Customer Reviews

Who Can I Turn to

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This album features Tony Bennett singing, for the most part, slow, dreamy ballads in a lush orchestral setting. Tony, of course, is great with this kind of material and always throws in surprises along the way. For example, he does the often jaunty, swinging WRAP YOUR TROUBLES IN DREAMS (Sinatra sang it that way) as a very slow ballad (he also sings the verse, which is rarely ever heard), while at the same time, where other singers (again Sinatra comes to mind) take AUTUMN LEAVES almost like a dirge, Bennett swings it at medium tempo, with Ralph Sharon taking a very nice piano solo to boot. Sometimes he does a song just a tad TOO slowly (THERE'S A LULL IN MY LIFE and WALTZ FOR DEBBY, a great tune by Bill Evans that Tony sang later in his career with the composer/pianist), but most of the time it's just right: BETWEEN THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP BLUE SEA, where he also gives us the verse, is downright sexy. LISTEN LITTLE GIRL is filled with good "fatherly" advice, and Mel Torme's GOT THE GATE ON THE GOLDEN GATE is clever and humorous. The title track, of course, was a big hit for Bennett. This is a solid outing for Tony during his mid-1960s prime.

By 1964, Tony Bennett may have been one of the best popular vocalists of all time. However, popular music in 1964 was in the middle of a steep decline. Most of the great songwriters and composers had passed from the scene, and popular music was starting to mean rock 'n' roll. If Tony was at the height of his vocal prowess in '64 (listen to this CD -- he sounds in command of everything), he and Sinatra and others were having a harder time finding worthy material to record. You can see this in Sinatra's catalogue, where magnificent albums (September of My Years, The Concert Sinatra) are surrounded by lesser attempts to crack the pop charts in Beatle years.

For this album, Tony delivers heartfelt, rich performances of the new title track, mixing new songs with standards for the balance. The standards are predictably outstanding, probably worth the price of the album. Tony's voice and Ralph Sharon's timeless piano make 'Autumn Leaves' especially memorable, but Harold Arlen's 'Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea' and Mel Torme's 'Got the Gate on the Golden Gate' are also solid.

The newer songs? Well, 45 years later some of them sound less like swing and more like schmaltz. Granted, Tony's singing redeems almost every one of them, except 'The Best Thing to be is a Person'. The title track is convincing and something of a new classic, but musically melodramatic in a way that the great composers (Porter, Kern, Mercer,...) never would have thought of writing. You can listen to the entire album and appreciate the absolutely superb performances, but when it spins to a close the ones you will want to replay are the standards, which have never sounded better.

Recommended for Tony Bennett fans; probably not the first album to buy, but eminently listenable.

By the way, Tony Bennett has continued recording great albums. 'Steppin Out' and 'Perfectly Frank' are remarkable -- Bennett's voice has aged like wine.

Tony Bennett does it again with some less well known songs. As is to be expected of an artist of his caliber, he has done excellent work. These songs evoke mental images of smoky old barrooms, love and love lost. They do just what this genre is supposed to do. They invoke memories. Give me more!

love to hear tony bennett sing , wish i could sing like that ! "As a singer /songwriter myself, I find tony bennett's singing a pleasure to listen to. "Doug Voice

Program opens with the title song which has become a standard in Bennett's voice.

You'll also find Bennett's first rendition of Bill Evans' 'Waltz for Debby'. A beautiful rendition though inferior to his recording years later with Bill Evans at the piano (refer to 'The Tony Bennett/Bill Evans Album').

Program completes with a bunch of standards plus some relatively unknown songs.

'Who Can I Turn To' pays for it.

For 1/3 of this Tony Bennett CD, Tony does indeed sing with the brightest smile in town: his vocals are deep, but smooth and airy, and the song selections aren't weighed down by Bennett's penchant for darker jazz. But midway thru, the inspiration seems to dry up and Bennett coasts by on mediocre music that allows us to hear his buttery crooning without much going on behind it. B-