by Tony Bennett
I don’t look down at the audience; instead, I look up to them. Yet it’s funny how the corporations in America think the public is like cattle. João Gilberto is another musician friend who’s also very uncompromising as an artist. He sings very quietly, and he uses an unamplified guitar—no big speaker; just a little microphone so you can hear the natural strings. And he whispers when he sings, in the most beautiful way. João did a concert in Japan, and they gave him a seventeen-minute standing ovation, they responded so well to the excellence of his music.
I saw João perform once in Umbria; it was one of the most amazing nights of my life because I was sitting outside in this very warm, sweet Italian night, with perfumed trees all around us. João came out and just whispered into the microphone, singing very naturally. It was so quiet that you could hear the crickets in the trees. At the end of that show, they gave him a ten-minute standing ovation. Nowadays everybody thinks that the louder a concert is, the better. But in reality, the opposite is true. João gets the longest standing ovations of any artist in the world, because he respects his listeners’ intellect.
I found this idea to ring true early on, when I was in the Army. After Germany surrendered, I left the front line and joined the 314th Army Air Forces Special Services Band of the European Theater. Glenn Miller’s band had been the AAF orchestra until his plane disappeared over the Atlantic in late 1944. Eventually the chief of Special Services put together another band to take its place, and its new home base was to be in occupied Germany. Obviously the citizens of that country weren’t very friendly toward our army, so the new orchestra was supposed to break down some of those barriers. In late 1945, they started auditioning for musicians, and at first I was given the job of librarian. My job was making sure all the music was in order for each performance. But when the officer in charge, Lin Arison, heard me sing, he told me to join the band, too.
We did a weekly broadcast over the Armed Forces Network that went out to American GIs stationed there and to the Germans as well. The show was broadcast live from the Wiesbaden opera house, which had fantastic acoustics and could hold a couple of thousand soldiers. The band, consisting of fifty-five musicians, was extremely versatile; we could do swing, dance music, bebop, or current hits; even light classical numbers. Lin Arison really inspired us to do our best. He was very creative, particularly for someone in the Army.
Lin had always wanted to put together a top-notch pop jazz orchestra, and he was told by the higher-ups that he could do it. He auditioned for first-rate musicians, and some great players, such as my good friend George Masso, came on board. The band was very versatile; it could do swing, such as Benny Goodman or Count Basie, as well as the current popular hits of the day.
We also had a terrific pianist who played a brand-new type of music, called bebop; it was the first time I’d ever heard of Dizzy Gillespie. I was one of several vocalists, and I usually sang a couple of songs, blues or rhythm numbers. There were a few fantastic female singers who added a lot to the show, too. Some of the numbers that I sang in Germany I did later on in my career, such as “Body and Soul,” which Amy Winehouse and I recorded as a duet.
Oddly enough, during this period in the Army I enjoyed the most musical freedom I would ever have in my entire life. I could sing whatever I wanted—if I heard a song on the armed services broadcast and liked it, I could go ahead and do it. The whole band felt the same way. We couldn’t get enough of it; when we weren’t rehearsing, we’d be jamming in the hotel rooms. Lin let us come up with the most interesting ideas, and everything we attempted went over well with the soldiers.
The GIs were the greatest audience in the world; they were open to all kinds of sounds. Some of the music was rather experimental, but they enjoyed every bit of it.
Performing for the GIs showed me that the average person is much more hip than he’s given credit for. That was the first time it struck me that an artist should never underestimate the public’s taste. These were guys who had been drafted before they could go to college or barely finish high school, yet they were happy to be exposed to cutting-edge stuff. In fact, they ate it up; they liked the avant-garde material as much as they did the standard tunes. This experience taught me that you can stretch people’s tastes as long as you do high-quality songs.
The public is so much smarter than the marketers give them credit for. People are not ignorant; sometimes the record producers may insist they are, but actually most of those producers turn out to be the uncreative ones. The decisions they make are often so far below the listeners’ mentality that it’s not even funny.
Once I received as a gift a seventeen-volume book on the history of art. The first sentence in the first volume said, “When the uncreative tell the creative what to do, it stops becoming art.” So if you’re a record company and sign up a singer, you should believe in him. Let him do what he’s doing. If you don’t like it, then get another artist—but don’t tell him what to do. And don’t look down on the people buying the records, because without them, you’re nothing.
I valued Ella Fitzgerald’s opinions, and she lived by these concepts. I once asked her how she was able to be so perfect every single time she performed. “I follow what the audience is doing,” she told me. “Whatever they do, I just react to it.” And that’s the right way to be. If you’re thinking, This is a tough audience, or They don’t know good music when they hear it, you won’t be able to give them your best.
I view the audience as very friendly. They save up for months in order to buy tickets and arrange for a babysitter, so they are looking forward to having a good time, and to support the person they came to see. I believe the performers who are truly great are the ones who actually like their fans.
