Tony Bennett
Wikimp3 information about the music of Tony Bennett. On our website we have 70 albums and 70 collections of artist Tony Bennett. You can find useful information and download songs of this artist. We also know that Tony Bennett represents Jazz genres.
Biography
[Edit]Tony Bennett's career has enjoyed three distinct phases, each of them very successful. In the early '50s, he scored a series of major hits that made him one of the most popular recording artists of the time. In the early '60s, he mounted a comeback as more of an adult-album seller. And from the mid-'80s on, he achieved renewed popularity with generations of listeners who hadn't been born when he first appeared. This, however, defines Bennett more in terms of marketing than music. He would probably say that he has remained largely constant to his goals of singing the best available songs the best way he knows how in each phase of his career. Popular taste may have caused his level of recognition to increase or decrease, but he continued to sing popular standards in a warm, husky tenor, varying his timing and phrasing with a jazz fan's sense of spontaneity to bring out the melodies and lyrics of the songs effectively. By the start of the 21st century, Bennett seemed like the last of a breed, but he remained as popular as ever.
Bennett grew up in the Astoria section of the borough of Queens in New York City under the name Anthony Dominick Benedetto. His father, a grocer, died when he was about ten after a lingering illness that had forced his mother to become a seamstress to support the family of five. By then, he was already starting to attract notice as a singer, performing beside Mayor Fiorello La Guardia at the opening of the Triborough Bridge in 1936. By his teens, Bennett had set his sights on becoming a professional singer. After briefly attending the High School of Industrial Arts (now known as the High School of Art and Design), where he gained training as a painter, he dropped out of school at 16 to earn money to help support his family, meanwhile also performing at amateur shows. Upon his 18th birthday in 1944, he was drafted into the Army, and he saw combat in Europe during World War II. Mustered out in 1946, he went back to trying to make it in music, and he attended the American Theater Wing on the GI Bill. By the end of the '40s, he had acquired a manager and was working regularly around New York. He got a break when Bob Hope saw him performing with Pearl Bailey in Greenwich Village and put him into his stage show, also suggesting a name change to Tony Bennett. In 1950, Columbia Records A&R director Mitch Miller heard his demonstration recording of "The Boulevard of Broken Dreams" and signed him to the label.
Bennett's first hit, "Because of You," topped the charts in September 1951, succeeded at number one by his cover of Hank Williams' "Cold, Cold Heart." Following another five chart entries over the next two years, he returned to number one in November 1953 with "Rags to Riches." Its follow-up, "Stranger in Paradise" from the Broadway musical Kismet, was another chart-topper, and in 1954 Bennett also reached the Top Ten with Williams' "There'll Be No Teardrops Tonight" and "Cinnamon Sinner." The rise of rock & roll in the mid-'50s made it more difficult for Bennett to score big hits, but he continued to place singles in the charts regularly through 1960, and even returned to the Top Ten with "In the Middle of an Island" in 1957. Meanwhile, he was developing a nightclub act that leaned more heavily on standards and was exploring album projects that allowed him to indulge his interest in jazz — notably 1957's The Beat of My Heart, on which he was accompanied mainly by jazz percussionists, and 1959's In Person! With Count Basie and His Orchestra. By the early '60s, although he had faded as a singles artist, he had built a successful career making personal appearances and recording albums of well-known songs in the manner of Frank Sinatra.
In 1962, Bennett introduced "I Left My Heart in San Francisco," a ballad written by two unknown songwriters, George Cory and Douglass Cross, who had pitched it to his pianist, Ralph Sharon. Released as a single, the song took time to catch on, and although it peaked only in the Top 20, it remained on one or the other of the national charts for almost nine months. It became Bennett's signature song and pushed his career to a higher level. The I Left My Heart in San Francisco album reached the Top Five and went gold, and the single won Bennett Grammy Awards for Record of the Year and Best Solo Vocal Performance, Male. Bennett's next studio album, 1963's I Wanna Be Around..., also made the Top Five, and its title track was another Top 20 hit, as was his next single, "The Good Life," also featured on the album. For the next three years, his albums consistently placed in the Top 100, along with a series of charting singles that included the Top 40 hits "Who Can I Turn To (When Nobody Needs Me)" (from the Broadway musical The Roar of the Greasepaint, the Smell of the Crowd) and "If I Ruled the World" (from the Broadway musical Pickwick).
