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The Year of Tony Bennett

An Appreciation of the Art and Music of Tony Bennett

September 14, 2013 By Suzanne Leave a Comment

Song of the Day: Body and Soul

The song of the day for Saturday, September 14, 2013 is “Body and Soul.”

Today Amy Winehouse would have become thirty years old. The world lost a great talent when she died. We would like to remind you about the Amy Winehouse Foundation, with this mission (from the US version of the foundation website):

The Amy Winehouse Foundation’s mission is supporting and empowering children and young adults in need through music therapy and music education and works to prevent the effects of drug and alcohol misuse on young people. We aim to support, inform and inspire vulnerable and disadvantaged young people to help them reach their full potential.

The foundation held its first Inspiration Awards and Gala in March 2013 in New York and awarded Tony Bennett its Lifetime Achievement Award.

About This Song

“Body and Soul” was written in 1930 by Johnny Green, with lyrics by Edward Heyman, Robert Sour and Frank Eyton. The song first became popular in Europe and the version sung by Gertrude Lawrence was quite popular. In the 1930s, the song was considered too racy, even “lewd”, to play on the radio. Apparently sexual desire without romance was frowned upon. American recordings include those by Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan and Billy Eckstine, with many fine jazz instrumental recordings, including those by Bill Evans and John Coltrane. “Body and Soul” is the most often-recorded jazz standard and is the #1 song on the jazzstandards.com website.

While Tony Bennett has performed “Body and Soul” for many years, his first recording (to the best of my knowledge) was in 1990 for Astoria: Portrait of the Artist. He also sang it on his award-winning MTV Unplugged television special in 1994.

About This Version

Today’s version is, of course, the 2011 duet with Amy Winehouse on Duets II, for which they won the Grammy Award for Best Pop Duo/Group Performance. It was her final recording; she died four months after she and Bennett made this recording. Tony Bennett speaks quite movingly about Amy Winehouse in The Zen of Bennett.

http://open.spotify.com/track/01hJnhpAmjzg85Etnz2ECH
“Body and Soul,” as well the entire Duets II album, is available from iTunes and Amazon.com.

Here’s the video of Tony’s and Amy’s recording session for “Body and Soul.”

If you haven’t yet seen The Zen of Bennett, the opinionated author at the Year of Tony Bennett recommends it highly, if for no other reason than the segment on this session.

Filed Under: Song of the Day Tagged With: Amy Winehouse, Amy Winehouse birthdaya, Amy Winehouse Foundation, Duets II, Edward Heyman, Johnny Green

March 21, 2013 By Suzanne Leave a Comment

Amy Winehouse Foundation Gala

Tony Bennett will be honored at the Amy Winehouse Foundation Inspiration Awards and Gala in New York the evening of March 21, 2013.

Tony Bennett and Amy Winehouse
Tony Bennett and Amy Winehouse

The AWF Inspiration Award for Lifetime Achievement will be presented to Tony Bennett at this event.

For information about the Amy Winehouse Foundation and its mission to prevent the effects of drug and alcohol misuse on young people, please visit their US website or the foundation’s Facebook page.

We’ll be monitoring Twitter for news from this event. Meanwhile, here is their Grammy-winning duet of Body and Soul from Duets II. It was Amy’s last recording.

And it you haven’t yet seen The Zen of Bennett documentary, I highly recommend it. The scene with Tony and Amy working on this brilliant recording is quite extraordinary. This film is available for streaming from Netflix.

Coverage of the event from Rolling Stone.

Tweets From The Event

https://twitter.com/lynnmscott/status/314926265461248000
https://twitter.com/DavesHand/status/314926865632600064
https://twitter.com/FashionweekNYC/status/314888925804118017
https://twitter.com/mikebinthecity/status/314926898893451264
https://twitter.com/lynnmscott/status/314927344928321536
https://twitter.com/Downtown_Duncan/status/314929893202853888
https://twitter.com/WaldorfNYC/status/314933956736847872
https://twitter.com/MPHennessey/status/314937154616844288
https://twitter.com/itstonybennett/status/314939528911663104

Filed Under: About Tony Bennett Tagged With: Amy Winehouse Foundation, Body and Soul

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