Obituaries

Your golden sun will shine for me

Posted on by brucehhackett

In 1949, a gifted singer from Queens who was working under the stage name Joe Bari was invited to perform as a warm-up act for comedian Bob Hope. Before the curtain went up, Hope asked the young man his real name. “Anthony Dominick Benedetto,” he replied, to which Hope responded, “Then let’s call you Tony Bennett. And may I offer you some advice? Always take the stage with a smile.”

Five, six, even seven decades later, this man was still smiling whenever he performed or recorded the timeless songs he cherished from the Great American Songbook, and it helped him attract a new generation of fans who seemed to embrace him as enthusiastically as the audiences in the ’50s and ’60s had.

Bennett, perhaps the last of the original group of song stylists from that bygone era of popular music, died last week at age 96. His expressive voice came wafting out of the speakers of my father’s hifi in the early ’60s right next to Frank Sinatra and Nat King Cole, and, at the age of seven or eight, I came to appreciate the songs he sang and, particularly, the way he sang them — with rare gusto and extraordinary control.

Because this blog focuses on rock music of the ’50s through the ’80s, you might think Bennett isn’t the sort of artist to whom I would pay tribute. Bennett (like Sinatra) didn’t care for rock music when it arrived and didn’t mince words about it. But he was a devotee of swing and Big Band, two exhilarating genres that helped give birth to rock and roll, and I’ve never been one to shy away from paying respect to rock’s early influences.

In an appreciation published in The New York Times, Jon Pareles succinctly captured Bennett’s approach: “He wasn’t an old-fashioned crooner; his sense of swing was just as strong. He understood that pure virtuosity can keep listeners at a distance. He soon revealed a grain in his voice that made it earthy and approachable, downplaying his precision. Very often, there was a jovial savvy in his phrasing; he’d punch out a note ahead of the beat, as if he couldn’t wait to sing it.”

That’s what has appealed to me and, apparently, to dozens of other popular singers as well, who lined up for the chance to sing duets with Bennett on a half-dozen albums he recorded between 2001 and 2021. Ray Charles, Paul McCartney, B.B. King, Bonnie Raitt, Billy Joel, k.d. lang, Barbra Streisand and others added their vocals to tracks on Bennett’s releases of that period. Improbably, his 2006 LP “Duets: An American Classic,” released to commemorate his 80th birthday, reached the Top Five on the US album chart and won a Grammy for Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album. It featured 20 collaborations with not only modern-day crooners like Diana Krall and Michael Bublé but bonafide rock/R&B singers such as Bono, Elton John, Stevie Wonder and Sting.

He topped that effort with “Duets II” in 2011, which reached #1 and included pairings with an even broader range of singers, from Queen Latifah to Willie Nelson, from Amy Winehouse to John Mayer. Perhaps Bennett’s most impressive achievement came at age 88 with 2014’s “Cheek to Cheek,” another chart-topper, this time exclusively with Lady Gaga. He became the oldest artist to score a #1 album.

How did this happen? In the 1970s, it appeared Bennett’s career was on an inexorable downslide, viewed by many as unhip and passé. His misguided attempts at singing Beatles songs and other contemporary fare did poorly on the charts and were ridiculed by critics. Even though critics praised his partnership with noted jazz pianist Bill Evans on some challenging material in the mid-’70s, both LPs failed to chart at all. By 1980, struggling with divorce and cocaine addiction, Bennett’s professional and personal life were in crisis.

Enter son Danny Bennett. He too had taken a stab at a career in music, but he quickly concluded that his head for business and finance would not only serve him better but would also make him a savvy manager to help right his father’s foundering ship. The younger Bennett got his father’s expenses and IRS debts under control, moved him back to New York City, and began booking him in colleges and small theaters to get him away from the dreaded “Vegas” image. He also aided in forging a reunion between Bennett and his longtime pianist and musical director Ralph Sharon, and got his father re-signed to Columbia Records in 1986.