By the late '60s, Bennett's record sales had cooled off as the major record labels turned their attention to the lucrative rock market. Just as Mitch Miller had encouraged Bennett to record novelty songs over his objections in the 1950s, Clive Davis, head of Columbia parent CBS Records, encouraged him to record contemporary pop/rock material. He acquiesced on albums such as Tony Sings the Great Hits of Today!, but his sales did not improve. In 1972, he left Columbia for the Verve division of MGM Records, but by the mid-'70s he was without a label affiliation, and he decided to found his own record company, Improv, to record the way he wanted to. He made several albums for Improv, including one with jazz pianist Bill Evans (following a disc they made for Fantasy Records), but the label eventually foundered. (Concord Records released the box set The Complete Improv Recordings in 2004.)
By the late '70s, however, Bennett did not need hit records to sustain his career, and he worked regularly in concert halls around the world. By the mid-'80s, there was a growing appreciation of traditional pop music, as performers such as Linda Ronstadt recorded albums of standards. In 1986, Bennett re-signed to Columbia and released The Art of Excellence, his first album to reach the pop charts in 14 years. Now managed by his son Danny, Bennett shrewdly found ways to attract the attention of the MTV generation without changing his basic style of singing songs from the Great American Songbook while wearing a tuxedo. By the early '90s, he was as popular as he had ever been. The albums Perfectly Frank (1992, a tribute to Frank Sinatra) and Steppin' Out (1993, a tribute to Fred Astaire) went gold and won Bennett back-to-back Grammys for Best Traditional Pop Vocal Performance. But his comeback was sealed by 1994's MTV Unplugged, featuring guest stars Elvis Costello and k.d. lang, which went platinum and won the Grammy for Album of the Year as well as another award for Best Traditional Pop Vocal Performance.
Bennett became a Grammy perennial, also taking home Best Traditional Pop Vocal Performance awards for Here's to the Ladies (1995) and On Holiday: A Tribute to Billie Holiday (1997). Bennett Sings Ellington: Hot & Cool (1999) was another Grammy winner in the retitled Best Traditional Pop Album category, as was Playin' with My Friends: Bennett Sings the Blues, an album of duets released in 2001. One year later, Bennett paired off with a single duet partner, recording A Wonderful World with k.d. lang. The Art of Romance followed in 2004. Both albums won the Best Traditional Pop Album Grammy for their respective years. In August 2006, Bennett reached his 80th birthday, and his record label marked the occasion with a series of reissues and compilations. The next month brought Duets: An American Classic, another collection of pairings with other singers on re-recordings of some of Bennett's best-known songs. It reached number three in the Billboard chart, the highest placing for an album in Bennett's career; it also won him another Grammy for Best Traditional Pop Album. A second installment of Duets was released in 2011, and the Latin version (Viva Duets) followed in time for Christmas 2012. That year also saw his fourth book published, Life Is a Gift: The Zen of Bennett, and this coincided with the release of a similarly titled documentary film. In 2014, he returned to the collaborative approach to recording that had proved to be so fruitful for him in the 21st century and released Cheek to Cheek, an album of jazz standards on which he was jointly billed alongside Lady Gaga.
