Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I have been very fortunate to have been able to make a living from what I love to do best - performing and singing for people.
That song helped make me a world citizen. It allowed me to live, work and sing in any city on the globe. It changed my whole life.
You can't teach it [jazz singing]. There's nobody who can teach you how to sing jazz. Either you know how to sing jazz, or you don't.
The high point for me in my career was when Sinatra called me his favourite performer in the Fifties. And I've been sold out ever since.
I had the greatest time of my life in England for a couple of years, and Robert Farnon made some of the best music I've ever been around.
I've taken stuff from people, too. You know though, if you steal from one person, you're just a thief. But if you steal from everyone, that's research.
To me, life is a gift, and it's a blessing to just be alive. And each person should learn what a gift it is to be alive no matter how tough things get.
The United States created the best popular songs that were ever written, and from the 1920s to the 1940s, it was a renaissance period. It stopped in 1950.
Don't try to be just like some other singer hitting it big - find your own style and be honest in your performances. And never underestimate your audience.
I've been so fortunate because I never really had ups and downs as far as my career. Ninety-nine percent of the time, I've been sold out all over the world.
I have to say I owe my career to the master composers of the Great American Songbook who have written such high-quality songs - the best popular music ever composed.
I think in all of the arts there are just certain people that have a gift. I think it's a certain spirituality, it's a God-given gift that just certain individuals have.
What I really search for is something that I really love hearing, something that's my own private game: If I find a song I really like, I try to do a definitive version.
Luckily for his audiences, Bennett doesn't tire of singing I Left My Heart. ... that song made me a world citizen. And when I do it, it always feels like the first time.
I have a simple life. I mean, you just give me a drum roll, they announce my name, and I come out and sing. In my job I have a contract that says I'm a singer. So I sing.
I know the history of the record business so well because I followed Billie Holiday into the record studios. It was so primitive compared to the sophisticated business today.
Sinatra invited me once to his birthday party in L.A. I was young, and I felt great about it. But when I got there, the Rat Pack were all in the kitchen laughing their heads off.
I'd like to prove that if you take care of yourself, you can actually not regret the fact that you've become an old-timer, but you can just still improve and actually get better.
It's really quite a situation. It's ridiculous. I make $200,000, $300,000 a night. For years I was working little dives, and if I got $700 a week, I'd say, "Wow, I'm really cooking.
Sometimes the teacher would tell me that if you're singing a love song and you just don't feel it with a person or something you've experienced, just think of a dog or cat that you love.
Johnny Mercer started Capitol Records, and he brought in Sinatra, Dean Martin, and Nat King Cole. He just let them sing whatever they wanted, and it became the best record company in America.
I was possessed with a wonderful example of my Italian American family. They would come over and join us every Sunday, all my aunts and uncles and nephews and nieces, and I would sing for them.
There's always something every night that I learn from reacting to what the audience is reacting to. You learn what to leave out, what to put in, if you need a little more comedy or more drama.
Intimate singing had a wonderful style in the '30s and '40s. It came out of Broadway and the jazz of Louis Armstrong and Billie Holliday. But Sinatra created the best romantic era that we've ever had.
When Sinatra said, 'For my money, Tony Bennett is the best singer I've ever heard,' it changed my career completely. He was my best friend, and I was his best friend... but I was never part of the Rat Pack.
Regardless of religion or race or ethnic background we are all human and we are all on this planet together. So what better reason do you need to not tolerate any form of violence against another human being?
I have grown to appreciate the power of believing in myself and of always having faith in myself. I rarely look back; instead, I always look forward. There is so much of life that we miss when we wallow in regret.
I love entertaining people; I strive to make them feel good, and they make me feel wonderful. To explain it simply, I like what I do, and my ambition is to get better as I get older. That's really what I'm all about.
I don't sing operatically, and I sing very intimately, but I still do the scales, and I think in terms of intonation and making sure that I'm hitting the notes right on the head... and having it appear quite effortless.
I still get a little nervous before performing. You don't want to forget a lyric; you don't want to make a mistake. I still get butterflies. You can try to judge an audience, but you can only really judge things by the applause.
