My given name is Anthony Dominick Benedetto, and Benedetto in Italian means “the blessed one.” I couldn’t say it any better than that. I’ve been blessed on many counts, but most of all, I’ve been blessed with an amazing family.
My family came from a small town called Podargoni in Reggio-Calabria, Italy. Around the turn of the twentieth century, my grandfather brought his wife and children to America, and they settled in New York. Originally they lived on Mulberry Street in Little Italy. This was typical, as most people who immigrated to America preferred to stay in the same neighborhood with their “own kind,” and insisted on maintaining the cultural customs from the country they left behind.
But my grandfather was an intuitive and astute man. He was smart enough to realize that his new home was a different kind of country, made up of all different nationalities and religions. He had a keen sense of how important it would be to assimilate, rather than create barriers that would shut doors of opportunity that would otherwise be open to all of us. He decided that he didn’t want to live in a neighborhood that was only Italian, so he chose to move everyone across the East River to Astoria, in Queens. The area was a hub of diversity. This was where the workers of Manhattan lived: the secretaries, teachers, firemen, policemen, elevator operators. Among those living there were Italians, Greeks, and Jews. They all lived in Astoria, and they still do to this day.
My father’s sister and her husband opened a grocery store in Manhattan and lived in rooms above it. My dad went to work for them and also lived above the store. Oddly enough, the location of the store was in the very place where, years later, CBS—which owned Columbia, my record label—would make its headquarters. When my father was twenty-four, he and my mother became engaged through an arranged marriage, which was the custom back then.
My mother’s parents had begun a similar business; they sold fruits and vegetables to pushcart owners. Every morning the vendors would arrive at the warehouse with their carts to pick up produce, and then go out and sell the food all around the city. My grandfather worked long hours at the warehouse, while my grandmother was in charge of paying the bills. Any money she saved, she kept under their bed. My mother went to school for a number of years but later had to quit in order to help out her family.
My parents got married, and had my sister, Mary, and my brother, John. They moved upstate for a while to work in my uncle’s general store but eventually moved back to the city. My mother’s mom had been so good at saving every little bit she could from the produce business that eventually they were able to buy a house in Queens. The other family members wound up in Astoria, too; my parents followed them and opened a grocery store.
But by the time my mother was pregnant with me, my dad’s health was starting to fail, and they had to sell the business. When I was one year old, he was unable to do any physical work at all. My parents moved to a narrow railroad flat above a candy store. It didn’t even have hot water at first, and the heat from the kitchen stove barely reached the other rooms, but they made the most out of what they had.
Despite his illness, my father was so giving. He was the person who first inspired my love of music. He had a fantastic voice and got tremendous pleasure from singing to anyone who would listen. My aunts and uncles used to tell me that, growing up in Italy, he used to sing on the top of a mountain near my family’s little village, and the whole valley would listen to him. In Astoria he’d sit on our front stoop and sing Italian folk songs to my brother and me. He also used to take us to the movies and read us classic works of literature.
My dad taught us very early on to respect people for who they are, and not to judge them by the color of their skin. He had great compassion for people who were suffering. He was the family psychologist; everyone discussed their problems with him, and he’d give them practical advice and try to help anyone who was down on his luck. My dad also brought people over to our house if they needed somewhere to stay. Everyone knew they could rely on him to help them out if they needed.
My relatives were magnificent; every Sunday, my aunts, uncles, and cousins would come over for the family meal, and at the end of the day, they’d make a circle around my brother, sister, and me. Someone would bring out a guitar or mandolin, and we would entertain the group. We kids couldn’t wait until Sunday; we always tried to come up with something different to amuse them. We were such a tight little community, all depending on one another. My relatives would say, “Oh, you sing so nicely,” and “Did you see the way Tony drew that picture?”
It gave us such confidence to see how much they enjoyed our little performances. So even in the midst of the worst years economically, we received this amazing warmth and appreciation for our talents. That’s when I realized, Wow, they like the way I perform. This is who I am. One of the great gifts of my early life was having this loving family who appreciated what I was trying to do.
All this time, my father’s health was getting worse. His heart was weak as a result of having rheumatic fever as a child, but they couldn’t do anything for him back then. Eventually it was impossible for him to leave the apartment, and that’s when my mother took the job as a seamstress doing piecework in the Garment District. My dad stayed home and cared for us as best he could, but his condition continued to deteriorate.
