Tony Bennett was such a staple of traditional American pop music for so many years—over 60 years, in fact—that it’s hard to even think about what the music world was like when he was still an unknown. The thing that sets Bennett apart from his peers really was his consistency over the years, and that consistent style is present even in his early recordings. This week on the show, we’ll explore the early years of Tony Bennett, looking at some of the LPs he recorded for Columbia Records in the 1950s and early 1960s.
Columbia's Mitch Miller
Tony Bennett, born Anthony Bennedetto in Queens on August 3, 1926, started his singing career, of all places, in the army, as he served in Europe during World War II. After the war, he returned to New York where he began performing his own distinctive style of jazz and expressive, theatrical pop at nightclubs around town. In 1950, his melodramatic reading of Harry Warren’s old standard “Boulevard of Broken Dreams” got him a recording contract with Mitch Miller’s Columbia Records.
It was a minor success for the label, but his big success wouldn’t come until the next year, when his recording of the little-known song “Because of You” became a number one Billboard hit. His New You accent was thick on the record, but his vocal style cemented then and there.
Mitch Miller tried to turn the 24-year-old Tony Bennett into a pop star. However, Bennett wanted to sing older theater songs—jazz standards, as they’re called today—and record them on the new LP format, much like Frank Sinatra and Nat Cole were doing for Capitol Records. Miller obliged, and Bennett recorded the album Cloud Seven with guitarist Chuck Wayne, consisting of standards like “Old Devil Moon,” “I Can’t Believe You’re In Love With Me,” and “I Fall In Love Too Easily.” He followed that up the following year with another LP of standards simply titled Tony, featuring arrangements by Gil Evans.
Ralph Sharon and Frank De Vol
In 1957, Tony Bennett began working with pianist Ralph Sharon, which kicked off a musical partnership that lasted for over 50 years. Bennett and Sharon decided that for his next album of standards, they would try something new in the accompaniment. In addition to your typical jazz combo, they added six percussionists including jazz players Art Blakey, Chico Hamilton, and Jo Jones, alongside Afro-Cuban players Candido and Sabu. Together, they infused the jazz standards on record with a Latin beat, calling it The Beat of My Heart.
Tony Bennett’s next LP for Columbia Long Ago And Far Away was a more straight-ahead pop affair, featuring Ralph Sharon at his side again on piano, Herbie Mann on flute, a couple of guitars and harps, and a string orchestra conducted by studio vet Frank De Vol. Bennett and De Vol would team up again at the end of 1959 for another album of lush standards called To My Wonderful One. That LP features Kurt Weill and Maxwell Anderson’s “September Song,” a song that Bennett considered to be one of his favorites.
Tony Bennett’s 1961 Columbia LP Tony Sings For Two might be my favorite album of his from this period. It’s a simple record, featuring just Tony on vocals and his longtime musical partner Ralph Sharon on piano. Over a decade later, Bennett would famously create a pair of duet albums with pianist Bill Evans, but this earlier duet album between Bennett and Sharon rivals it in the way it showcases each musician as well as their intimate connection as artists.
Count Basie
In the late 1950s, Bennett teamed up with one of the most established bandleaders in the country to record two albums: Mr. Count Basie. Basie had a contract with Roulette Records while Bennett had a contract with Columbia, so a two-record deal had to be struck—one LP for each label. At the end of the day, Bennett and Basie’s Orchestra would be featured on both, but Basie himself would only appear on the album for Roulette, while Bennett’s pianist Ralph Sharon could stand-in on the album for Columbia.
The Columbia LP, titled In Person, was supposed to be a recording of a performance in Philadelphia. However, the producer Al Ham didn’t like the end product. He wanted a better stereo recording, so Bennett and Basie’s band were asked to recreate the concert in the studio, and Ham later added canned applause to the final to make it sound like it was live. The result was disappointing, and luckily that applause was taken off the CD reissue. Their 1959 Roulette album Strike Up The Band was more well-received.
“I Left My Heart In San Francisco”
Tony Bennett had a string of top 10 Billboard pop hits in the early 1950s, but then spent about the next decade focusing mostly on albums, where he recorded mostly jazz standards in his own signature and consistent style. The pop limelight had seemed to pass him by, which rock ‘n’ roll and other acts took over. Then all of a sudden in 1962, Bennett found himself back on top of the pop world with a little song about the City By The Bay.
It was Ralph Sharon who discovered the song “I Left My Heart In San Francisco,” and offered it to Bennett when the two were performing out west. When they recorded it for Columbia Records that year, making it the centerpiece of an LP of the same name, it became an unexpected hit. The song reached the top 20 of the Billboard pop charts, the album reached the top 10, and both the song and Bennett himself won Grammy Awards that year.
After the unexpected success of this song, Tony Bennett found himself as a best-selling pop star yet again. This success led to an evening engagement at Carnegie Hall—he was the first major male pop star to get such a billing. The live concert was recorded, and the double LP, Tony Bennett At Carnegie Hall from 1962 became another best-selling album for Columbia Records.