Danny Bennett lobbied hard on his dad’s behalf, getting him booked on late night TV shows like David Letterman and Conan O’Brien, which appealed to younger audiences. These appearances led, famously, to a starring spot on the “MTV Unplugged” series in 1994, and the accompanying album actually won Album of the Year, one of the most prestigious Grammy awards. Bennett recalled years later, “It began to dawn on me that young people had never heard the songs of Cole Porter, Gershwin, Johnny Mercer —they were like, ‘Who wrote that?’ To them, it was different, and they loved that. If you’re different, you stand out.”

Younger artists like Linda Ronstadt and Carly Simon had sparked a revival of the Great American Songbook with tenderly rendered albums in the ’80s, but Bennett was the real deal. Just as important was his relentlessly joyous stage presence. He always, always, seemed to be having such a great time, and audiences respected his cool nonchalance and refusal to give in to newer styles and fads. He was “OG” before that was a thing.

Artists who have had storied careers inevitably have what is considered their “signature song,” one tune for which they’re best known and identified, and they sometimes come along unexpectedly. For Bennett, this happened in late 1961, when his pianist Ralph Sharon suggested he try an appealing song he’d come across. It was by an unknown songwriting team from San Francisco who had relocated to New York with big dreams but grew homesick for their West Coast home town. Bennett recorded “I Left My Heart in San Francisco” in one take, and it was placed on the B-side of a single that was mostly ignored…but disc jockeys took notice and began playing the B-side instead. As luck would have it, Bennett sang the song on the debut show of “The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson” in 1962, and it became a best-selling hit and the Record of the Year Grammy winner.

Sinatra, who had been Bennett’s role model in his early days, had this to say in 1965: “For my money, Tony Bennett is the best singer in the business. He excites me when I watch him. He moves me. He’s the singer who gets across what the composer has in mind, and probably a little more.”

Country singer Tim McGraw, who sang a Hank Williams song with Bennett on the “Duets” LP, said, “I know the words to ‘Cold, Cold Heart’ by heart, but I was shaking so bad standing three feet from him that I had to hold on to the lyric sheet to try to steady myself. He was such a gentleman and such a presence. It was the thrill of a lifetime for me.”

There’s no better evidence of what an icon Bennett became in his 70s and 80s than the fact that actor Alec Baldwin did a spot-on parody of Bennett’s nonstop optimism in several appearances on “Saturday Night Live,” once with Bennett standing right there next to him.

A side of Bennett not as well known was his belief in and quiet participation in the civil rights movement of the 1960s. He had been a witness to the way black entertainers like Duke Ellington and Nat King Cole were treated in many places at that time, “and it enraged me,” he said. “I’d never been politically inclined, but these things went beyond politics. Nate and Duke were geniuses, brilliant human beings who gave the world some of the most beautiful music we’ve ever heard, and yet they were treated like second-class citizens.”

Bennett was also a talented painter, whose work fetched impressive sums and kept him busy crerating when he wasn’t on tour or in the recording studio. What did he paint? “My friend Bill Evans told me, ‘Just think truth and beauty. Forget about everything else.’ I took that advice to heart in song and in art, and it has served me well. I’ve seen both go out of style but they always come back in vogue again.”

Lady Gaga recalled how Bennett offered her some invaluable advice of his own. In 2014, she admitted to Parade Magazine that she had felt like giving up on music because some people in her inner circle had become “irrational” with regard to money and what they expected from her. “I was so sad. I couldn’t sleep. I felt dead. But then I spent a lot of time with Tony, and he wanted nothing but my friendship and my voice,” she said. “Tony said to me, ‘I’ve never once in my career not wanted to do this. Not once.’ It stung at first, and it made me defensive. But his words renewed my purpose. I told Tony many times since that day that he saved my life.”

R.I.P., Tony. We’ve all shed a tear at your passing, but the whole world smiles with you.

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The Spotify playlist below includes 15 songs from Bennett’s early years of success, but I thought it instructive to focus more heavily on the many duets he cut in the later, even more impressive chapter of his life.

A lifetime of promises, a world of dreams

Posted on by brucehhackett

My introduction to Tina Turner came in 1971, as it did for many other white suburban kids of my age, with these spoken words: “You know, every now and then, I think you might like to hear something from us nice and easy. But there’s just one thing: You see, we never ever do nothing nice and easy! We always do it nice and rough. So we’re going to take the beginning of this song and do it easy. Then we’re going to do the finish rough.”

