Tony Bennett

American singer (1926 - )

• || At The Bottom

• 1979 -- 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.

• || At The Top

• 2006 -- At the age of 80, Tony Bennett was on top of the world again.  His album, Duets -- which consisted of songs performed with artists like Barbara Streisand, Sting, the Dixie Chicks and Elton John among others -- had been released to great critical acclaim and popular appeal, winning two Grammy Awards, including Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album (an award he had taken four of the previous five years.)  Altogether, Bennett has received to date a total of 13 Grammies since his comeback, along with two Emmy awards for live televised concerts in 1996 and 2007.  His album sales have topped 50 million worldwide, and he has been rewarded with an endless list of honors, including induction into the Big Band and Jazz Hall of Fame; a Grammy Lifetime Achievement award; and a lifetime award from the American Society of Composers, Reflecting on his astounding later-life success, Bennett wrote that "I felt like I had been to the moon and back."

• || The Comeback

• In his time of need, Tony Bennett came to rely on those closest to him for support.  As Bennett recalled in his autobiography, his near-lethal overdose "jolted" him out of the haze into which his life had sunk.  As he was being rushed to the hospital, he realized that he was throwing away everything.  "I knew I had to make major changes in my life," he wrote. He called up his son Danny -- also a musician -- and explained that he has losing his way and needed some help desperately.  Bennett's son helped him take control over the areas of his life that had gone off track.  Indeed, he became his father's manager and put him on a tight budget, moving him from Las Vegas back to New York City. He put his father in a one-bedroom Manhattan apartment and began booking shows at small theaters and colleges.  Together, Bennett and his son began reinventing his career with a deliberate effort to appeal to younger audiences.  By the early 1990s, Bennett was on the road back.  His 1986 comeback album, The Art of Excellence, was a surprise hit and put Bennett back on the charts for the first time in fourteen years.  Subsequent albums achieved gold status and won him his first Grammy since 1962.  He appeared on The Simpsons and on MTV, recording an unlikely episode of "Unplugged" -- a program in which artists perform without electric instruments -- that eventually won  Bennett a Grammy award in 1994.  Bennett rediscovered success not by completely molding himself to the tastes of a new audience; instead, Bennett found ways to make the music of his generation appealing to younger listeners.  As he explained, "What meant the most to me was that I had accomplished all of this without compromising my music."