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[Lainey]

Young at heart: Tony Bennett at 85

The singer tells Neil McCormick why he still loves the business – and how much he was affected by recording his duet with Amy Winehouse, three months before her death.

http://www.telegraph...nett-at-85.html

Part One

In the air-conditioned chill of studio three at Abbey Road, producers and engineers hovered over a vast recording console, setting levels. A handwritten sign proclaimed 'This console has 12,974 buttons'. A small group of record company representatives gravitated towards a buffet of sandwiches and crisps, talking business in hushed tones. No
one paid the slightest attention to the dapper, grey-haired gentleman sitting quietly in a corner. Immaculately turned out in white shirt, braces and tie, with his suit jacket folded over a chair, he peered through thick spectacles, scratching the surface of a Post-it note with a Biro. Every now and then he looked up. ‘The trouble when you sketch with a pen,
you can’t make mistakes,’ murmured Tony Bennett, contemplating his portrait of a studio engineer.

Through a clear glass division, inside the recording booth, two microphones stood side by side. ‘She’s in the building,’ someone announced. ‘She just needs a little time. She was semi-attacked by paparazzi, but she’s fine, she’s not upset.’ ‘Bop da ba da bop bop,’ Bennett sang softly, to himself, as he continued sketching. ‘Let her take her time,’ he said. ‘We got plenty of time.’
The legendary 85-year-old crooner was patiently awaiting the arrival of Amy Winehouse. On March 23 this year, Amy Winehouse recorded a single with Tony Bennett for his new album, Duets II. It was the
young British soul singer’s first publicly acknowledged recording session in over a year, and Abbey Road was surrounded by a scrum of photographers and fans. She finally entered the studio an hour late and forgivably flustered,

an entourage of management, PRs and stylists fussing over her.

The quiet ambience dramatically shifted, suddenly the room seemed packed and bustling with activity, with Winehouse at its centre. Stylishly turned out in minidress, knitted cardigan, big hair and bold eyeliner, she made a beeline for Bennett, gushing, ‘We love you, we love you, we love you so much.' 'Thank you,' said Bennett, who never lets a compliment go unacknowledged. ‘You’re sweet.’

‘I’m not going to cry,’ Winehouse snuffled, as Bennett took her hands. Her almost comically casual air of youthful confidence (peppering conversation with ‘all right’ and ‘whatever’) evaporated in front of her idol, although Bennett was doing his best to put her at ease. Slipping his jacket on, red handkerchief poking from his breast pocket, he guided Winehouse, with an almost imperceptible touch, into the recording booth, murmuring, ‘We’ll just run it over till you get comfortable.’

Watching them side by side at their microphones was like witnessing a masterclass in jazz improvisation. Dapper and calm, left hand tucked in pocket, Bennett sang quietly and talkatively, feeling his way up and down the melody of the 1930s classic Body and Soul while remaining intently focused on his singing partner. Bennett talked to her about the song’s composer, Johnny Green – ‘he was a friend of mine, a tremendous intellectual’ – and its history, from a Coleman Hawkins instrumental to ‘the official standard of popular light entertainment’ recorded by Billie Holiday,
Ella Fitzgerald, Frank Sinatra and Bennett himself. Winehouse was clearly in awe of the whole situation, unable to look Bennett in the eye, staring at the floor and the ceiling, chewing on her hair and sleeve, swaying nervously. Yet her singing belied her youth and nerves.

The voice that emerged was rich and ancient, cracked and bluesy, flowing around the song in jazzy glides and fluid bursts that would dazzle and explode then peter out at dead ends, where she would tut and grunt and bite her lips in frustration. ‘I haven’t done this in a long time,’ she apologised, head hanging, eyes fixed on the floor. ‘And I’m nervous because it’s you.’ Bennett kept up a murmur of encouraging patter. ‘It’s just like we’re talking to each other,’ he reassured her. ‘You’re
feeling it real good. I like it.’ Take after take unfolded with Bennett drawing a performance out of Winehouse, while at the same time blending his thinner, smokier voice with her rich tone. ‘Do you like Dinah Washington?’ he asked.

