70 years on stage, 19 Grammys and 50 million albums sold: legendary singer Tony Bennett dies

Tony Bennett, American pop and jazz singer who, during his seventy-year career, led "The Great American Songbook"died at the age of 96. The edition told in more detail The Guardian.

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Bennett was perhaps best known for his 1962 signature song I Left My Heart in San Francisco, and for orchestrating a surprising comeback in the 80s and 90s that saw him enduring popularity into his old age. The singer has received 19 Grammy Awards, including a Lifetime Achievement Award in 2001, and has sold over 50 million records worldwide.

In 2020, it was announced that he had been diagnosed with Alzheimer's in 2016. He tweeted: "Life is a gift, even with Alzheimer's." It turned out that although his cognitive function was impaired, he was still able to sing the full range of his repertoire.

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Bennett's ability to perform in the genres of pop, big band and jazz has brought him recognition throughout the world. He proved his relevance in 2014 by collaborating with Lady Gaga on the album Cheek to Cheek, in which the duo tackled a series of jazz songs. It was a No. 1 album in the US, and Bennett became the oldest living artist to reach No. 2011, a record he had already set with his XNUMX album Duets II.

Born Anthony Dominic Benedetto in 1926 to Italian immigrants, he grew up poor in Queens, New York. His father died when Tony was 10 years old, although by that time he was already singing professionally. As a teenager, the guy became a singing waiter and earned money for the family before he enrolled to study music and painting at the New York School of Industrial Art.

Bennett was drafted into the US Army in 1944 to fight in France and Germany in the last year of World War II. It was an experience that traumatized him.

“This is legalized murder,” he told the Guardian in 2013.

But Tony continued to sing while in Germany, and in 1949, after returning home, his singing career could begin properly, first under the name of Joe Bari, and then as Tony Bennett.

His breakthrough came in 1951 with Because of You. The hits continued throughout the decade with songs like Blue Velvet, Rags to Riches and material that sounded like Frank Sinatra's swing sound. Bennett became a teen idol, and when he married his first wife, Patricia Beach, in 1952, 2000 black-clad female fans "mourned" the event.

In 1962, he achieved superstar status with his version of the 1953 song I Left My Heart in San Francisco. She brought Bennett two Grammy awards and became a pop standard of the XNUMXth century.

However, Bennett's style was already looking dated when British music swept the American charts, and he has struggled for relevance since the 1960s. In the next decade, he faced a number of personal problems, including the breakdown of his second marriage and a serious drug addiction. However, two albums recorded with pianist Bill Evans would be the key to his later resurgence as a central figure in US music.

The turning point in his life came when Bennett hired his son Danny as his manager. Reuniting with his early 1960s pianist and music director Ralph Sharon proved to be a masterstroke.

His 1986 comeback album, The Art of Excellence, was a hit. Perfectly Frank (1992), a tribute to his idol Sinatra, topped the US Billboard jazz chart, and Bennett won a Grammy for Album of the Year at the 1994 MTV Unplugged.

Bennett became a regular on late night television and collaborated with a variety of artists such as kd lang, Amy Winehouse, Queen Latifah and Diana Krall, which helped him maintain his relevance among young artists. His 2006 album Duets: An American Classic featured Paul McCartney, Elton John and George Michael.

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Singing was not Bennett's only artistic pursuit. His paintings, created under his birth name, are exhibited at the Smithsonian Institution and the Butler Institute of American Art. In 2001, he founded the Frank Sinatra School of the Arts in Queens, New York, which offers qualifications in visual arts, dance, vocal and instrumental music, drama, and film.

A lifelong Democrat, Bennett was a supporter of the civil rights movement, participated in the Selma Marches to Montgomery in 1965, and refused to perform in apartheid-era South Africa.

Bennett remained determined to perform in his later life. Shortly after his 90th birthday, he told the New York Times, "I could have retired 16 years ago, but I just love what I do." He performed his last concerts in August 2021 with Lady Gaga at New York's Radio City Music Hall.

He is survived by four children: Danny and Dae from his marriage to Beach, and Joanna and Antonia from his second marriage to Sandra Grant Bennett, from whom he separated in 1979. He has been married to Susan Crow, 40 years his junior, since 2007.

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