Title: I Left My Heart In San Francisco
Artist: Tony Bennett
Genre: Jazz, Vocal Jazz, Rock, Pop, Theatre/Soundtrack
Title: San Francisco - All The Hits And More (1951-1962) (CD1)
Artist: Tony Bennett
Genre: Vocal Jazz, Pop
Title: San Francisco - All The Hits And More (1951-1962) (CD2)
Artist: Tony Bennett
Genre: Vocal Jazz, Pop
Title: Sings a String of Harold Arlen (Remastered)
Artist: Tony Bennett
Genre: Jazz, Vocal Jazz, Pop, Theatre/Soundtrack
Title: Sings the Ultimate American Songbook, Vol. 1 (Remastered)
Artist: Tony Bennett
Genre: Jazz, Vocal Jazz, Pop, Theatre/Soundtrack
Title: Sings the Ultimate American Songbook, Vol. 2 (Remastered)
Artist: Tony Bennett
Genre: Jazz, Vocal Jazz, Pop, Theatre/Soundtrack
Title: Sings the Ultimate American Songbook, Vol. 4 (Remastered)
Artist: Tony Bennett
Genre: Jazz, Vocal Jazz, Pop, Theatre/Soundtrack
Collections
Title: Summer Kisses - 100 Tracks for Lovers
Genre: Jazz
Title: 15 Great Classics
Genre: Pop
Title: 21 Classic Christmas Favorites, Vol. 2
Genre:
Title: The Very Best of Cole Porter
Genre: Jazz, Vocal Jazz, Pop
Title: Songs From the Heart
Genre:
Title: Pop Hits Of The 50's Vol 5
Genre: Pop
Title: 123 Classic Hits from the Early 1950's
Genre: Pop
Title: Crooners & Divas
Genre: Jazz
Title: Cocktail Bar Jazz
Genre: Jazz
Title: 21 Jazz Christmas Favorites
Genre:
Title: Christmas Jazz Greats - Smooth and Swinging
Genre: Jazz, Traditional Pop Music
Title: Fallin' in Love - Autumn Highlights (Extended Version)
Genre: Jazz
Title: 50's Souvenirs
Genre: Jazz
Title: Jukebox Favourites - Best of Bar Jazz
Genre: Jazz
Title: Goodfellas (Music from the Motion Picture)
Genre: Theatre/Soundtrack
Title: 21 Classic Christmas Favorites
Genre: Traditional Pop Music
Title: Oldies But Goldies (Rerecorded Version)
Genre: Pop
Title: 1960's British Hit Parade, Vol. 1
Genre: Pop
Title: The Golden Dozen the Best of Jule Styne
Genre: Pop
Title: Dancing With Stars (Re-Recorded / Remastered Versions)
Genre: Pop
Title: Greatest Big Hits of 1962, Vol. 24
Genre: Pop
Title: The Hits of Pop & Doo Wop, Vol. 4
Genre: Pop
Title: Jazz and Lounge
Genre: Jazz
Title: 16 Most Requested Songs: The 1950s, Vol. 2
Genre:
Title: America's Greatest Hits 1957, Vol. 2
Genre: Pop
Title: Pop History 50's - The Early Years, Vol. 4
Genre: Pop
Title: Pop Gold, Vol. 2
Genre: Pop
Title: Popular Classics Vol 3
Genre: Pop
Title: The Greatest St. Valentines Day Love Songs, Vol. 9
Genre: Pop
Title: America's Greatest Hits 1956, Vol. 1
Genre: Pop
Title: Greatest Big Hits of 1962, Vol. 23
Genre: Pop
Title: Holiday Hits
Genre: Traditional Pop Music
Title: Now That's What I Call Christmas!
