Customer Reviews

Sixteen Most Requested Songs

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16 Most Requested Songs by Tony Bennett gives us sixteen of Tony's greatest hits--and most requested songs, too! The sound quality is really good and it baffles me that this album is currently out of print. The artwork is great, too.

"Stranger In Paradise" gets the royal treatment from Tony who sings this passionately with a fine musical accompaniment. The backup vocalists harmonize so well and Tony never misses a beat! "Rags To Riches" was always one of my favorite Tony Bennett songs; it makes me smile when I hear this and I predict that you'll enjoy "Rags To Riches" also. Listen also for "Just In Time:" Tony does so well on this that you really get the sense of the wonderful operatic qualities of his voice. Great!

"I Left My Heart In San Francisco" is, of course, a Tony Bennett standard; and he gives this the royal treatment a ballad this fine deserves. Tony sings this with exceptional sensitivity and his delivery is flawless. What a great number! "I Wanna Be Around" is a stunning love ballad that will make you want to dance with your sweetheart; the arrangement for the piano is excellent and Tony sing this so well it can break your heart.

"For Once In My Life" has Tony performing a very well done cover of the famous Stevie Wonder song; this gets a much slower tempo than Stevie gave it but it all works very well and this shines like gold when Tony sings it! Stevie would be proud. In addition, "Smile" stuns me with its beauty; Tony delivers this with panache and all the gracefulness of a highly polished entertainer.

"Tender Is The Night" has a great arrangement for the strings as Tony sings this well; and "The Shadow Of Your Smile" is wonderfully romantic when Tony Bennett performs it! Tony handles the subtle tempo and key changes effortlessly; this impresses me a lot.

The theme from Love Story sounds fresher than I've ever heard it; and I think you'll enjoy this also. The CD ends strong with Tony delivering "The Good Life" beyond perfection. "The Good Life" leaves you wanting more--don't be surprised if you immediately want to play this entire CD all over again the instant it ends!

Tony Bennett remains one of the world's greatest entertainers ever; and we are all better off for his sharing his talents with us.

Thank you, Tony!

You can never go wrong with Tony - took the Cd in my daughter's Easter Basket - habit for 50 years - and she was so thrilled. He is one of the big collector's items so I heard from her friends in LA. I'm all for collecting them as his voice is just terrific and so is this CD All go out and buy one. Val Luttrell

This is a great album - the essential Tony Bennett. It does miss a few good tunes such as IF I RULED THE WORLD and one of his favorites - When Joanna loved me.

I never tire of this album. It contains most of the songs I associate with the happiest times of my life. Don't laugh, but I "talk back" to the songs. They never cease to be moving and bring a smile. Tony Bennett has given his best to us, and we have been enriched. Subsequent albums also amaze, with the excellence, class and good taste never diminished.

I was raised on Tony Bennett records when I was young. My dad was a WWII veteran who liked Glenn Miller, Tommy Dorsey, and Benny Goodman. Tony was a product of that generation. Many of the great crooners, such as Bing, Nat, Frank, Dino, and Perry, are gone now. Tony is all that is left from that wonderful period of big-time crooners. He recorded George Gershwin, Cole Porter, and Johnny Mercer songs, similar to the other singers. However, no one could do it better than Tony. It is no wonder that Frank Sinatra called him "the greatest singer around". This CD compilation is just a "taste" of Tony's successful fifties and sixties recordings. I would tend to agree with critics that there should be a two volume CD release - Volume I (1950-1958) and Volume II (1958-1965). I also think that his 1994 comeback on MTV is worth a look too. He still has got it.

Most songs are top notch except LOVE STORY could have been dumped for WHEN JOANNA LOVED ME.

Why doesn't Columbia come out with a TONY's GREATEST HITS VOL. 1 (1950-1958) and VOL.2 (1959-1965) collection to cover all the great ones?

But there are so many songs that could be include but maybe in a box of cd could be nice

Tony Bennett is a great crooner, no doubt. The cover leaves something to be desired. Tony is what crooner Brian Evans is...a young crooner even today. He's still got it. The two are very much the same!

Tony Bennett is among the few artists in any genre whose work improved with age and experience. The tribute albums he recorded to Frank Sinatra, Fred Astaire, Billie Holliday and Duke Ellington are the finest Great American Songbook recordings of the past decade. That renaissance began with his 1986 comeback album, "The Art of Excellence," released the same year as this compilation album.

Bennett's first, vibrato-voiced hits (the brassy "Rags To Riches," the exaggerated tango "Boulevard of Broken Dreams," his first single) were produced by legendary Columbia Records head Mitch Miller and share a flair for exaggeration with that label's star, Frankie Laine. (Unlike Frank Sinatra, Bennett was too young then to leave the label and lacked cache'-- and cash --to start his own). Yet Bennett even then gave Hank Williams' "Cold, Cold Heart," a huge early 50s hit, enough stately empathy to present Williams' song, and by proxy all country/western songs, to a new audience.

The gentle swing of "Just In Time," catches Bennett in an early niche with subtle, jazz-inflected ballads like "Who Do I Turn To," "I Wanna Be Around" and his signature song, "I Left My Heart In San Francisco." Bennett's reading of that classic recalls longing for home and familiarity, often lost in what became that city's commercial jingle.

"The Shadow Of Your Smile" (a 1966 Bennett hit featuring the introductory "Sandpiper" verse) works well, but forget his clumsy 1971 version of "(Theme From) Love Story" when better songs ("Firefly," "Once Upon A Time,") are missing. A good rule of thumb is the less ornate the musical background, the better Tony Bennett has sounded. It's a lesson he learned, then taught in the 1990s.

Bennett's early music is featuring in any number of hits' collections, with this, "Hall of Fame Hits" and the 4CD, "40 Years Of Tony Bennett" among the finest. Buy this highly-recommended set as a budget-priced introduction, then reach for any of his 90s LPs to hear the best from America's finest living singer of American standards.

Bennett has a stunning voice, but many of his early records were crippled by pedestrian orchestration and half-hearted production.

Then there's "I Left My Heart In San Francisco," one of the most captivating recordings of the 1950s. I still have a problem with the MOR horns up front in the mix, but the cool vibes and some tasty piano help drive this tune along to Bennett's gorgeous vocal crescendo. "I Wanna Be Around" follows much the same pattern, though the band is a little jazzier.

But the crowning achievement of Bennett's long singing career has to be "The Shadow of Your Smile." After a dramatic build up, Bennett avoids the cliched, big-throated reading a lesser talent would have fallen into, delivering instead a dramatic, breathy rendition that Sinatra would have been proud of.