Look at Louis Armstrong. He used to do “Hello, Dolly!” six times a night for different shows; it was probably his most commercially successful song. And yet if you asked him what his favorite song was, he’d always say, “It’s ‘Hello, Dolly!’ ” When Irving Berlin was asked what his favorite song was, he would always reply, “The one that sold the most records; the one the public liked the most.”
I refuse to follow the trends, because I think so highly of my fans. Any artist who thinks, They’re full of junk, so I’ll just give them junk, is making a big mistake. If you think that way, you won’t be around too long. They may love you on the way up, but watch out if you hit a period when things aren’t going that well; you’ll be a goner. This has been proven over and over again in the music industry.
In addition to doing a high-quality set, I always open with a strong first act. Some performers like the opening act to be definitively weaker than their own, so they appear more impressive in contrast; but I never do that. Instead, I’ve had Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Lena Horne, and the great drummer Buddy Rich ahead of me on the bill. Of course they went over like wildfire, but I’ve worked hard at being able to follow the top artists. The best way to win over a crowd is to give them brilliant performers, right from the get-go. Every time I opened with a dynamic act, by the time I got onstage, the crowd was wide awake and on the edge of their seats. They were thinking, What’s going to happen now? How could anyone follow that? Then I came out and did it. If you have a strong program from beginning to curtain-fall, the crowd never feels cheated.
I love working live. If you have a full house saying, “Yeah, we like this guy,” you can’t improve on that. It goes beyond what any producer or corporate person tries to tell you is right or wrong. The public always has the final word, as far as I’m concerned. In a way, it’s the same for politicians; at the end of an election year, even with all the money they spend on campaigning, they still have to go out and shake all those hands. It just goes to show that if you get the people on your side, then you’ve got it made.
Having a high opinion of my fans has always served me well. You can’t go wrong when you recognize their capacity to understand what you’re trying express artistically.
The Zen of Bennett
If you t
hink that you are superior to your fans, you will lose their respect immediately.
There’s no such thing as a cold audience—there’s only an inferior performance.
The consumer is so much smarter than marketing people give them credit for.
When the uncreative tell the creative what to do, it stops becoming art.
Never underestimate the knowledge or understanding of the public.
Frank Sinatra
8
Butterflies Are Good
For those who don’t get up in front of an audience night after night, performing can seem like a frightening prospect. I realize that it must seem completely unnatural for most people to put it all out there and expose their emotions in front of a large crowd. A lot of people ask me how I can just get up there and not get nervous.
Well, to be absolutely honest, any of the great performers I’ve known do get nervous. This is something most people in the audience aren’t aware of, but that’s what happens—you get what I call the butterflies. That’s really the thing that drives you to do your best. It’s the hope that everything will turn out as planned—that I’ll remember all the words, and that the orchestra blends with me properly.
At first, I was thrown by feeling like this. But I learned early on that there is a big difference between being scared and being worried that you will do your best. I learned how to welcome the butterflies, because really what it means is that you care, and the show is going to be all right. If you’re not nervous, you’ll be too overconfident, and your energy level onstage will reflect that.
Everyone who’s starting out gets the butterflies, but eventually learns that it’s a healthy thing. All the artists (except for Elton John) who recorded with me on my latest duet albums told me they were nervous before we began. I told every one of them, from Lady Gaga to Amy Winehouse, that I was nervous as well, and that it’s good, because that means it’s going to work. k.d. lang said that the pressure to perform as an artist was similar to being an athlete and having to be on your toes, which I thought was a good comparison. I adore singing with k.d. She is such a talent; she has a great outlook on life and a fantastic sense of humor. She always jokes that the only thing that she and I have a hard time figuring out is who’s going to lead when we dance together.
Early in my career, I had a bad case of the butterflies. I had been invited to fill in on the summer replacement show for Perry Como’s variety hour, although I’d never done that kind of performance before. When I was having a first bit of success, a drummer I knew told me that Frank Sinatra liked my style. I decided that maybe I could ask Sinatra for some advice, since I was anxious about appearing live in front of a television audience with only a bare stage and a minimal band. He was performing at the Paramount in New York at the time. I had never met Frank before, and I decided to try to talk to him. I went over to the theater and was promptly sent back to his dressing room.
Frank looked at me and welcomed me graciously. “Hello, Tony,” he said. “Come on in, kid.” (He loved to call me “kid.”) I told him how nervous I was about doing the Como replacement show. Right off the bat, Frank said that I shouldn’t worry about it. “It’s when you’re not nervous that you’re in trouble,” he told me. “If you don’t care what you’re doing, why would the audience care? Then when they see how much the show means to you, they’ll love you and support you.” I thanked him profusely, amazed at his generosity in taking the time to meet with someone just starting out.
I took Sinatra’s advice to heart, and it has helped me immensely throughout my career. It’s like a Thoroughbred horse: the one that’s nervous and jumping around before the race is the one that usually wins.