‘You remind me of her.’ Winehouse blushed with pleasure at being compared with one of her heroines. And when Bennett crooned, ‘For you, for you dear only,’ a lovely, secret smile lit up her face. Three months later, Winehouse was dead. ‘I broke down and sobbed when I heard the news,’ Bennett admits. ‘I’ll tell you, of all the young people I’ve met over the past 50 years, she sang the right way. It’s funny to say that, because there’s a lot of singers that sound wonderful, but she sang for the moment, and that’s honest. She was ready to take a chance, right on the spot, right on the microphone, she’d try a different phrasing, she knew how to improvise, it was spontaneous and intimate. That’s what I loved about her. She was really herself.

Since Elvis Presley and the Beatles really changed the game, and into big stadiums, music became like a big football game and it lost the intimacy that really makes it interesting to me. But Amy had that, she was a true talent, and she was on her way to becoming a very, very important jazz singer. What a tragedy. Just 27 years old. It’s so regretful. It’s heartbreaking.’ Bennett will be donating his share of proceeds from their duet to the foundation Winehouse’s father Mitch is setting up in her name. ‘I’d like to really have had a chance to talk to her. Because that’s what happened to me.

I was almost the Amy Winehouse of my day.’ Bennett has such a humble manner, so softly spoken, it is difficult to picture him in his carousing younger days – a jet-black-haired handsome crooner, playing Las Vegas and, like his hero Frank Sinatra, doing his best to resist changing fashions and new popular music styles. He is clearly hesitant about acknowledging
how far he might have drifted from his own ideals, yet has previously admitted problems with alcohol, pot and cocaine, almost dying from a cocaine overdose in 1979, when he had to be revived in the bath by his second wife, Sandra Grant.

‘I was caught up in it when I was younger. When the Kennedys got assassinated, and Martin Luther King, our country took a terrible turn, and everybody got wasted. In those days I was hiding, I was in a room somewhere getting high, that’s not a correct way to live.’ He is (perhaps deliberately) vague about when his drug use came to an end, though he
recalls one particular conversation that resonated with him. ‘I was talking to Woody Allen’s manager, Jeff Rawlins, and he said he used to handle Lenny Bruce. I said, “Oh, I knew Lenny, what did you think of him?” And he said, “He sinned against his talent.” That line changed my life, I threw away all kinds of corruption out of my system, I just went back to being pretty normal.’

Edited by Lainey, 02 September 2011 - 05:27 PM.

[Lainey]

PART TWO

Given his 1979 overdose, it seems likely this change of lifestyle took longer than Bennett cares to recall. But his sense of regret about lost years is genuine. ‘When I dropped everything, my career went right up, the public accepted me, everything’s fine, without any trouble, without any pain, without any torture. I’d like to have talked to Amy about that. She was a sweet girl, she had a gift. Don’t sin against your talent.’

Bennett has been recording a new album of duets. He marked his 80th birthday in 2006 with Duets: An American Classic, covering classics from his repertoire with established superstars including Barbra Streisand, Paul McCartney, Elton John, Stevie Wonder and Bono. For the follow-up he has, for the most part, worked with younger stars, chosen with the help of his son and manager, Danny Bennett. ‘I like the standard of young singers today. In fact that’s the reason I did another duet album. When I started it was so competitive, vaudeville was very much alive, and the real pros would come on like they were way ahead of you.

I’m trying to show the new performers that they are more than welcome, and we can pass on the torch.’ Among the singers he has been working with are Norah Jones (‘She’s so good, so beautiful, God, she’s gorgeous’), Queen Latifah (‘She really surprised me, she sounds like the young Ella Fitzgerald’), John Mayer (‘A lot of fun, he made me laugh’) and Lady Gaga. The last, in particular, impressed Bennett, not just for her musical ability (‘She sings very well, she plays very good piano’) but for the thing Winehouse evidently lacked: her sense of purpose.

