[Dixielandjazz] And God Help the artist that only had ONE big Hit

[TCASHWIGG at aol.com]

In a message dated 6/28/03 5:11:55 PM, nvickers1 at cox.net writes:

<<

I'm reminded of Gene Lees' story about asking Tony Bennett how it felt to

sing" I Left My Heart in San Francisco" night after night.  Lees commented

that he felt that Bennett didn't understand the question.


Norman Vickers

Pensacola>>

Hi Norman:

I would certainly understand that story concerning Tony Bennett, simply 
because he is at leat in my opinion one of the greatest singers the business has 
ever produced, and Tony has had a great deal of personal success as a Jazz 
singer in spite of his great success with that song.

I distinctly remember however, that he went through a terrible lull period 
about 15 years ago as I recall, when suddenly it seemed nobody knew who he was 
and he was out of the limelight and not getting any real concert bookings and 
drawing any people.   He and his management designed a brilliant comeback to 
popularity status by taking a self produced concert tour of the USA in first 
class venues like the Herbst Theater in San Francisco, where I  saw him and 
forced three of my sons and ten of thier best friends to go to the concert to hear 
Tony. 

They had never even heard of him, and most of them did not even know the song 
"Left my heart in San Francisco"  and a couple of them that did admit to 
having heard of the song had no idea who Tony Bennet was.

What convinced them to go here this old guy sing was the fact that Tony was 
actually paying everyone who came $25.00 to come and hear him sing.

I can tell you I was very happy to see my own kids enjoy a magnificent 
vocalist unmatched by many others of our time, and he certainly had a lot more to 
offer then Left My Heart" .  

I also tried for years to get the City of San Francisco to invite Tony to be 
an honorary citizen of the city and further attempted to get them to certify 
him as a major tourist attraction for the city, along with Johnny Mathis.    To 
this day I still believe they would be a bigger draw than Fisherman's Wharh 
and would have done much to keep the music scene alive and popular in San 
Francisco.

Too bad they did not listen.

I like Frank Sinatra a lot and respected greatly Mel Torme, but personally 
liked his drumming better than his vocals, but my all time favorite Male singer 
was and still is Tony Bennett  for a real class act and gentleman.

Cheers,

Tom Wiggins