Suffering from Alzheimer’s disease, the singer had recently relaunched his career during a duet with Lady Gaga.
He was the last of the great American crooners. Appreciated for his warm personality and consistency over more than seven decades, Tony Bennett died at the age of 96 on Friday July 21, in his hometown of New York. His agent broke the news to The Associated Press. The singer had declared to be suffering from Alzheimer’s disease in 2021, but the precise causes of his death have not yet been specified.
Born on August 3, 1926 in Astoria, in the most cosmopolitan district of New York, Anthony Benedetto, whose real name is, owes part of his unique longevity to his vocal technique. Trained in bel canto, the one who called himself Joe Bari at the very beginning of his career will have kept his voice intact throughout his life, capable of pushing the decibels into the stadiums, at the age of 80.
A stage presence recognized by all
Always impeccable costumes, cover, natural elegance, Tony Bennett embodied the song of the post-war period, without falling into old-fashionedness, and without ever, however, leaving its register. Unlike Frank Sinatra, another son of Italian immigrants from the New York area to whom he has been much compared, few of his songs have become classics. His greatest titles came early in his career, in the early 1950s, including Because of You, Rags to Riches Or Cold, Cold Heartall number ones in sales, and were not followed by any real hits.
But Tony Bennett, who adopted the Americanized stage name suggested to him by comedian Bob Hope, has retained a loyal audience, maintained through thousands of concerts and a stage presence recognized by all. “In the theater and for live performance, you have to convince the public that it couldn’t be better elsewhere”explained actor Alec Baldwin in the documentary produced by Clint Eastwood The Music Never Ends (2007). “And no one in show business does that better than Bennett”.
Little focused on effects, her voice seemed to go straight to the point, influenced by various musical genres, notably jazz. “As a spectator, [je pense que] Tony Bennett is the best singer in the business”will say Frank Sinatra. “He excites me when I see him, he moves me”. His smile and his energy projected the image of a warm, resolutely positive artist. The American crooner has released over 70 albums during his career and sold over 50 million records worldwide.
A second career
Despite a loyal public, Tony Bennett will experience a crossing of the desert during the 1970s and 1980s, a bad patch marked by a cocaine addiction and an overdose, in 1979, from which he will survive. His son Danny will eventually intervene and offer him a second career by introducing him to a younger audience. In 1994, he landed on the MTV music channel for an “Unplugged”, this series of acoustic concerts rather reserved for young artists in vogue. In 2006, he released the album Duets: An American Classic, a series of duets with very big names in popular music, from Stevie Wonder to Bono, who accompany him on covers. The success is total, to the point that a second opus Duets IIwill be released in 2011, with, again, the gratin of the song, which will allow him to hang, for the first time, the top of the sales of discs in the United States, at 85 years.
The album contains two duets with respectively Lady Gaga and Amy Winehouse, which reveal the two young singers in a refined register that they obviously appreciate. The collaborations will continue, including an entire album with Lady Gaga, Cheek to Cheekoccasion of a new number one in the United States.
“I like to try new things all the time”said the crooner to journalist Charlie Rose on the PBS channel in 1993. For seven decades, he followed the advice of Frank Sinatra: “never be predictable”.