The Year of Tony Bennett

An Appreciation of the Art and Music of Tony Bennett

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The Tony Bennett Discography is Back … sort of

Some readers may have noticed that the Tony Bennett discography has not been available for several months. It’s been a series of bad luck and unfortunate events that got it to this point.

The good news is that I’m in the process of rebuilding it and believe that it’s going to be better than ever. Much of the work effort ha revolved around choosing the best tools possible for a solid foundation.

We still have the same URL: https://discography.bloggingtonybennett.com

But I have created the album, song, and recording sessions topics up to Tony Sings For Two. The good news is that with all the early preparation, the rest should go faster.

The site is ready to use, with the following disclaimers:

  • I still have a lot of styling of the content to do
  • There’s work to be done on the images displayed for songs
  • I need to start on songs not on albums, the singles and raritities, outtakes and other delights
  • I’ll continue to do quality assurance on everything

There’s a contact form on the site. If you find errors, have complaints or suggestions, experience poor performance, or just want to comments, please do so. I want to make the site work for everyone.

Thank you,
Suzanne Chiles

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We are 14

The Year of Tony Bennett is 14 years old today!

I quote from my third post, back in 2012.

I have had the great fortune to see Mr. Bennett live in concert several times. My first concert was in Seattle in September 2007 at Seattle’s Paramount Theatre and it was wonderful.  Then there was a bit of a wait until his performance in my home city of Portland, Oregon in May, 2011. Both of these concerts I attended alone.

Next up, though, Mr. Bennett was scheduled again in Seattle at the Paramount Theatre in December 2011. This time I invited my friend Lesley to join me. It was a wonderful evening.

And thus started The Year of Tony Bennett. We were surprised and happy to find that Mr. Bennett would be visiting the Spirit Mountain Casino in February, 2012 and off we were to that concert. We had such a great time that we decided that we would try really hard to see him one more time in 2012.

That opportunity soon presented himself with an outdoor concert in San Diego in September 2012: the week of my birthday. It was a no-brainer. Next it turns out that he’ll be at the Monterey Jazz Festival the night before. Why not? Jazz Festival tickets booked … a grand weekend of the MJF and the San Diego concert … what better way to celebrate my upcoming birthday?

The icing on this particular cake will be his appearance at Seattle’s Bumbershoot Festival on Labor Day weekend. This time, we’re taking Lesley’s ten-year-old son who, by virtue of listening to Tony Bennett’s music in his mother’s car, is now a fan. This will be his first concert.

Not to mention my purchase of the Complete Collection, which I am exploring with awe and wonder and joy.

This has been a labor of love for me, but what has astounded me all these years is the love I get back from old and new fans of Tony Bennett.

Thank you all.

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Today We Are Thirteen

The Year of Tony Bennett is celebrating our 13th birthday! We have now entered our teenage years. Who knows how that will work out? But I promise to not be moody!

Twelve years ago, on June 10, 2012, I started this blog. In December 2011, I took my best friend to Seattle to see Tony Bennett at the Paramount Theatre. She became a fan about five minutes into the show, I think. In February, we had the opportunity to see Mr. Bennett again at a casino in the area. That’s when we started thinking about The Year of Tony Bennett. We hit the jackpot in September 2012, though when we got to see him three times in concert: Bumbershoot in Seattle, Monterey Jazz Festival, and San Diego. There was no turning back after that.

And so on June 10, 2012, I created The Year of Tony Bennett, because that period of seeing Tony Bennett live in concert was indeed The Year of Tony Bennett. For the record, every year since then has been The Year of Tony Bennett. For twelve years, I’ve been posting songs of the day, as well as other content. Mr. Bennett’s office was quite gracious in providing comp tickets and backstage passes. I’ve been privileged got to meet (and also hugged by) Tony Bennett, his wife Susan, his dog Happy, and everyone in his quartet, some of whom are now friends. I also created the Interactive Tony Bennett Discography, a project that I also love very much.

The Year of Tony Bennett, both the blog and the discography, has been one of the greatest pleasures in my life.

