Quote

I know the history of the record business so well because I followed Billie Holiday into the record studios. It was so primitive compared to the sophisticated business today.

Tony Bennett

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Tony Bennett
Age: 98
Born: 1926
Born: August 3
Actor
Autobiographer
Jazz Musician
Painter
Recording Artist
Singer
New York City
New York
Anthony Dominick Benedetto
Anthony Dominick Tony Benedetto
Anthony Benedetto
Today
Primitive
Wells
Compared
Well
Holiday
Studios
Record
Records
Billie
History
Sophisticated
Business
Followed

More quotes by Tony Bennett

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That song helped make me a world citizen. It allowed me to live, work and sing in any city on the globe. It changed my whole life.
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I've been so fortunate because I never really had ups and downs as far as my career. Ninety-nine percent of the time, I've been sold out all over the world.
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More than anybody else I’d like to thank Count Basie for teaching me how to perform.
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Someday, when I'm awfully low, and the world is cold, I will feel a glow just thinking of you, and the way you look tonight.
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I'd like to have every gentleman and lady in this room commit themselves to get our government to legalize drugs. So they have to get it through a doctor, not just some gangsters who sell it under the table. Let's legalize drugs like they did in Amsterdam. No one's hiding or sneaking around corners to get it. They go to a doctor to get it.
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Sometimes the teacher would tell me that if you're singing a love song and you just don't feel it with a person or something you've experienced, just think of a dog or cat that you love.
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I think in all of the arts there are just certain people that have a gift. I think it's a certain spirituality, it's a God-given gift that just certain individuals have.
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There's always something every night that I learn from reacting to what the audience is reacting to. You learn what to leave out, what to put in, if you need a little more comedy or more drama.
Tony Bennett
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You can't teach it [jazz singing]. There's nobody who can teach you how to sing jazz. Either you know how to sing jazz, or you don't.
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I've taken stuff from people, too. You know though, if you steal from one person, you're just a thief. But if you steal from everyone, that's research.
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I always feel the audience is my best teacher.
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I am very much inspired by the great masters of entertainment: Bob Hope, George Burns, Jimmy Durante - who never thought about retiring. When people ask me if I plan to retire, I say, Retire to what? I am doing what I love best right now!
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It's the kind of turn that happened to the great country of Germany, when Nazis came over and created tragic things, and they had to be told off. And if we continue this kind of violence and accept it in our country, the rest of the world's going to really take care of us, in a very bad way.
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I knew very early that somehow I would sing and draw and paint my whole life.
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What I really search for is something that I really love hearing, something that's my own private game: If I find a song I really like, I try to do a definitive version.
Tony Bennett
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I don't disrespect the audience. I only sing very well-written, intelligent songs.
Tony Bennett
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I have to say I owe my career to the master composers of the Great American Songbook who have written such high-quality songs - the best popular music ever composed.
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Every city I go to is an opportunity to paint, whether it's Omaha or Hawaii.
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Luckily for his audiences, Bennett doesn't tire of singing I Left My Heart. ... that song made me a world citizen. And when I do it, it always feels like the first time.
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When the uncreative tell the creative what to do, it stops being art.
Tony Bennett