Ultimately my father just didn’t make it; he passed away when I was ten. I was devastated—we all were. After that, it became very hard to make ends meet. My uncles thought that it would be a good idea to send me to upstate New York, a small town called Pyrites, to live with relatives while my mom mourned and got her bearings—so off I went. I hated being away from my family. I missed my dad, and it was an absolute low point in my life. I felt alone and forgotten; I was just counting the days until I could return. When I finally got back to Astoria the following year, I was still incredibly sad without my father around, but at least I was happy to be reunited with my mother, brother, and sister.
Even though our family hit tough times, we focused on what mattered, and we made the best of it all. I remember one Thanksgiving, in the middle of the Depression, when my mom was trying to fix a holiday dinner but there wasn’t enough money for a turkey. My mother was crying, and it ripped my heart out to see that she was so sad. I knew that a movie theater down the street was raffling off turkeys, so I asked her to give me a dime to try to win one. I ran down the street and bought my ticket, then took my seat in the theater, but I couldn’t focus on the film. I just sat clutching my ticket stub—number four. The movie ended, and the tickets were spun around in a huge tumbler. I repeated to myself, “I’m gonna win, I’m gonna win, I’m gonna win.”
All of a sudden, the man called out, “Number four!” I won! Stunned, I went up and got my turkey, then carried it down the street to my house. When my mother opened the door, they all just stared at me. I’ve always been kind of lucky that way. For the rest of his life, my brother told this story with the same sense of amazement at my good fortune.
My brother was a fantastic singer; at age fourteen he performed solo spots in the Metropolitan Opera. My mom could afford formal training for only him, and I was always envious of the fact that he got to have lessons. So I felt I had to use my own ingenuity to keep pace and become an entertainer. I’d crack jokes and make my family members laugh, and I loved being able to get that kind of reaction from them. “Someday I’ll be a successful singer,” I used to tell my mother, “and I’ll buy you a big house.” In a way, I went into showbiz to get her away from that sewing machine. I’m so thankful that I was able to accomplish that dream eventually.
I have a deep appreciation for what the family can bring to one’s peace of mind if there is proper involvement. Today I’m enriched with the most beautiful children and grandchildren anyone could hope for; I’m surrounded by a group of very thoughtful people. They’re all individuals, they’re all wholesome, they’re not stunted by anger, and each one of them means well for the world. Each is accomplishing a lot in his or her own field, and several of them work with me.
My son Danny has now been my manager for well over thirty years, and my son Dae engineered and produced all of my records for almost as long. My daughter Antonia is a beautiful and very talented singer. I’m fortunate that she opens my show now on most dates. This is particularly nice because I get to travel all around the world with her. My daughter Johanna is a very conscientious and philanthropic-minded woman who dedicates herself to many worthwhile causes to help other people. I have six beautiful grandchildren, all interested in or working in the arts. In fact, when we were taping “Don’t Get Around Much Anymore,” Michael Bublé jokingly commented, “All your family are artists and musicians. Mine are all fishermen. What the hell happened to my family?”
My children have a natural affinity for music. Johanna and Antonia grew up with Sammy Cahn, Frank Sinatra, and Dean Martin. When they were only nine and ten, they sang with Count Basie’s band. Danny and Dae attended fantastic jam sessions; Dan once shared a piano bench with Duke Ellington. Dae had his first drum lesson with Basie’s legendary drummer, Sonny Payne, who was the first person to hand him a pair of drumsticks. They also got to observe the business of the industry, and watched managers and agents doing their thing, good and bad.
There’s a funny story about when Danny met a well-known jazz artist. Dizzy Gillespie was our neighbor, and he came over and rang the doorbell one day. Danny, who was eight years old at the time, answered the door and said, “Yes?”
Dizzy held out his arms. “I’m Dizzy,” he said.
Danny said, “Come on in, I’ll get some water for you.”
Dizzy told this story until the day he died.
By the time they were in their twenties, both boys were knowledgeable about everything from performance to the technology of recording. That was why, when I needed to organize the business side of my career in the late seventies, I called upon them to help. I asked Danny to review my financial situation, which at the time was in a bad state, according to my accountants. Thankfully, after a while he was able to get my expenses and budget in order. At that point I didn’t have a plan for him to become my manager. But he was very good at figuring it all out, and it was a relief to hand those details over to him. So it evolved naturally that he started to manage my career. We began to talk endlessly, and to plan what I was going to do next. And we never looked back.
Danny asked me what I wanted to accomplish in my career. “I want to do what I do best,” I told him. “I don’t want to compromise my integrity.” I wanted to perform for the whole family, and to bring my music to as many people as possible. I also wanted to keep alive the work of performers like Duke Ellington and Harold Arlen, and all the great artists I’d known over the years. I knew that if I brought the best songs to the public, it would work, because that kind of music lasts forever.