Nobody has communicated with the public more than Lady Gaga. Ever. I trust the audience, and I'm very impressed. As far as they're concerned, she's part of their family. The only guy who ever did that was Bing Crosby, years ago.
I grew up in an era where the record companies just sold records to everybody, and the whole family bought songs. Today, record companies are failing because they are putting their accent just on the young, and I think that's rather silly.
I am very much inspired by the great masters of entertainment: Bob Hope, George Burns, Jimmy Durante - who never thought about retiring. When people ask me if I plan to retire, I say, "Retire to what? I am doing what I love best right now!"
The young people look great on television. They're youthful and have a lot of zip and energy, but when you see them live, they can only do about 20 minutes because they haven't got the training to hold an audience for an hour and a half or so.
The young people look great on television. They’re youthful and have a lot of zip and energy, but when you see them live, they can only do about 20 minutes because they haven’t got the training to hold an audience for an hour and a half or so.
I'm still learning about music. The best way to learn is to listen to the audience. When you listen to the audience, they will tell you what they like. I wish these big corporations, instead of telling the audience what they should have, would listen.
Performers should really go to the best schools, like Lady Gaga, you know, she went to NYU and had great teachers... It's best to really study your technique as much as you possibly can so you can have a long career instead of a quick one that's a failure.
I loved my mom so much because she had to work on a penny just to put food on the table... During the Depression in the United States, everybody had a tough time. And I was so hurt because she was crying that she didn't have any food for us for Thanksgiving.
I'm not the type of person who likes to look backwards. I've always felt compelled to move forward and I've never been one to dwell in the past. All the people I've met, all the places I've been, and all the things that I've done have simply been part of who I am.
We're in an era where the demand is for immediate hits that are destined to become obsolescent. Six months later, everyone forgets the artist and the tune. It's become like a con job. Producers, engineers, lawyers and accountants all make money, but the artists don't.
I want to try to prove that at 100, I could sing as well as I was singing when I was 45 or 43. I'd like to prove that if you take care of yourself, you can actually not regret the fact that you've become an old-timer, but you can just still improve and actually get better.
I was taught never to compromise: to never sing a cheap song. I never look down at the audience and think that they are ignorant or think that I'm more intelligent than they are. To think otherwise is totally incorrect and runs contrary to everything I was raised to believe.
Presley is country music, white music. Jazz is black music - it was invented by the blacks in New Orleans. And I'm really a jazz singer. I was impressed with Elvis - he was the handsomest guy I ever met in my life, and a very nice person, too. But the music doesn't impress me.
In America, at the beginning of talkies, they pulled Fred Astaire from the theaters and put him on the screen and had all of these great composers write songs for him. They call it the Great American Songbook; I call it the Fred Astaire Songbook because they were written for him.
When you hear a great two-track of a performance in Carnegie Hall, let's say, it sounds like you're right there at that moment. It's true to reality. And the closer it gets, once it gets too technical, it becomes very tinny to hear notes. It doesn't sound right. It has to be natural.
It's a great thing that the United States has given the rest of the world - no other country has given such great popular music to the Far East and Europe. When I play those great countries, a lot of times, the audience starts singing the songs with me. They know them. They love them.
It's the kind of turn that happened to the great country of Germany, when Nazis came over and created tragic things, and they had to be told off. And if we continue this kind of violence and accept it in our country, the rest of the world's going to really take care of us, in a very bad way.
Every week, as an 11-year-old kid, I would tune in to what was really the first American Idol-type program, a radio show called 'Major Bowes' Amateur Hour.' The winning group on the evening of September 8, 1935, was called the Hoboken Four, and their spokesman was Frank Sinatra, then aged 19.
My whole premise has been, right from the beginning, that it would take me a lifetime to learn to explain myself as an artist. As you grow older, you learn what to do and what to leave out. You kind of simplify your work and get the same thing done with fewer strokes. It's pretty interesting to me.
I lived for 15 years in Los Angeles, and I still can't believe that the handsomest man in the world, Cary Grant, and the greatest performer in the world, Fred Astaire, and Johnny Carson, one after another - they were all in my home at different times. I celebrated my 50th birthday with them. Unforgettable.