Some thoughts and statistics:

  • We’ve had visitors from all over the world. Except Antarctica. If anybody knows anyone stationed there, please ask them to visit, just once.
  • Except for illness and being in the process of moving, I’ve posted a song of the day every day for these 13 years.
  • As of today, I’ve made 4,687 posts to this blog.
  • For the discography, I’ve written:
    • 71 album topics
    • 700 song topics
    • 214 session topics
  • I’ve met many wonderful people and made some good friends along the way.
  • I had wonderful correspondence with people who worked with Tony Bennett, including composer Bob Dorough and arranger Marion Evans.

I am very grateful to everyone that reads and comments on the blog. When it comes to the discography, I get a lot of visitors that I called “bingers.” I’ve seen many people spend anywhere from 2-5 days exploring all the topics there. The most recent binger is from Kyrgyzstan. I am humbled to think that I could create anything that anyone would want to spend that much of their time reading.

With gratitude and love,

Suzanne

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Today We Are Twelve

The Year of Tony Bennett is celebrating our 12th birthday.

Twelve years ago, on June 10, 2012, I started this blog. In December 2011, I took my best friend to Seattle to see Tony Bennett at the Paramount Theatre. She became a fan about five minutes into the show, I think. In February, we had the opportunity to see Mr. Bennett again at one of the casinos in the area. That’s when we started thinking about The Year of Tony Bennett. We hit the jackpot in September 2012, though when we got to see him three times in concert: Bumbershoot in Seattle, Monterey Jazz Festival, and San Diego. There was no turning back after that.

And so on June 10, 2012, I created The Year of Tony Bennett, because that period of seeing Tony Bennett live in concert was indeed The Year of Tony Bennett. For the record, every year since then has been The Year of Tony Bennett. For twelve years, I’ve been posting songs of the day and much more content too. Doing this site has been one of the very great things in my life.

Over the years, I’ve gotten to see many more Tony Bennett concerts. I’ve met members of his quartet and was able to meet Tony backstage. Sometimes, it seems like a dream.

I want to thank everyone who’s ever read this site and our sister site, The Interactive Tony Bennett Discography. The sites are literally a labor of love: my love of Tony Bennett’s music and my love of the readers who visit the site.

So let’s blow out some virtual candles on the virtual cake. See you next year when we offically enter our teens.

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Today We Are 11

On June 10, 2012, I started the Year of Tony Bennett website. Check out this post to see why I started this. Hint: between May 2011 and September 2012, I had the privilege of seeing Tony Bennett live six! times.

So, a few facts:

  • The first post was a discussion of The Good Life, Bennett’s autobiography, written with Jazz journalist Will Friedwald.
  • The first song I wrote about was “The Best Is Yet To Come.”
  • The first official song of the day was “Love Is Here To Stay” which was posted on August 23, 2012.
  • The most search-for song on the blog is “The Right To Love.”
  • The most-searched-for information is a topic I wrote about Duke Ellington and the Harlem Renaissance. As most of the searches for that topic come from school system computer networks, I’m guessing it’s a popular term paper topic.
  • The most often-featured song of the day is “The Rules of the Road.”
  • My favorite feature is The 12 Days of a Tony Bennett Christmas.

A few blog statistics:

  • I have written 3,907 posts for this blog. We’ll hit 4000 posts soon.
  • We have visitors from over the world. Except for Antartica. If you know someone living on the South Pole, please ask them to visit the site, just once.
  • It took me 4 years to create The Interactive Tony Bennett Discography. I did it after work and on weekends; it defines the term ‘a labor of love.’
  • The two sites average around 6000 visits a month. It’s not a lot, but it’s substantial to me, as we do no advertising at all.
  • The discography especially gets what I call ‘bingers.’ When I view my usage stats, I will see visits to the discography over a one or two-day period by an individual viewing hundreds of posts. The last binger was from Belgium and viewed 882 posts. I am humbled and grateful that someone would spend so much time on the site and I only hope that they found what they were looking for.