Tony Bennett (born Anthony Dominick Benedetto; August 3, 1926) is an American singer of popular music , standards , show tunes , and jazz . Raised in New York City , Bennett began singing at an early age. He fought in the final stages of World War II as an infantryman with the U.S. Army in the European Theatre . Afterwards, he developed his singing technique, signed with Columbia Records , and had his first number one popular song with "Because of You " in 1951. Several top hits such as "Rags to Riches " followed in the early 1950s. Bennett then further refined his approach to encompass jazz singing . He reached an artistic peak in the late 1950s with albums such as The Beat of My Heart and Basie Swings, Bennett Sings . In 1962, Bennett recorded his signature song , "I Left My Heart in San Francisco ". His career and his personal life then suffered an extended downturn during the height of the rock music era. Bennett staged a remarkable comeback in the late 1980s and 1990s, putting out gold record albums again and expanding his audience to the MTV Generation while keeping his musical style intact . He remains a popular and critically praised recording artist and concert performer in the 2000s. Bennett has won fifteen Grammy Awards , two Emmy Awards , been named an NEA Jazz Master and a Kennedy Center Honoree . He has sold over 50 million records worldwide. Bennett is also a serious and accomplished painter , creating works under the name Benedetto that are on permanent public display in several institutions.
Early life
Anthony Benedetto was born in Astoria , Queens , New York City , the son of Ann (née Suraci) and John Benedetto. His father was a grocer who had emigrated from Podàrgoni , a rural eastern district of the southern Italian city of Reggio Calabria , and his mother was a seamstress . With two other children and a father who was ailing and unable to work, the siblings grew up in poverty. John Benedetto died when Anthony was 10 years old.
Young "Tony" Benedetto grew up listening to Al Jolson , Eddie Cantor , Judy Garland and Bing Crosby as well as jazz artists such as Louis Armstrong , Jack Teagarden and Joe Venuti . An uncle was a tap dancer in vaudeville , giving him an early window into show business . By age 10 he was already singing, and performed at the opening of the Triborough Bridge . Drawing and caricatures were also an early passion of his. He attended New York's High School of Industrial Art where he was studying painting and music , but dropped out at age 16 to help support his family. He worked as a copy boy and runner for the Associated Press in Manhattan. But mostly he set his sights on a professional singing career, performing as a singing waiter in several Italian restaurants around the borough of Queens.
World War II and after
Benedetto was drafted into the United States Army in November 1944, during the final stages of World War II . He did basic training at Fort Dix and Fort Robinson as part of becoming an infantry rifleman . Benedetto ran afoul of a sergeant from the South who disliked the Italian from New York City and heavy doses of KP duty or BAR cleaning resulted. Processed through the huge Le Havre replacement depot , in January 1945, he was assigned as a replacement infantryman to 255th Infantry Regiment of the 63rd Infantry Division , a unit filling in for the heavy losses suffered in the Battle of the Bulge . He moved across France , and later, into Germany . As March 1945 began, he joined the front line and what he would later describe as a "front-row seat in hell."
As the German Army was pushed back to their homeland, Benedetto and his company saw bitter fighting in cold winter conditions, often hunkering down in foxholes as German 88 mm guns fired on them. At the end of March, they crossed the Rhine and entered Germany, engaging in dangerous house-to-house, town-after-town fighting to clean out German soldiers; during the first week of April, they crossed the Kocher River, and by the end of the month reached the Danube . During his time in combat, Benedetto narrowly escaped death several times. The experience made him a patriot and also a pacifist ; he would later write, "Anybody who thinks that war is romantic obviously hasn't gone through one." At the war's conclusion he was involved in the liberation of a Nazi concentration camp near Landsberg , where some American prisoners of war from the 63rd Division had also been held.
Benedetto stayed in Germany as part of the occupying force, but was assigned to an informal Special Services band unit that would entertain nearby American forces. His dining with a black friend from high school – at a time when the Army was still segregated – led to his being demoted and reassigned to Graves Registration Service duties. Subsequently, he sang with the 314th Army Special Services Band under the stage name Joe Bari (a name he had started using before the war, chosen after the city and province in Italy and as a partial anagram of his family origins in Calabria ). He played with many musicians who would have post-war careers.
Upon his discharge from the Army and return to the States in 1946, Benedetto studied at the American Theatre Wing on the GI Bill . He was taught the bel canto singing discipline, which would keep his voice in good shape for his entire career. He continued to perform wherever he could, including while waiting tables . He developed an unusual approach that involved imitating, as he sang, the style and phrasing of other musicians—such as that of Stan Getz 's saxophone and Art Tatum 's piano—helping him to improvise as he interpreted a song. He made a few recordings as Bari in 1949 for small Leslie Records , but they failed to sell.
In 1949, Pearl Bailey recognized Benedetto's talent and asked him to open for her in Greenwich Village . She had invited Bob Hope to the show. Hope decided to take Benedetto on the road with him, but suggested he use his real name simplified as Tony Bennett. In 1950, Bennett cut a demo of "Boulevard of Broken Dreams " and was signed to the major Columbia Records label by Mitch Miller .
First successes
Warned by Miller not to imitate Frank Sinatra (who was just then leaving Columbia), Bennett began his career as a crooner singing 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 started out gaining popularity on jukeboxes , then reached #1 on the pop charts in 1951 and stayed there for 10 weeks, selling over a million copies. This was followed to the top of the charts later that year by a similarly-styled rendition of Hank Williams ' "Cold, Cold Heart ", which helped introduce Williams and country music in general to a wider, more national audience. The Miller and Faith tandem continued to work on all of Bennett's early hits. Bennett's recording of "Blue Velvet " was also very popular and attracted screaming teenaged fans at concerts at the famed Paramount Theater in New York (Bennett did seven shows a day, starting at 10:30 a.m.) and elsewhere.
On February 12, 1952, Bennett married Ohio art student and jazz fan Patricia Beech, whom he had met the previous year after a nightclub performance in Cleveland . Two thousand female fans dressed in black gathered outside the ceremony at New York's St. Patrick's Cathedral in mock mourning. Bennett and Beech would have two sons, D'Andrea (Danny, born around 1954) and Daegal (Dae, born around 1955).
A third #1 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. Later that year the producers of the upcoming Broadway musical Kismet had Bennett record "Stranger in Paradise " as a way of promoting the show during a New York newspaper strike. The song reached the top, the show was a hit, and Bennett began a long practi
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