And with that, Ike and Tina Turner launched into a slow, sensual reading of the first verse and chorus of John Fogerty’s “Proud Mary,” then abruptly segued into a frenzied double-time arrangement for the rest of the song. Holy smokes, I thought, this is way more interesting than Creedence Clearwater Revival’s ho-hum original!

Full confession: It would take me many years before I developed a full-blown appreciation for Turner’s gifts as a one-of-a-kind entertainer. I certainly knew her big hits from the 1980s — “What’s Love Got to Do With It,” “Better Be Good to Me,” “Private Dancer,” “We Don’t Need Another Hero,” “Typical Male,” “The Best” — and her reputation as one of the most electrifying live performers to ever take a stage.

But it really wasn’t until the past week, in the wake of Turner’s death May 24 at age 83, after reading all the tributes and listening more intently to Turner’s recorded legacy, that I came to understand how much she overcame and how much she accomplished in her 50 years in show business. I strongly urge you to scroll down to the Spotify playlist at the end of this essay and hit “play.” So many superb performances!

Anna Mae Bullock was only 18 when she met and first heard Ike Turner and The Kings of Rhythm perform at a St. Louis nightclub. Turner had been a formidable guitarist and songwriter in his own right, responsible for seminal rock ‘n’ roll records like 1951’s “Rocket 88,” and he knew how to present a riveting live act. But one night in 1957 during a break, the petite girl who longed to be on stage got her chance, belting out B.B. King’s “You Know I Love You,” and Turner was gobsmacked. “I would write songs with Little Richard in mind,” said Turner in his 1999 autobiography, “but I didn’t have no Little Richard to sing them. Once I heard Tina, she became my Little Richard. Listen closely to Tina and who do you hear? Little Richard singing in the female voice.”

Her potent, bluesy singing and supercharged dancing style soon made her the group’s star attraction, and Turner’s wife. The ensemble was renamed The Ike and Tina Turner Revue and became one of the premier touring soul acts of the early-to-mid-1960s in R&B venues on what was then called “the chitlin’ circuit.” Their work wasn’t yet embraced by mainstream audiences, but if you pay close attention to the first dozen tracks selected for the playlist (especially “A Fool in Love,” “Cussin’, Cryin’ and Carryin’ On” and the Phil Spector-produced “River Deep, Mountain High”), you’ll be reminded (or discover) what all the fuss was about.

Over in England, The Rolling Stones invited the group to open for them, first on a British tour in 1966 and then on an American tour in 1969, which caused rock audiences in both countries to sit up and take notice. (You could make a strong case that Mick Jagger was deeply influenced by Tina Turner’s stage presence as he developed his own in-concert persona.)

Tina with The Rolling Stones backstage in 1981

I’m reluctant to mention too much about the horrible abuse and violence Tina endured at the hands of her first husband, particularly once he developed a cocaine addiction and an irrational jealousy of her ever-increasing time in the spotlight. Suffice it to say that she suffered indignities and injuries that hurt her self-esteem and her career for many years in the ’60s and ’70s, and she deserves a huge amount of credit for eventually breaking free from his suffocating control.

“It’s very difficult to explain to people why I stayed as long as I did,” she said many years later. “I’d left Tennessee as a little country girl and stepped into a man’s life who was a producer and had money and was a star in his own right. At one time, Ike Turner had been very nice to me, but later he changed to become a horrible person.”

Desperate to be rid of him, she agreed to divorce terms that left her virtually penniless. She gave Ike nearly all their money and the publishing royalties for her compositions. “You take everything I’ve made in the last sixteen years,” she said. “I’ll take my future.”

Turner’s solo career was slow to take off. Her first few albums didn’t sell, her record label dropped her, and she was back to playing small clubs and in ill-advised cabaret acts for a time. When Olivia Newton-John’s manager, Roger Davies, began guiding her in 1980, Turner readopted the gritty, hard-rocking style that had made her a crossover star, which led to a startling cover version of The Temptations’ “Ball of Confusion” on an album of rock and soul covers called British Electric Foundation. That in turn led to a stupendous remake of Al Green’s “Let’s Stay Together,” which reached #26 on US pop charts in 1983. That success attracted Capitol Records, who approved an album with the caveat that it be recorded and released in less than a month.

