Postby WildcatOne » Thu Mar 08, 2007 10:08 pm
Watching a PBS special; Tony Bennett cutting an album doing duets with rock and pop stars...Bono, Elvis Costello, Sting, Paul McCartney, Billy Joel, James Taylor, Dixie Chicks, Elton John, Stevie Wonder, John Legend, kd lang, Tim McGraw..."Boulevard Of Broken Dreams", "Are You Havin' Any Fun?", "Put On A Happy Face", "Cold, Cold Heart", "When Somebody Breaks Your Heart"...want to hear the greatest singer in the world? They got him on PBS tonight...the guy sings when he talks...Tim McGraw held his own (better than the rest of 'em), kd lang was great, but Tony totally blew everybody else away, smiling, laughing, cutting up, dancing around, kidding with his band and singing fabulously. His voice is like an instrument being played by a virtuoso...his control, if you could call it that (it's become effortless for him to sweep entire octaves in two notes, and then throw in a chuckling wisecrack) is without equal. The rock stars were in such awe of him they just kind of stepped back and gasped when he pulled off impossible riff after impossible riff...and he sings simple...basic. He just hits all the notes and adds his own special tone and sound to them, and the results are astonishing. He's coming to town in August, I would love to go to that show. It's gonna cost some major dollars to go, though. That cat just never stops smiling and swinging, man. He's a true American treasure...the only other singer I ever heard who actually hit all his notes dead-center, live, was Roy Orbison. The overwhelming majority of not just rock singers, but all of them, actually, approximate the notes in most places, but in isolating their vocal tracks, they're not even close almost all the time...not so with the Big O, and never ever the case with Tony Bennett. The man is above and beyond...during their session, on "For Once In My Life", he drew sketches of Stevie Wonder...Cheers, WC1
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