Tony Bennett~ "Till"
Anthony Dominick Benedetto, better known as Tony Bennett (born August 3, 1926), is an Italian-American singer of popular music, standards, show tunes, and jazz.
Bennett is also a serious and accomplished painter, having created works—under the name Anthony Benedetto—that are on permanent public display in several institutions. He is the founder of the Frank Sinatra School of the Arts in New York City.
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 2010s.
Bennett has won 17 Grammy Awards (including a Lifetime Achievement Award, presented in 2001) and two Emmy Awards, and has been named an NEA Jazz Master and a Kennedy Center Honoree.
He has sold over 50 million records worldwide.
Life and career
1926–1943: Early life
Anthony Benedetto was born in Astoria, Queens, New York City, one of three children of Anna (née Suraci) and John Benedetto.[1]His father was a grocer who in 1906 had emigrated from Podàrgoni,[2] a rural eastern district of the southern Italian city of Reggio Calabria.
His mother was a seamstress who had been born in the U.S. shortly after her parents also emigrated from the Calabria region in 1899.[1][2]
Other relatives came over as well as part of the mass migration of Italians to America.[1] They had three children: Mary, the oldest, John Jr., and Anthony, the youngest.[3][2]
With a father who was ailing and unable to work, the children grew up in poverty.[4] John Benedetto Sr. instilled in his son a love of art and literature and a compassion for human suffering,[5] but died when Anthony was 10 years old.[4]
The experience of growing up in the Great Depression and a distaste for the effects of the Hoover Administration would make the child a lifelong Democrat.[6]
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.
His Uncle Dick was a tap dancer in vaudeville, giving him an early window into show business,[7] and his Uncle Frank was the Queens borough library commissioner.[8]
By age 10 he was already singing, and performed at the opening of the Triborough Bridge,[9] standing next to Mayor Fiorello La Guardia who patted him on the head.[8]
Drawing was another early passion of his;[4] he became known as the class caricaturist at P.S. 141 and anticipated a career in commercial art.[10]
He began singing for money at age 13, performing as a singing waiter in several Italian restaurants around his native Queens.[10][11]
He attended New York's High School of Industrial Art where he studied painting and music[12] and would later appreciate their emphasis on proper technique.[13] But he dropped out at age 16 to help support his family.[14]
He worked as a copy boy and runner for the Associated Press in Manhattan[15][16] and in several other low-skilled, low-paying jobs.[17]
But mostly he set his sights on a professional singing career, returning to performing as a singing waiter, playing and winning amateur nights all around the city, and having a successful engagement at a Paramus, New Jersey nightclub.[11][17]
1944–1949: World War II and after
Benedetto was drafted into the United States Army in November 1944, during the final stages of World War II.[4][18]He did basic training at Fort Dix and Fort Robinson as part of becoming an infantry rifleman.[19]
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.[19]
Processed through the huge Le Havre replacement depot, in January 1945, he was assigned as a replacement infantryman to the 255th Infantry Regiment of the 63rd Infantry Division, a unit filling in for the heavy losses suffered in the Battle of the Bulge.[20]
He moved across France, and later, into Germany.[4] As March 1945 began, he joined the front line and what he would later describe as a "front-row seat in hell."[20]
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.[21]
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;[21] during the first week of April, they crossed the Kocher River, and by the end of the month reached the Danube.[22]
During his time in combat, Benedetto narrowly escaped death several times.[4] The experience made him a pacifist;[4] he would later write, "Anybody who thinks that war is romantic obviously hasn't gone through one,"[20] and later say, "It was a nightmare that's permanent.
I just said, 'This is not life. This is not life.'"[23] At the war's conclusion he was involved in the liberation of a Nazi concentration camp near Landsberg,[4] where some American prisoners of war from the 63rd Division had also been held.[22]
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.[4]
His dining with a black friend from high school – at a time when the Army was still racially segregated – led to his being demoted and reassigned to Graves Registration Service duties.[24]
Subsequently, he sang with the 314th Army Special Services Band under the stage name Joe Bari[25] (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).[26]
He played with many musicians who would have post-war careers.[25]
Upon his discharge from the Army and return to the States in 1946, Benedetto studied at the American Theatre Wing on the GI Bill.[9]
He was taught the bel canto singing discipline,[27] which would keep his voice in good shape for his entire career.
He continued to perform wherever he could, including while waiting tables.[4]
Based upon a suggestion from a teacher at American Theatre Wing, 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.[14][28]
He made a few recordings as Bari in 1949 for small Leslie Records, but they failed to sell.[29]
In 1949, Pearl Bailey recognized Benedetto's talent and asked him to open for her in Greenwich Village.[11] She had invited Bob Hope to the show.
Hope decided to take Benedetto on the road with him, and simplified his name to Tony Bennett.[29]
In 1950, Bennett cut a demo of "Boulevard of Broken Dreams" and was signed to the major Columbia Records label by Mitch Miller.[9]
Source: Wikipedia
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