A number of prominent songwriters and producers — Rupert Hine, Mark Knopfler, Ann Peebles, Terry Britten — came forward to offer their songs and their services, and the result was “Private Dancer,” one of the biggest albums of 1984 and, indeed, of the 1980s, selling upwards of 10 million copies worldwide. The LP was described by one critic as “innovative fusion of old-fashioned soul singing and new wave synth-pop.” Seven tracks were released as singles in either the US or the UK, with “What’s Love Got to Do With It,” “Better Be Good to Me” and “Private Dancer” all reaching the Top Ten here.

At age 44, Turner had finally attained the superstardom she’d dreamed of since first stepping on stage. Four more albums over the next 15 years achieved platinum status (especially the 1986 follow-up “Break Every Rule,” which reached #4), and she cemented her reputation as one of the top concert draws in the world. She also showed her chops in film, playing the ruthless Aunty Entity in the 1985 blockbuster dystopian action hit “Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome,” which spawned another #1 hit, “We Don’t Need Another Hero.”

One of the things I most admire about Turner is her ability and willingness to record covers of popular R&B songs and rock tunes with equal flair. Check out some of the titles you’ll find in her catalog: “Come Together” and “Get Back” (The Beatles), “Living For the City” (Stevie Wonder), “In the Midnight Hour” (Wilson Pickett), “Reconsider Baby” (Elvis Presley), “The Acid Queen” (The Who). I’m even more impressed by the number of major rock stars who have partnered with Turner on various duet projects over the years: Eric Clapton (“Tearing Us Apart”), Rod Stewart (“It Takes Two”), Bono (“Theme from ‘Goldeneye'”), Bryan Adams (“It’s Only Love”), David Bowie (“Let’s Dance”).

Her tempestuous first marriage provided much of the material for the 1993 film “What’s Love Got to Do With It,” with Angela Bassett and Laurence Fishburne in the lead roles. Turner re-recorded some of her hits, and one new song, “I Don’t Want to Fight,” but otherwise declined to participate. “Why would I want to see Ike Turner beat me up again?” she said at the time.

The best indication of how much respect artists have earned is the number of major players who praise them, both in life and in death. “How do we say farewell to a woman who owned her pain and trauma and used it as a means to help change the world?” Bassett said last week. “Through her courage in telling her story, and her determination to carve out a space in rock and roll for herself and for others who look like her, Tina Turner showed others who lived in fear what a beautiful future filled with love, compassion, and freedom could look like.”

Beyoncé, arguably the most popular singer on the planet at the moment, said, “My beloved queen. I love you endlessly. I’m so grateful for your inspiration and all the ways you have paved the way. You are strength and resilience. You are the epitome of power and passion. We are all so fortunate to have witnessed your kindness and beautiful spirit.”

The Who’s Pete Townshend, who had suggested Turner for the part of The Acid Queen in the 1975 film version of “Tommy,” described her as “an astonishing performer, an astounding singer, an R&B groundbreaker. If you ever had the privilege of seeing Tina perform live, you will know how utterly scary she could be. She was an immense presence. She was, of course, my Acid Queen in the ‘Tommy’ movie, and it is often my job to sing that song with The Who, so she always comes to mind, which isn’t easy to deal with. The song is about abuse at the hands of an evil woman. How she turned that song on its head! All the anger of her years as a victim exploded into fire, and bluster, and a magnificent and crazy cameo role that will always stay with me.”

The multi-talented Oprah Winfrey noted, “I started out as a fan of Tina Turner, then a full-on groupie, following her from show to show around the country, and then, eventually, we became real friends. She contained a magnitude of inner strength that grew throughout her life. She was a role model not only for me but for the world. She encouraged a part of me I didn’t know existed.”

The time Winfrey was invited on stage in Los Angeles to dance with Turner “was the most fun I ever had stepping out of my box. Tina lived out of the box and encouraged me and every woman to do the same.”

The industry has given Turner many accolades. Twice she was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (with Ike in 1991 and on her own in 2021); she received a Kennedy Center Honor in 2005 and a Grammy lifetime achievement award in 2018.

Rest in peace, Tina. Your place in music history is iron-clad secure.

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