permission! Still, when I did Perfectly Frank, everybody wanted to know if I had gotten his approval. He always had this hold on people that was incredible. As Dean Martin once said, “It’s Frank Sinatra’s world. We just live in it.”
In 1993 Phil Ramone invited me to participate in Frank Sinatra Duets, This album consisted of a series of electronically crafted duos by Sinatra and various contemporary pop stars, from Willie Nelson to Julio Iglesias to Bono of U2. The singers came into the studio and sang along with prerecorded Sinatra songs—Frank was never actually in the studio. I was honored when Frank decided he wanted me to sing “New York, New York” with him. It was one of the biggest songs of his entire career.
That same year, 1993, my drummer, Joe LaBarbera, decided to get off the road. I was unhappy about that, since Joe was such a subtle, tasteful drummer; I had learned a lot working with him. Then my bassist, Paul Langosch, left the group. Ralph and I
found a new drummer, Clayton Cameron, and a new bassist named Doug Richeson.
Doug, Clayton, and of course Ralph were all on hand for my next project, Steppin’ Out—another tribute, this time to Fred Astaire. By the time we were ready to release it, it looked like it was also going to be a strong contender, and we started thinking about MTV, I told Danny that I thought I could do really well there. The video station was exclusively geared toward young audiences and traditionally broke acts like Madonna and Michael Jackson.
I had Danny pitch Columbia the idea of doing a video, and they understood the potential of it right away I wanted to come up with something sharp and snazzy enough to compete with the other videos on MTV, so we hired video director Marcus Nispel, who’d worked on videos for Janet Jackson that featured a lot of dancing. To continue the idea of a tribute to Fred Astaire, we decided to shoot it in black and white and featured all styles of dance—modern, ballroom, and tap. Like an Astaire number, everything was moving to a beat—even the visual editing was cut on the beat. We were very happy with the finished product, though we had no idea how it was going to go over.
Sometime before I made the video, MTV had enlisted me to film a commercial for the “I Want My MTV” campaign, so I already had some profile at the network. MTV would be holding their annual video music awards in September and they invited me to make an appearance on the awards show. Specifically, they wanted me to be a presenter and “cross dress,” so to speak, with Flea and Anthony of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, In other words, they would dress in tuxedos and I would wear “alternative” style clothing. The idea was pretty out there, but I always like it when people can laugh at themselves. So I agreed to give it a try.