TONY BENNETT

The New York City–born son of a grocer and a seamstress, Anthony Dominick Benedetto, said Frank Sinatra, is “the best singer in the business.” He survived the Battle of the Bulge, the British rock-and-roll invasion of America, and the Great Depression, and he is the oldest musician to have a #1 album on Billboard’s charts. When he left his heart in San Francisco, millions of fans gave him theirs. He is a national treasure, a troubadour of the Great American Songbook, and has recently performed with Lady Gaga. He is also a terrific painter.

Growing up there was always a stack of 5–6 LPs on the record player, and one or two were Tony Bennett’s. Tony campaigned for Daddy in 1968, but I reconnected with him in the wake of the Newtown massacre, when we were both lobbying for gun control on Capitol Hill. Tony won the RFK Ripple of Hope Award in 2014.

Kerry Kennedy: Tony, you’ve had such an extraordinary life, and you’re ninety years old now and still performing, but a lot of the people who love your singing don’t know about your social activism.

Tony Bennett: I’ve always believed in certain things, and when I heard your father speak of his belief in those things, I felt like he and I were in it together; like we were supporting each other. I had so much hope for him and what he could do for this country, especially after the tragedies the family and the country had experienced earlier in the decade. So when he was campaigning, I listened to him. I said, “We’re finally going to get the right president. America’s going to be all right with him.” When he was assassinated, it was the most tragic—I’ve never gotten over it. To this day, I—It’s hard to describe it. I just felt it was the end of the America I had hoped for. I had a lot of hope then. I was hopeful about everything then. When he died, I said, “We’ve all gone crazy.”