Tony Bennett passed away yesterday in his hometown of New York. Despite being diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease in 2016, he continued to perform until early 2020.
The message from his official Twitter account simply said: “Tony left us today but he was still singing the other day on his piano and his last song was because of you, his first number one hit.
“Tony, because of you we have your songs in our hearts forever.”
Anthony Dominic Benedetto, the lad from Queens, has sung with everyone from Aretha Franklin to Lady Gaga across a glittering seven-decade career.
Surrounded and revered by his great colleagues all his life, he paid him the greatest compliment.
Frank Sinatra, aka Chairman, once said, “For my money, Tony Bennett is the best singer in the business. It turns me on when I watch him.”
“He moves me. He’s the singer who goes beyond what the composer thinks, maybe a little more than that.”
Later in life, Bennett said, “I was his favorite and he was my favorite and I just couldn’t get over that because he was an exceptional artist, a beautiful singer, and a wonderful person.”
Sinatra went one better with an unusual tribute to his friend in concert.
Sinatra said, “Now Tony’s going to come out and he’s going to rip the seats out of this place for you. He’s my man, this cat. He’s the greatest singer in the world today. Oh, this man, Mr. Tony Bennett!”
“I said it publicly in the newspaper and I’ll say it again, it’s the greatest thing in the world today.”
In turn, Bennett revealed that he was inspired to work in show business after seeing Sinatra live on stage when he was just 12 years old, and learned a lot about theatrics from the icon.
In his early days of stardom, the bigger star encouraged and helped Bennett as he began performing to larger crowds after his humble beginnings as a singing waiter in local Italian restaurants.
Bennett said, “Sinatra taught me, the audience are your friends, they come to see you. And it changed me completely, there is no such thing as a bad audience. There is a bad performance, but there is no bad audience.”
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