Tony Bennett, 95, a Bay Area favorite, retires
Beloved, legendary singer, diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, ends 7-decade career
Singer Tony Bennett, an American icon who forged deep ties to the Bay Area thanks largely to a hit song that almost never saw the light of day, has decided to retire from performing, his son has disclosed.
The 95-year-old performer, who was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease in 2016, has canceled a series of fall and winter concert dates on doctor’s orders, according to his son Danny Bennett, who added to Variety, “There won’t be any additional concerts.”
The news comes on the heels of the singer’s two sold-out “One Last Time” performances with Lady Gaga at Radio City Music Hall in New York last week. The concerts were reportedly filmed for later broadcast.
The news means the classy and talented singer who is adored in the Bay Area is likely bringing an end to his long run of local performances — ranging from concerts at the Mountain Winery in Saratoga, the Concord Pavilion, Davies Symphony Hall in San Francisco and, perhaps
most memorably, sharing the stage with fellow music legend Paul McCartney during the 2004 Bridge School Benefit at Shoreline Amphitheatre at Mountain View.
He also appeared at San Francisco Giants games, countless public functions and events and made many visits to the world-famous Fairmont Hotel on Nob Hill, which has sported a prominent statue of the entertainer since the summer of 2016.
“I was told by my friends at the Fairmont (Hotel) that people come by the statue of me that they placed there for my 90th birthday and sing ‘I Left My Heart in San Francisco’ to it, which makes me smile,” the singer said in a 2019 interview with this newspaper.
Bennett’s classy and gracious demeanor onstage and in public is no act, says Randall Kline, founder and executive artistic director of SFJazz, who put on two concerts with the “consummate professional” singer at Davies Symphony Hall.
“He was just unbelievably cooperative,” said Kline. “Every interview you would ask him to do, he would do. And not only would he would do them, he would do them graciously. It made an impression to see someone who had been working — even at that time — for so long who was not jaded in the least.”
Even though the famed crooner is a New Yorker — born Aug. 3, 1926, in Queens — he’s also an honorary citizen of Northern California. So much so that, he says, he gets a kick out of running into tourists who assume he lives in the City by the Bay.
Of course, that is thanks in large part to his signature song, “I Left My Heart in San Francisco.”
Ironically, the origin of how “I Left My Heart in San Francisco” became Bennett’s signature song doesn’t begin, well, in San Francisco.
“The first person who really recognized the song’s potential wasn’t even from San Francisco. We were in Hot Springs, Arkansas, at a small club, and after the show Ralph (Sharon, Bennett’s musical director at the time) showed me the song, and we both thought it was a good idea to include it in the set at the Fairmont (in San Francisco), so we began rehearsing it,” Bennett recalled. “The bartender, who was cleaning up the room, said to us, ‘If you record that song, I’ll buy it.’
“I have to say even after it became a local hit and I recorded it on the B side on a record, I was still not expecting it to be a hit as I was certain the A side of the record, which featured a beautiful song called ‘Once Upon a Time,’ was going to be the hit. It wasn’t until the record label promotion department called me up and said stop promoting the A side, ‘San Francisco’ is catching on. The song has been a blessing ever since.”
The singer, who has been awarded a lifetime achievement Grammy, NEA Jazz Master designation and Kennedy Center Honors, says he has many great memories of the Bay Area. Among his favorites, he said, are “being part of various World Series games and celebrations with the Giants, as those have been tremendously exciting, and I hope that there might be another opportunity again.”
He has cited as one of his favorite events a celebration organized by socialite Charlotte Shultz at City Hall on the 50th anniversary of the release of my “I Left My Heart in San Francisco.”
“It was held on Valentine’s Day, and the public and dignitaries were so beautiful to me that I felt so much love that day,” he recalled.
It was always special for fans to see Bennett appear in the Bay Area. And the feeling was most definitely mutual.
“How fortunate I have been to have another ‘hometown’ in my life,” Bennett once said. “As I have been performing in the Bay Area every season for decades and when I come here I feel so welcome whenever I go.”