‘She’s fabulous. She’s together. She’s very intelligent. She’s different from anybody I ever met, she has so much knowledge of what to do and how to do it. If she goes along the way she’s going right now, she’ll be bigger than Elvis. What I’m noticing about a lot of young performers is they’ve had good training. They are consummate performers already. Lady
Gaga came out of NYU and Juilliard. Education makes a difference.’
Born Anthony Dominick Benedetto in 1926 (he changed his stage name on the advice of Bob Hope in 1949), Bennett grew up in poverty in New York in a large, Italian immigrant family. His father died when he was 10; his mother was a seamstress who ‘had to work for a penny a dress to put food on the table for three children’.

Young Tony would entertain at family gatherings, accompanied by uncles on mandolins and guitars. ‘They encouraged me. They said, “Look at how Tony makes us feel good, he tells jokes and he sings,” and they created a passion for me that exists to this moment. I love entertaining. I make people feel good and they make me feel wonderful. I’m getting away with murder as far as I’m concerned.’ As a teenager, Bennett worked as a singing waiter, before being drafted into the Second World War, where he experienced things that, he says, haunt him to this day. ‘It made me a pacifist. The lowest form of human behaviour is killing someone. I’m against any war. It’s horrible. We all live on this planet. I’m no better than anyone else, no one is.

Everybody’s here. Everybody’s got a gift.’ It was studying music on the GI Bill (which offered vocational training for returning war veterans) that allowed him to realise his own potential. He learnt bel canto singing techniques, to which he ascribes his vocal longevity. ‘Bel canto means beautiful voice, a beautiful sound, so you try and think of beauty when you sing. It’s very wholesome. If you warm up for 15 minutes in your room before the show, you feel great comfort, because you see where you’re at, and you think in terms of feeling and pouring your soul into the music.’ He was guided towards developing his own distinctive, jazzy and improvisational style.

‘I had a very good teacher on 52nd Street, a great jazz street in New York. She said, “If you imitate other singers you’re just gonna be one of a chorus. It’s better to imitate musicians.” From her brownstone window you could look down on the awnings, and it
would say Billie Holiday, Stan Getz, Errol Garner or Art Tatum. I couldn’t believe Tatum, he was the most phenomenal piano player I’d ever heard, different from anyone else.

Everybody had a tempo going so you could dance, but Tatum started changing tempos, breaking it up at unexpected moments. Then Stan Getz had a beautiful, very wide, honey sound to his saxophone and I liked that, I put those two together and found my style. Musicians would say to me, “What the hell are you doing? You’re breaking the songs up.” I’d say, “I’m telling stories.” It was
ahead of time but now it’s just accepted. Spontaneity is key. So on a nightly basis it always feels like a brand new show.’

In 1950, aged 24, Bennett won a recording contract with Columbia and had his first number one in the US charts the following year, with Because of You. He has been reviewing his recorded output for a forthcoming box set to commemorate his 85th birthday this year, and proclaims himself satisfied. ‘There’s been ups and downs, but there’s 54 albums and not one obsolescent song there. I never followed disco or rock or rap, or whatever the fashion is, I just sing
quality. Great songs, great melodies, great lyrics. And it’s thrilling to see that, if you live long enough, it’ll pay off.’

[Lainey]

PART THREE

Sinatra held Bennett in the highest esteem, hailing him as ‘the best singer in the business’, adding, ‘He moves me. He’s the singer who gets across what the composer has in mind, and probably a little more.’ Bennett is equally enthusiastic about Sinatra, yet says he decided early on that he didn’t aspire to the same level of fame.
‘I never wanted to be the biggest. Because you get ripped apart, they tear you down, for some strange reason.

People can’t take somebody that’s better than everybody. They tore down Marilyn Monroe, they tore down Elvis Presley, they
worked very hard on tearing down Sinatra; he overcame it but he had a tough time. And I witnessed that as a youngster and I decided, I just want to be one of the best, I don’t want to be the best. It’s not a soccer or baseball game, it’s a matter of being part of the community. I love to entertain, I feel very good about doing that. It’s tragic what happens to people who go way up above everybody else, because they have to compete with everyone coming up. It’s a fiasco.' Bennett speaks with the same soft understatement with which he sings, unwinding anecdotes and observations without hurry in a caressing, lilting tone, smiling with genuine warmth, exuding a kind of delighted wonder at where he finds himself in life.

