The Good Life: The Autobiography Of Tony Bennett [Hardcover]

Tony Bennett (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 1, 1998

The renowned recording artist shares a half-century of personal memories, from his childhood in Depression-era Queens, to the New York jazz scene of the 1940s, to his successes with a new generation of fans in the 1990s.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

With Frank Sinatra at eternal rest and Mel Torme felled by a 1996 stroke, Bennett has assumed the mantle of America's greatest crooner. This memoir tracks the singer's life from his birth in 1926 in Astoria, Queens, as Antonio Dominick Benedetto, through adolescent dalliances with music and art, an overseas stint in the Army and a series of stateside breaks that established him as a jazzy, technically masterful interpreter of popular standards. There are delightful bits of trivia, such as that Bennett, during his late-1980s comeback, became the first animated real-life character on The Simpsons. There's philosophy of a mild sort as Bennett lets off some steam about America's failure to deliver on its birthright of equality; he also laments that race, religion and sexual orientation divide people of like minds. Most of all, there are names, swarms of them. Bennett's list of influences, collaborators, acquaintances, employees and friends reads like a phone book of 20th-century celebrity. For all its star power, the book is ultimately undermined by a shortage of musical insight. Bennett only hints at his well-known animosity toward the rock music that derailed his career in the late '60s and early '70s. And while he is forthright about his demons, particularly two failed marriages and a nasty cocaine habit that almost ended in an overdose, this confessional strain is overpowered by a seeming preoccupation with portraying himself and his loved ones as fair-minded and affable. Bennett's book would have been better if he had left a little bit less of his heart in San Francisco and put a little bit more into this effort.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Bennett follows up a remarkable singing career with this biography. Look for the A&E "Live by Request" performance and a 50th-anniversary prime-time TV special.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 304 pages
• Publisher: Atria; 1ST edition (November 1, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0671024698
• ISBN-13: 978-0671024697
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.3 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #152,244 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #15 in Books > Biographies & Memoirs > Arts & Literature > Composers & Musicians > Pop

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A surprisingly good read, in many ways . . ., December 17, 2001

By 

Paul Dana (San Francisco, CA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Good Life: The Autobiography Of Tony Bennett (Hardcover)

There's a Bennett anecdote I remember hearing reported on local (San Francisco) radio back in the early '60s: A local woman, gardening in her backyard one Saturday afternoon, was listening to Bennett's then-new "I Left My Heart In San Francisco;" suddenly, she realized, the singing had become somehow stereophonic. Looking up, she found Tony Bennett grinning at her over her backyard fence. In town for an appearance at the Fairmont Hotel, Bennett had been out for a walk; hearing her phonograph, he'd been unable to resist . . .

This is the Tony Bennett you get to meet in the pages of "The Good Life." If you're a fan, nothing in this book will change your mind. If you're not, well then, despite the fact that there does appear a certain sense of "glossiness" in his account of his life, loves, marriages, etc., you may well find yourself coming to nonetheless admire the man.

A word about that "glossiness": It may well arise from nothing more than a yearning towards fairness (and not only to himself). He discusses failed marriage, for example, as well as his work-induced absences as a parent, taking responsibility for his actions without -- on the one hand -- pointing out that it "takes two to tangle," or -- on the other -- seeking to overly justify his absences as the price of building a successful career. He also talks of his marijuana use (as first disclosed by his exwife, years after they'd split) in an explanatory tone, with regret, and without seeking to justify that use. Again, there is a sense of fairness about him, even as he talks of a fairly prevalent drug use among musicians of the era. In his desire to explain the musician's life and its pressures and demands, there is what some may (wrongfully)interpret as an impulse to self-expiate. This is wrong, as evidenced, not only by his own mea culpa approach, but by his account of a conversation with longtime friend -- and onetime collaborator -- Bill Evans, shortly before the latter's death.

This fairness carries over in his account of his early disputes with then-Columbia Records A&R head, Mitch Miller (best remembered today, probably, for his subsequent "Sing Along With Mitch" records and TV series of the late '50s). By all accounts, Miller was -- to say the least -- dictatorial and patriarchial in his belief that he knew what was best for the artists under his control. Bennett could have savaged the man in this account (and justifiably); after all, Miller's long gone from the scene, others have already reminisced about his iron-handed control; so what stops Bennett . . . save for a humanistic impulse toward fairness?

For me, one of the most telling portions of this autobiography occur in Bennett's recounting of his World War II experiences as a G.I. in the European theatre. Without self-aggrandizement, he talks -- movingly so -- of what he saw, and how those horrors turned him against war for all time; strikingly, it is this same absence of 'been-there-done-that' self-absorption that colors (and which underplays) the reminiscences of his considerable involvement in the early-60s civil rights movement down in Mississipi-Alabama. If he avoids the urge to expiate himself, he likewise eschews the temptation towards self-canonization.

From his August 3, 1926 birth (one day too late, by the way, to be my twenty-years-older "birthday twin"), through the intervening years including his "renaissance" for yet future generations via MTV, Bennett presents himself in this autobiography as a man who caught more than his share of lucky breaks (and who, inferentially, made a few more of his own, although you won't get him to admit it, at least in this book) on his way to (as in the title of one his best-known songs) "The Good Life."

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Wish It Could Have Been Longer, March 23, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The Good Life: The Autobiography Of Tony Bennett (Hardcover)

Tony Bennett's story would make a great movie, and while this book tells alot about the man I really wish it was a longer story. Guess I hated to see it end so fast, but it did give insight on things I did not know about Tony. He was in the Army and saw action in Europe during WW2, even if only for about 4-5 months, he saw alot and came very close to becoming a statistic himself. Most enjoyable, though, was Tony recalling the days when he first started out professionally and how he fought to make records that were important to him, not what the pop charts dictated. The mutual admiration between Tony & Frank(no last name needed)is also mentioned quite a few times, making it clear there was great affection between these two superstars. Highly recommended for all Tony Bennett fans, and please, how about a movie version starring that kid on Happy Days(Eddie Mekka-who portrayed the Big Ragu)who sings just like Tony? Oh well, just a suggestion...

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The real Tony for all to see., November 17, 1998

By 

Katrina Sussmeier ([e-mail]) (San Jose CA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Good Life: The Autobiography Of Tony Bennett (Hardcover)

I loved being let in on Tony's life and times. This book just shows he's as loveable and human as he is talented and adored.