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The Year of Tony Bennett

An Appreciation of the Art and Music of Tony Bennett

June 3, 2018 By Suzanne Leave a Comment

Song of the Day: I Left My Heart in San Francisco

he song of the day for Monday, June 4, 2018 is “I Left My Heart in San Francisco.”

About This Song

“I Left My Heart Francisco” was written in 1953 by George Cory and Douglass Cross. We’ve told the story of Ralph Sharon pulling this song out of a drawer as they were preparing to travel to the West Coast–they thought it would be a nice song for the “locals” and so it was sung for the first time in 1961 in the Venetian Room at The Fairmont Hotel on and the rest, as they say, is history. Bennett has been singing it every day since.

About This Version

Other than live performances at concerts, Tony Bennett had not recorded “I Left My Heart in San Francisco” since 1961. That changed in 2006 when Bennett and producer Phil Ramone decided to record a new version for the album Duets: An American Classic. Bennett chose pianist Bill Charlap and the result was this lovely recording. So, in honor the ceremony in San Francisco naming a portion of Mason Street as Tony Bennett Way, “I Left My Heart in San Francisco.”

I Left My Heart in San Francisco

Listen to I Left My Heart in San Francisco on Spotify. Tony Bennett · Song · 2006.


“I Left My Heart in San Francisco,” as well as Duets: An American Classic, is available from iTunes.

NPR did a great story about recording this song:

Filed Under: Song of the Day Tagged With: Bill Charlap, Douglass Cross, Duets: An American Classic, Fairmont Hotel, George Cory, Phil Ramone, Ralph Sharon, Tony Bennett Way, Venetian Room

June 3, 2018 By Suzanne Leave a Comment

Tony Bennett Way

Tony Bennett is on the West Coast this week (and that includes my home of Portland, Oregon!!). He took some time to go to San Francisco to be honored with the renaming of a block on Mason Street, near the Fairmont Hotel, as Tony Bennett Way. Congratulations to Mr. Bennett and kudos to San Francisco for such a wonderful ceremony.

Here is a selection of news coverage of the event.

Tony Bennett gets fitting tribute in city where he left his heart

There is a video of Tony Bennett from an appearance in 1994 on MTV’s Unplugged. He leans casually against a black piano, flashes a smile at the audience and begins to sing. “I left my heart … ” The audience cuts him off with applause, and he lets them, pausing to smile again and glance around the room.

San Francisco renames street in honor of Tony Bennett

San Francisco celebrated singer Tony Bennett Saturday by re-naming part of a street in his honor. A stuntman disguised as Bennett rappelled down The Fairmont Hotel to get the party started. Moments later, Bennett himself took the stage. Bennett first performed his iconic hit “I Left My Heart in San Francisco” at the Fairmont in 1961.

Tony Bennett Rappels Down Fairmont Hotel to Accept Honor

He left his heart in San Francisco and he propelled down The Fairmont Hotel to get it back. The 18-time Grammy Awards winner Tony Bennett slid down a rope on the side of the hotel in San Francisco Saturday…

See you Wednesday here in Portland!

Filed Under: About Tony Bennett Tagged With: Fairmont Hotel, I Left My Heart in San Francisco, San Francisco, Tony Bennett Way

September 19, 2012 By Suzanne Leave a Comment

Song of the Day: I Left My Heart in San Francisco

The Song of the Day for September 19, 2012 is I Left My Heart in San Francisco.
It is your author’s birthday and she can’t imagine a better birthday song than this.

About I Left My Heart in San Francisco

This song was written 1954 by two somewhat homesick songwriters from San Francisco: George Cory and Douglass Cross.

Knowing that Ralph Sharon played with Tony Bennett, the songwriters gave a copy of the music to Mr. Sharon, who promptly put it in a drawer and forgot about it. Some time later, as he was packing for a tour with Mr. Bennett that would take them to San Francisco, he came across the song and put it in his suitcase, thinking that the locals in San Francisco might enjoy hearing it. After a performance at a nightclub in Hot Springs, Arkansas (a concert where underage saxophone player and future President Bill Clinton famously stood outside the club and watched the entire performance through the window), Bennett and Sharon found a piano in the bar at their hotel and started to work on the song. The first fan of the song was the bartender, who said “If you guys record that song, I’ll buy the first copy.”  (Tony Bennett, The Good Life, page 164).

They sang the song at the Fairmont Hotel on opening night, at Mr. Bennett’s first appearance in San Francisco.  Local representatives from Columbia Records heard the song at rehearsal and encouraged Bennett to record it.  A few months later, they recorded it as the B-side with Once Upon A Time.  Mr. Bennett relates this in his autobiography, The Good Life:

“I Left My Heart in San Francisco” was a “grass roots” phenomenon: it literally came from nowhere, it was written by two unknown songwriters, it wasn’t from a show or a movie and the record company didn’t spend millions of dollar promoting it. People responded to it because it was a great song, not because some record company exec was telling them what to like. … The record sold thousands of copies a week for the next four years, became a gold record, scored me my first Grammy, and in short, became the biggest record of my career.

And, of course, the song has become synonymous with Tony Bennett.  I have even been asked if Tony Bennett is from San Francisco, because he is so identified with this song; I have to tell them that he is a New Yorker to his core.

On a personal note, the song is important in my own family. My late parents used to travel to San Francisco regularly to attend the opera and always stayed at the Fairmont Hotel.  On one trip, sometime in the 1980s or 1990s, they were also able to get tickets to hear Mr. Bennett sing there. In one of the last long conversations I had with my mother, she noted slyly that “Tony Bennett really sends you, doesn’t he?” and of course I had to reply in the affirmative. I had just returned from my first live Tony Bennett concert in Seattle in September, 2007 and Mom asked if Tony had sung I Left My Heart in San Francisco and we talked about the song and our respective live performances for hours.

About This Version

This version, compiled on The Essential Tony Bennett, is the original singles version. Mr. Bennett re-recorded  the song for the 1962 I Left My Heart in San Francisco album.

More I Left My Heart in San Francisco

Tony Bennett singing with Judy Garland from her television show:

And Tony Bennett at the 1994 MTV Unplugged Concert, with Mr. Sharon:

Filed Under: Song of the Day Tagged With: Douglass Cross, Fairmont Hotel, George Cory

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