So many people I know are riddled with regret. It seems they are always hung up on what they could have done or should have done. I think this causes undue stress, and stress is a real killer. I’ve always tried to take any struggles or mishaps as life lessons and apply them to who I am at the moment, and to who I want to be in the future. In other words, these times of hardship are the events that can make us better people moving forward.
We all tend to take things for granted, so I strive to live each moment as if it’s my last. That way I eliminate the possibility of having regrets. We are put on this planet for only a certain amount of time, and then in a flash, it’s over—so I feel it’s best to always make the most of the gifts that we have been given. There are miracles around us all the time; all you need to do is take chances and experience what life has to offer. Yes, we all make mistakes, but it’s not where you start that matters; it’s where you end up.
Having lived through the Depression, I count my blessings every day for the fact that I’ve wound up with such a successful career. When my father died, my mother had to work like a slave doing piecework for a penny a dress as a seamstress, in order to put food on the table for her three children. Everyone in our neighborhood was very poor back then, so we were all in the same boat. Even still, seeing my mother struggling alone to support us made an indelible impression on me.
Coming from such humble beginnings and yet being able to achieve so much are in essence the American dream. What a magnificent gift I have been given to seek out truth and beauty through my art.
That being said, over the years I had to learn to be ready to receive the bounty that came my way; it’s important to meet opportunity with preparedness. I was not always as prepared or open as I should have been. I was granted an amazing bonus early on in my singing career—but at times I didn’t recognize when I was holding too hard a line. When Mitch Miller played me Hank Williams’s hit “Cold, Cold Heart,” I didn’t think I should attempt to sing it; Hank’s version was great, but it was so different from the kind of songs I did, with the country fiddling and his yodeling voice. “It’s a good song, but I’m a city guy, and I wouldn’t know how to sing something like that,” I told Mitch.
Mitch objected strongly, declaring, “If I have to tie you to a tree, you’re going to do it.” He emphasized the beautiful words and melody, and after a while, he convinced me that I should try it. We made the record and the song hit the airwaves, starting out slowly. But then it caught on and climbed up the charts, and eventually it reached number one.
Back then there was no such thing as “crossover” music. It was either blues or country or jazz or pop; never country-rock or that sort of thing. But because of my putting out “Cold, Cold Heart,” Hank’s songs caught on everywhere. It was the first time a country tune had crossed over to the top-forty charts, and eventually it went on to be the first international country hit. We sold 2 million copies, and I’m sure he did well with it, too. One day Hank himself called me up and jokingly said, “Hey, what’s the idea of ruining my song?” Later I was told that he would play my version of it when he was with friends, which made me feel wonderful.
And if you can believe it, I almost missed out on recording the career-defining “I Left My Heart in San Francisco.”
George Cory and Douglass Cross were a songwriting team who lived in New York City. They were always pitching their new pieces to singers and musicians, trying to get them recorded. One day they ran into Ralph Sharon, my accompanist, and handed him a batch of sheet music. Ralph was so busy that he put it in a dresser drawer and forgot it was there.
Two years later, Ralph was packing to go to a concert we were doing in Hot Springs, Arkansas; from there we’d head to the Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco, where I’d never before performed. He was rummaging through his dresser for clothes to bring on the trip and came across the songs from Cory and Cross. Right on the top was “I Left My Heart in San Francisco.” Since we were going to be playing there, he snatched it up along with his shirts.
We did our gig at the club in Hot Springs, where former president Bill Clinton later told me he watched our show through a window, since at the time he wasn’t old enough to be admitted. After the show, Ralph and I went down to the hotel bar to run through some things, and he played “I Left My Heart” on the piano. I thought it was great, but what really clinched it was the bartender’s reaction. “If you record that song, I promise I’ll buy the very first copy,” he said.
I’d heard that San Francisco audiences were a bit hard to warm up if they weren’t familiar with your act, so I figured this song about their town might help. Marty Manning wrote a fantastic chart, and I sang it on the opening night at the Fairmont. The crowd absolutely loved it. That could have been all she wrote, but a Columbia rep heard it and thought the sales in San Francisco alone would make it a good idea to record it. I got it down in a single take, and Ralph called Cory and Cross, who were thrilled that I’d finally done one of their tunes.
In those days, you had an A side and a B side on records. The A side of this one was a song called “Once Upon a Time,” and the B side was “I Left My Heart in San Francisco.” The funny thing is, you never know how a song is going to do out in the world. You might think, Oh, this one really has potential, but you never know until it gets out there. So I was promoting “Once Upon a Time” like anything for about six weeks, because it was the A side. The Columbia people called me up and said, “Turn it over and plug the San Francisco side; it’s selling like hotcakes.” I did, and I guess the rest is history.
“I Left My Heart” sold thousands and thousands of copies every week for the next several years, and it became the biggest song of my whole career. People in San Francisco treat me like a king when I’m in town, and the Fairmont Hotel just gave me the top suite, which they’re calling the Tony Bennett Suite; they’ve even put some of my artwork in there. The B side of that record, “Once Upon a Time,” also became a trademark song of mine, and I’ve always loved performing it onstage.
