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Tony Bennett Quotes - IQDb - Internet Quotes Database

Quotes from Tony Bennett


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For many years, I've always been attached to what they call the Great American Songbook, and Kern was a great leader of that because he had the classical training of Europe. He impressed all the greatest composers, like Cole Porter and Gershwin. They couldn't believe he was writing the songs he was writing.


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.


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.


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 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.


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 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 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 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 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 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.


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.


When you get older, you don't have to eat a lot. I get my rest and sleep very well at night. It keeps me very balanced.


The whole music world is based on the young, the very young people.


The singers who are the most honest are the ones who become immortalized.


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.


Singing is a gift.


Singing intimately is almost like thinking into a microphone, so it helps to have the song buried inside you.


No matter what age you are, there's a lot of room for learning.


Never treat the audience disrespectfully.