He seems almost a caricature of benign old age. Yet he is honest and self-aware enough to admit it was not always thus. ‘Oh no, no,’ he says, waving the past away with one hand. ‘I went through a lot of changes. I found out that whatever success, whatever failures I had, you just have to live with, you still have to go on.’ By the end of the 1970s, in the face of public uninterest in the old swing-era stars, he found himself without a recording contract and fighting off bankruptcy.

Following his near-fatal cocaine overdose and subsequent divorce in
1979, he turned to his adult sons, Danny and Dae, for help, telling them, ‘Look, I’m lost. It seems people don’t wanna hear the music I make.’ His sons were both struggling musicians, but Danny had a head for business and took over his father’s management, reuniting him with his estranged pianist and musical director, Ralph Sharon.
They slowly got his career back on track throughout the 1980s with intelligently themed albums built around the classic American songbook and a well-received MTV Unplugged show in 1994.

These days, both fame and fortune have been restored, with Bennett’s net worth recently estimated to be in excess of $100 million. Dae is his recording engineer, his daughter Antonia sings with him, and other members of his family have worked on photography, design and marketing for his new album. ‘It’s a family business now,’ Bennett says. ‘It’s very nice.’

‘Susan, how are you doing?’ he calls out to an elegant blonde hovering at the edge of the room. ‘I’m doing great,’ she says, crossing to rest her hands on his shoulders. Susan Crow is 51, a former social studies teacher and manager of jazz artists, who became the third Mrs Bennett in 2007, after they dated for 20 years. Why did it take them so long to tie the knot? ‘I’m always busy,’ Bennett laughs. ‘He’s not joking,’ she adds, wryly.

‘I fear retirement,’ Bennett admits. An accomplished (and lifelong) painter under his real surname, Benedetto, he Smithsonian Museum. ‘I sing and paint every day. It’s a matter of “keep learning, keep growing, keep studying”. All of the arts have the same rudiments, learning what to leave out, how to simplify things. When I wake up, I can’t wait to go at it. I love it. I never say, “Oh God, I need a vacation.” I’m on vacation, wherever I am. Sinatra retired, Astaire
retired a couple of times, I’ll never retire. What would I do? Watch the wall? I don’t get it. I have an ambition to keep improving myself as I get older.

If I get lucky enough to stay healthy, I’m trying to sing better at 100 than when I was 20. I dislike people who think they have to give up on life because of their age. That’s incorrect thinking. Never give up on life. If you are alive, it’s a gift. You’re lucky to be alive, never regret it.’

[leannaf]

lovely he says it all really its so sad i wish things could be diffrent

[LaPeep]

Thanks for posting.

[ladyamy]

She recorded it on my birthday (March 23)!!!!

[LegendJJ]

Thanks. This is one of the best articles I have read in the past month, not only relating to Amy but just music in general. Lately I've been trying to be more knowledgeable about the music from Tony Bennett's generation.

The only thing I didn't like was when he said he was almost the "amy winehouse" of his day
Obviously I know he didn't mean it in a bad way and wasn't trying to criticize her(so I forgive him), just not a fan of when people say they compare themself like that

But I forgive you Tony.

Two questions though

1. Is this "Body and Soul" recording a cover of a song from the 1930s? Because the article brought up that it was a classic 1930s song. I thought this was an original recording.? Either way I can't wait until September 14.

2. Do you agree with Tony that Amy seemed to lack a "sense of purpose"? I'm unsure what he means

[kevd7]

Fabulous, Lainey. Thx so much for posting this. There is so much garbage out there about her passing but this is from the heart.
I love this "The voice that emerged was rich and ancient, cracked and bluesy, flowing around the song in jazzy glides and fluid bursts that would dazzle and explode then peter out at dead ends"...

"He sinned against his art"....speaking of Lenny Bruce. Powerful stuff.

[Domi]

I just read that... Tony about Gaga:

Bennett acknowledges that the Lady Gaga duet on "The Lady is a Tramp" also seems out of left field but proclaims that "I never met a more talented person in my life... I think she's going to become as big as Elvis Presley."

Tony, I love you but wtf? I'm not saying Gaga has no talent but what about Amy? She was far better than Gaga and also he had a chance to meet her.