“I Left My Heart in San Francisco” was my first gold record, and because of it, I won my first Grammy. I think one reason for its popularity is that the lyrics represent the fulfillment of a dream. There is one special place in life that embodies all that you feel and believe in, and it remains an anchor of sorts that reminds you of your values and what’s deeply and permanently important. We’d all like to be successful someday; the lines about coming home to the city mean that the person’s dream did come true. Often people ask me if I ever get tired of singing it, since it’s a standard part of my repertoire. I always reply, “Do you ever get tired of making love?”
Several times in my life I’ve benefited purely by chance. In the mid-sixties, I was working the Hollywood Bowl with Count Basie, with Buddy Rich on drums. There must have been eighteen thousand people there. I was in the middle of singing “Lost in the Stars,” a Kurt Weill song, when all of a sudden the whole audience let out a gasp and a “Wow!” I thought maybe I’d hit a particularly strong note or something. But when I came offstage and asked why they did that, a crew member said, “Didn’t you see what happened? When you were singing the song, a shooting star fell over the Bowl. It was incredible.”
The next morning I got a call from Ray Charles, who was in New York. I said, “Good morning, Ray,” and he said, “How’d you do that?” Later on we became good friends, and he always reminded me of the shooting star that fate handed me.
Sometimes life hands you gifts like that shooting star, and I am also a firm believer that karma has something to do with moments like that: what goes around in life tends to come back around. This has certainly been true for me a number of times. When I first started making it in the business, I was hanging out with a guy I was friendly with, Dave Victorson, who told me, “I’m flat broke. I want to go to L.A. and try my luck there, but I don’t have a cent to my name.” I asked him how much it would take, and he said five hundred dollars. I gave it to him, to help him out—and then I forgot all about it.
Some seven years later, Dave called me out of the blue. “You’re coming to work for me,” he said.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
Dave told me he’d just been named the entertainment director for a new Vegas hotel. He always remembered my loaning him the money, and he ended up paying me back a thousand-fold by booking me regularly at what turned out to be Caesars Palace. I wound up having a lifetime contract there.
I’ve seen this kind of thing over and over: someone does someone else a favor, not expecting anything back, and at a point in time—whether it’s a month later, or several years in the making—the favor is repaid. It’s yet another way in which life rewards us. It definitely pays to be kind.
Throughout my career, audiences have been amazing to me. The fact that I can still perform to full houses internationally is a great privilege, and my relationship with the people of Great Britain has been particularly enriching. I’ve always had a fantastic time in that country, and I’ve been performing there for over fifty years. One especially nice trait about the people of England is that once they know you, you become part of their family. It’s very unusual; you never go out of style, because they’re so loyal. Then that generation grows up, and their children wind up coming to see you, too. Every time I go there, it’s a real treat to put on a show for them.
I’ve done seven command performances in London, and each one was incredibly special. There is a protocol; the royalty sits on the left in the balcony at the Palladium, and you’re not allowed to look at that box. Instead, you sing to the proscenium audience. At the end of the concert, traditionally you turn to the box and bow to the queen.
I was present in the fifties when Jack Benny was the closing artist at one of these performances. He came out at eleven at night, looked out at the audience, and then up toward the queen and said directly to her, “They told me to be here at eight.” I’ll tell you, I never heard a bigger laugh from an audience in my life. He changed the whole history of Britain with that one line; everyone left the place chuckling.
Playing at the one hundredth anniversary of Royal Albert Hall in 1971 was something else. We had the London Philharmonic Orchestra as well as fifteen fantastic British jazz artists onstage, and I performed a lot of classic pieces and many of my big hits to that date. The concert sold out, and the audience seemed to love every minute of it. NBC showed a tape of the concert in the United States and it got very strong ratings. It was another high point in a career that has handed me many gifts.
So many people look at life with regret instead of joy. They’re tired, angry, or bigoted—but that’s such a waste of time. I wish I could take all of those individuals and help them feel good or hopeful about themselves; I try to achieve this through my show. It’s my wish that everyone in the audience can pick up something from a song, or a moment in the show, that becomes unforgettable to them. If I can make them feel that, then I’m repaying some of the rewards that I’ve received.
I feel that what I do for a living is a very noble job; I’m on a journey to communicate how beautiful our daily experience can be. Life is a gift, and we should all cherish it. It’s as simple as that.
The Zen of Bennett
Be ready to recognize the gifts of life when they arrive at your doorstep.
Remember that what goes around comes around. If you are good to someone, at some point in time that act of kindness will come back to you.
Sometimes gifts arrive in the form of a happy accident. Be prepared to accept these rewards.
Being angry is a waste of time. Instead, count your blessings every day.
Make a real effort to appreciate the gifts that life has given you.