The thing about a live performance is, if you sing a wrong note on the stage, you can’t just say, “Oh, well that didn’t work—let’s take it again.” You don’t want to make that kind of mistake in front of a big crowd. Instead, you want to show the audience the full continuity of what you’re doing, so they feel connected with you. You don’t want to walk out there like it’s just another night. But if you treat them with respect, they’ll treat you the same way.
Prior to one concert, Ralph Sharon, my pianist at the time, reminded me that all performers get insecure. “You feel as if someone has to push you onstage some nights,” he said. But then he told me, “Someday you’re going to look back at all of this, and you’re going to like those nights and every one of the records you made. You’ll realize that the nerves fueled your best performances.” And it turns out he was exactly right. I just released a boxed set of all the records I ever made, and I can honestly say that I’m proud of every one that’s in it. Each has the best fidelity, and none of them sounds dated. I can’t ask for more than that.
I vividly recall the times throughout my career when I had the worst cases of the jitters. One of those was when I was getting ready for my debut at Carnegie Hall. In those days, most performers played clubs like the Copacabana in New York; it was unheard of for an artist such as Judy Garland or Frank Sinatra to play a concert hall. So it was a very big deal when the promoter Sid Bernstein started booking us in prestigious venues like Carnegie Hall.
To a musician, playing Carnegie is like climbing Everest or planting the flag on the moon, so I wanted it to be just right. Before the engagement, I poured my nervous energy into the date. I figured out the songs I wanted to sing, and I honed them until I felt I was ready. Carnegie Hall had never invited a pop soloist to perform there, so I put everything I’d been studying for the past twenty years into that engagement, which was held on June 9, 1962. In spite of a major case of the butterflies, when I got onstage my jitters disappeared, and it all went very well. My family was in the audience and I was thrilled that my mother was there, too; it was one of the highlights of my life. My mom was so happy that I’d made it to Carnegie Hall. In the end, it was, for me, my most memorable performance.
Another performance I’ll never forget was “The Night of One Hundred Stars” at Radio City Music Hall. They had gathered one hundred of the top names in showbiz to perform on one stage for one night; everyone from Frank Sinatra to James Cagney and Gregory Peck was there. I was supposed to come on in a carriage pulled by a horse, and I was concerned because I thought the horse might be frightened by the audience and I’d wind up in the orchestra pit with the creature kicking and thrashing on top of me.
Orson Welles was also part of the show, and while I was waiting to go on, he was backstage. He took one look at me and realized that I was very anxious. “I go to every party at Sinatra’s, and do you know, he plays nothing but your records,” he said calmly to me. Immediately I felt more relaxed. Then the announcer’s voice blared: “Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Tony Bennett.” And I just flowed with it. I got into that carriage, and everything went perfectly. No wonder Welles was such a great director; he knew exactly what to do to calm me down.
You have to walk out there acting confident, and belt out those songs like it’s the first time you’ve ever performed them—but at the same time make it feel effortless. And having a bit of nervousness helps you to do that. Even if I’ve sung a song for the past forty years, I have to put everything into it, every single time I do it. That way, the audience knows I care about what I’m doing—it can’t be rote or mechanical. That’s why I try to reinvent a song a little differently each time, so that it stays fresh and challenging for the audience, as well as for myself. I’ve learned that if you accept what is normally regarded as a negative and find a way to learn from the experience, it will always be to your advantage.
Facing one’s fears and taking chances can open up doors that you could never have imagined. One thing is for sure: if you don’t try, it’s a guarantee that it will never happen. My good friend Quincy Jones has been known to say, “You have to be willing to get an F if you want a chance to get an A.” And he has a pretty good report card, as far as I can tell. As best you can, always try to turn that frown upside down.
The Zen of Bennett
Everyone gets the jitters when they’re first starting out.
If you don’t care what you’re doing, why should the audience?
If you walk out there like it’s just another night, the audience is going to treat you the same way.
You can use “the butterflies that make you famous” to fuel innovation and creativity.
Lady Gaga
9
Bel Canto
I’m often asked how I’ve been able to continue evolving as a singer while keeping my voice in such great shape at the age of eighty-six. It’s like anything else; you’ve gotta take care of yourself in mind and in body. I make it a point to work out at the gym at least three times a week. I also avoid elevators and escalators, and insist on taking the stairs.
You don’t need a strenuous regime to stay fit. As long as you make it a daily habit, even a little exercise can be effective. The same holds true for the voice. The vocal cords are a muscle; if you don’t use it, you lose it. That’s why I run through my scales whenever I can. It doesn’t take much time at all, especially when I apply the method I learned when I was starting out.
Pietro D’Andrea, a talented vocal coach—I named my first son, D’Andrea (Danny), after him—taught me the technique that has kept my voice strong all these years. It’s called bel canto, which means “beautiful singing.” This method originated in Italy and was popular in opera through most of Europe during the eighteenth century. The style emphasized graceful phrasing, pure, even tones, and a disciplined form of breath control. It never fails to improve my voice.