[tunisianswife]

^^oh yes, been around for ages. one of my fav. all=time songs and I have always loved the way that Coltrane did it justice.

Here is from Wikipedia:
Body and Soul is a popular song written in 1930 with lyrics by Edward Heyman, Robert Sour and Frank Eyton; and music by Johnny Green.
[edit] History

Body and Soul was written in London for Gertrude Lawrence and was first recorded by Jack Hylton and his orchestra.[1] Rising quickly to popularity, Libby Holman introduced it in the U.S. in the 1930 Broadway revue Three's a Crowd and it was used as the theme to the 1947 film, Body and Soul.[1] Like many pop songs of the time, it became a jazz standard, with hundreds of versions performed and recorded by dozens of artists.
As with many pop standards, there are variations on the lyrics, primarily between renditions by male and female performers. Classic vocal recordings include those of Ella Fitzgerald, Annette Hanshaw, Billie Holiday and Frank Sinatra.
Among the most famous of these is the take recorded by Coleman Hawkins and His Orchestra on October 11, 1939, at their only recording session for Bluebird, a subsidiary of RCA Victor. The recording is unusual in that the song's melody is never directly stated in the recording; Hawkins' two-choruses of improvisation on the tune's chord progression constitute almost the entire take.[2] In 2004, the Library of Congress entered it into the National Recording Registry.[3][4] The tune remained popular with jazz musicians throughout the twentieth century, with arrangements recorded by John Coltrane on his "Coltrane's Sound album (1964) and Charles Mingus on "Mingus Plays Piano" (1963), to name a few. In 2011 it was covered as a duet by Tony Bennett and Amy Winehouse.[5] Music was the last and final video clip recorded by Winehouse.

[tunisianswife]

as far as his reference of her lacking a sense of purpose: I understand what he was trying to say. she was a bit lost. In my opinion most likely d/t the manic depressive disorder.

[LegendJJ]

as far as his reference of her lacking a sense of purpose: I understand what he was trying to say. she was a bit lost. In my opinion most likely d/t the manic depressive disorder.

Yeah I guess I understand now. It kind of reminds me of other musicians like Kurt Cobain.(who may have also been manic depressive) They love making music, but sometimes lack the ambition day in and day out. I guess that is what he means by a "sense of purpose".

Gaga is definately talented and like I said I am a fan of her. I guess her sense of purpose was mainly "Fame"...even named her debut album that.

Its hard to explain.....

I guess basically Amy LOVED to work on music but didn't know what exactly she wanted out of it

[kevd7]

"I guess basically Amy LOVED to work on music but didn't know what exactly she wanted out of it"

i think you nailed it. she was without direction. and in recovery from abuse of hard drugs. it takes time to find yourself again

[Elsie]

I just read that... Tony about Gaga:

Tony, I love you but wtf? I'm not saying Gaga has no talent but what about Amy? She was far better than Gaga and also he had a chance to meet her.

I know right? I saw that quote a few days ago and decided to keep quiet, but now that you've mentioned it... He wants to score some points with the younger generation, imo.

Thanks for the article Lainey, it was a good read. I loved how he described what was so captivating about her;

She was ready to take a chance, right on the spot, right on the microphone, she’d try a different phrasing, she knew how to improvise, it was spontaneous and intimate. That’s what I loved about her. She was really herself.

She performed the same songs for 6 years but always kept it fresh. Not many artists can do that or are actually willing to, this is one of the main reasons why she kept such a large following through the years I think.

[tunisianswife]

been thinking much about this being without direction, lacking a sense of purpose.

do you all think Amy realized how much she was loved by those that embraced her music and recognized what a genius artist she was?(hate referring to us as 'fans' ...seems so cheap) I've wondered this on and off for a while.

I think what i certainly could appreciate about her was that her fame did not change her in the sense of becoming 'diva'. I remember reading about a certain singer(won't mention name) that always has to have hotel rooms redecorated to meet her 'standards', has to have certain kinds of towels w/so many threads, certain kinds of water only in her room, etc.

I have just often thought that she never realized just what a pure genius she was.

any thoughts regarding the above? would love to hear others' opinions.