“I think people ... are touched if they hear something that’s sincere and honest and maybe has a little sense of humor. ... I just like to make people feel good when I perform.”“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.”
He not only survived the rise of rock music but endured so long and so well that he gained new fans and collaborators, some young enough to be his grandchildren. His rapport with Winehouse was captured in the Oscar-nominated documentary Amy, which showed Bennett patiently encouraging the insecure young singer through a performance of Body And Soul.
"No country has given the world such great music," Bennett said in a 2015 interview with Downbeat Magazine.Ironically, his most famous contribution came through two unknowns, George Cory and Douglass Cross, who in the early 60s provided Bennett with his signature song at a time his career was in a lull.
"We were rehearsing and the bartender in the club in Little Rock, Arkansas, said: 'If you record that song, I'm going to be the first to buy it.'"