Genre: Pop, Traditional Pop Music
Title: The First US Hot 100 August 1958, Vol. 2
Genre: Pop
Title: Pop Hits Vol 3
Genre: Pop
Title: 16 Most Requested Songs of the 1950s, Vol. 1
Genre: Pop
Title: We All Love Our Mums (Classic Mother's Day Songs, Vol. 4)
Genre: Pop
Title: Jukebox Hits of 1951
Genre: Pop
Title: The Great Jukebox Hits, Vol. 1
Genre: Pop
Title: Winter Kisses - Jazz for Young Lovers (Extended Version)
Genre: Jazz
Title: Christmas Concert At Vatican (Live)
Genre:
Title: Pop Goes Jazz 3
Genre: Jazz
Title: Golden Crooners - 20 All Time Favourites
Genre: Jazz
Title: Italiano Americano - Popular Hits of the 1940S, 50S, 60S
Genre: Jazz
Title: Original Sound Deluxe - Singin' Gentlemen
Genre: Jazz
Title: The Greatest Hits, Vol. 2
Genre: Pop
Title: 21 American Icons
Genre: Pop
Title: The Greatest St. Valentines Day Love Songs, Vol. 6
Genre: Pop
Title: The 1960 British Hit Parade: The B Sides, Pt. 3, Vol. 2
Genre: Pop
Title: Radio Classics of the 50's
Title: 1950's Hits & Highlights, Vol. 4
Genre: Pop
Title: The Hits of 1957, Vol. 2
Genre: Pop
Title: Hits of Lovesongs, Vol. 11 (Oldies Remastered)
Genre: Pop
Title: Britain's Greatest Hits 1955
Genre: Pop
Title: The 1950's Number 1 Hits, Vol. 1
Genre: Pop
Featuring albums
Title: Cheek to Cheek (Deluxe Version)
Artist: Lady Gaga
Genre: Jazz, Contemporary Jazz, Crossover Jazz, Vocal Jazz, Pop, Easy Listening
Title: Cheek to Cheek
Artist: Lady Gaga
Genre: Jazz, Contemporary Jazz, Crossover Jazz, Vocal Jazz, Rock, Punk Rock, Pop, Classical, Easy Listening
Title: This Christmas
Artist: John Travolta & Olivia Newton John
Genre: Rock, Punk Rock, Pop, Traditional Pop Music
Title: That Old Feeling: Classic Ballads from the Judy Garland Show
Artist: Judy Garland
Genre: Pop, Theatre/Soundtrack
Title: Best of Duets
Artist: Frank Sinatra
Genre: Jazz, Vocal Jazz, Rock, Punk Rock, Pop, Classical, Easy Listening
Title: Duets (20th Anniversary Deluxe Edition)
Artist: Frank Sinatra
Genre: Pop, Classical, Easy Listening
Title: Lioness: Hidden Treasures
Artist: Amy Winehouse
Genre: Hip Hop/R&B, Soul, Rock, Punk Rock, Pop, Alternative
Title: Friendship
Artist: Ray Charles
Genre: Hip Hop/R&B, Soul, Jazz, Country, Outlaw Country, Pop, Bop
Title: Christmas With Sinatra and Friends
Artist: Frank Sinatra
Genre: Jazz, Pop, Traditional Pop Music
Title: Concerto: One Night In Central Park (Bonus Track Version)
Artist: Andrea Bocelli
Genre: Rock, World Music, Pop, Opera
Title: The Christmas Album
Artist: The Manhattan Transfer
Genre: Jazz, Contemporary Jazz, Vocal Jazz, Rock, Pop, Traditional Pop Music, Bop
Title: Concerto: One Night In Central Park
Artist: Andrea Bocelli, New York Philharmonic, Alan Gilbert
Genre: Rock, World Music, Pop, Classical, Opera, Classical Crossover
Title: Jazz: The Definitive Performances
Artist: Art Blakey, The Jazz Messengers, Louis Armstrong, Louis Armstrong Orchestra
Genre: Jazz
Title: My Best Friend's Wedding: Music From The Motion Picture
Artist: Original Soundtrack
Genre: Pop
Title: Crooners
Artist: Various Artists
Genre: World Music, Latin, Pop, Alternative, Theatre/Soundtrack, Classical, Vocal & Symphonic
Title: Pop Music: The Golden Era 1951-1975
Artist: Various
Genre: Blues, Rock, Pop, Theatre/Soundtrack, Vocal & Symphonic