Tony Bennett

  b. 1926 | American singer

At The Bottom

— 1979

He was so disgusted with himself for agreeing to the project that he threw up before recording it.

Tony Bennett’s career was in a shambles.  Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, he had been one of the most popular recording artists in the United States, with a string of jazz hits that sold millions of records and kept him at the top of the charts.  With the rise of rock and roll, however, Bennett’s musical style seemed less relevant by the early 1970s, and his career began to falter.  To his horror, Bennett’s record label had asked him to record versions of contemporary pop songs as a way of connecting  with younger listeners.  The idea literally made Bennett sick to his stomach — he was so disgusted with himself for agreeing to the project that he threw up before recording it.  (Not surprisingly, the album bombed.) By the end of the decade, he had lost his record label, he and his manager had parted ways, and seemingly no one outside Las Vegas was interested in paying to see him perform on stage.  Even worse, he had acquired a mounting drug habit — an expense he could little afford and to which his body was even less receptive — and had squandered his marriage.  Buried under a mountain of debt and facing an IRS investigation, Tony Bennett hit rock bottom in 1979 when he nearly overdosed on cocaine in a bathtub.