Danny agreed that if the younger audiences saw me perform, I’d be embraced by them. He wanted me to focus my efforts on youth-oriented outlets, and he proved to be absolutely correct. In the spring of 1981, I played three New York clubs in one week: the Village Vanguard, the Bottom Line, and Marty’s. Then I did a big concert at Carnegie Hall. I also exhibited my paintings at Tavern on the Green, which was the subject of a major feature in New York magazine and lots of write-ups in other media. The week was very successful, and I was encouraged by the warm reception everywhere I went.
Danny would come up with some very outside-the-box ideas that no one else was doing at the time. The Simpsons was just starting to air at that point, and the creators of the show wanted me to do a song. Danny told them that I would, as long as they made me an animated character. So I became the first in a long line of animated special guests. Danny also set up a feature on me in the new alternative music magazine, Spin, which focused on college-age kids.
Fourteen years after I left Columbia, he got me back with the label. He made the good point that most of my catalog remained there, and that we would be able to leverage anything new that I released in promoting any of my previous recordings. CDs were just starting to take off in the mid-eighties, and many people were replacing their entire vinyl collections with the new format. I decided to make a record with the best digital equipment available, which became The Art of Excellence.
Annie Leibovitz shot the cover, and I got to record a duet with Ray Charles, which was the first time we’d sung together. The CD came out in 1986; there was a big tour, and I did my first concert at Radio City Music Hall. WBCN in Boston became the first rock station to play my new record, because its promotions director, Chachi Loprete, was a big fan. It sold like gangbusters, and Columbia was happy with the results—as I was.
With Danny’s management talents and Dae’s expertise in the studio, I made more albums. Each one was well received, and each sold more than the last. When Columbia was bought by Sony, it wanted to do a boxed set of my definitive recordings, which became Forty Years: The Artistry of Tony Bennett. That, too, did very nicely, but Danny felt we still weren’t getting the attention we deserved. He set up a meeting with the Columbia heads and told them that if they couldn’t sell more of my albums, then we wanted out. The executive said they wanted me to stay and asked what I wanted to do for my next project. I told them I wanted to do an album of Sinatra’s great standards. Perfectly Frank went gold, and I won my first Grammy since “I Left My Heart in San Francisco.”
About that time, MTV came into the picture. They asked me to film a commercial for their “I Want My MTV” campaign, which garnered a lot of attention. Then Danny pitched them the idea for me to appear on their very popular MTV Video Music Awards show. After that, MTV decided to add my new “Steppin’ Out” video to their Buzz Bin, typically used only for the hottest new rock acts.
I was quickly picking up fans in the younger markets. In the early nineties, I was invited to perform at a Christmas festival held by a rock station in Washington, D.C. The audience went crazy when I sang “Old Devil Moon,” particularly when I held the word love for an extended number of bars.
A couple of years later, MTV invited me to do their very hip music performance series, Unplugged. Dan turned me on to k.d. lang at that time, and I invited her to do a duet with me. I also asked Elvis Costello, with whom I’d worked a few years earlier when we were guests on one of Basie’s television appearances. The broadcast performance became the second-highest-rated Unplugged for MTV. We eventually released an album of the show, and it became a huge seller, going platinum and winning three Grammys, including the coveted Album of the Year. It was a big deal and turned a lot of heads. All of this was strategized by Danny, whom I credit with revitalizing my career.
My son Dae is an amazing sound engineer. I was honored with two Grammy nominations after the first duets album was released, but he was nominated for eight—all jazz. I couldn’t believe it! Dae wound up winning six Grammys. This was just two years after he opened Bennett Studios in Englewood, New Jersey, and I was so proud of his accomplishment. Danny joined me onstage to accept the Grammy for Album of the Year, another milestone and a personal triumph for me.
When all is said and done, I’ve learned that family helps keep you sane. Over the years, there were many instances where I didn’t handle things on the domestic front as well as I could, but it takes time to learn what’s best in the long run. I’m now surrounded by my family; we work and play together. My wife, Susan, and I have been together for over twenty-five years now, and she travels everywhere with me. She brings me peace of mind. Susan spearheaded the creation of the Frank Sinatra School of the Arts in my hometown of Astoria, Queens, which had been a lifelong dream of mine. She also heads our non-profit, called Exploring the Arts, which raises money and makes important financial contributions to support and create arts programs in America’s public schools. It doesn’t get better than this. As a Benedetto, I can truly say that I am “the blessed one.”
The Zen of Bennett
It is a blessing to be able to work with family members.
When you work with family, honest communication is key.
The family circle is one that protects and enriches you throughout your whole life.
