The Year of Tony Bennett

An Appreciation of the Art and Music of Tony Bennett

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Song of the Day: I’m Confessing (That I Love You)

The song of the day for Friday, November 10, 2017 is “I’m Confessing (That I Love You).”

About This Song

“I’m Confessing (That I Love You)” was written in 1929, with music by Doc Dougherty and Ellis Reynolds and lyrics by Al J. Neiburg in 1930.

This song has a somewhat odd start. It was first known as “Lookin’ for Another Sweetie,” with lyrics credited to Chris Smith and Sterling Grant, and was recorded by Fats Waller in 1929. Al Neiburg wrote the new lyrics and the song was recast in 1930 with its current title. Louis Armstrong made the first recording of it in 1930, and in spite of many other recordings, it remained strongly identified with Armstrong.

About This Version

Tony Bennett and k.d. lang recorded ” I’m Confessing (That I Love You)” in 2002 for their album of songs associated with the great Louis Armstrong: A Wonderful World.

I"m Confessin" (That I Love You)

Listen to I"m Confessin" (That I Love You) on Spotify. Song · Tony Bennett, k.d. lang · 2002


“I’m Confessing (That I Love You),” as well as A Wonderful World, is available from iTunes.

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Musical Collaborator of the Month: k.d. lang

The Year of Tony Bennett is happy to announce the musical collaborator of the month as k.d. lang. Today is also her birthday, so please join me in wishing her a very happy birthday.

I became a Tony Bennett fan through being a k.d. lang fan. I had all of her great early albums: Angel With a Lariat, Absolute Torch and Twang, Ingenue and Drag to just name a few.

This is a fun song from her early days. I was lot younger then and could actually dance to this.

Then in 2002 came A Wonderful World with Tony Bennett and, well, you know what happened next.

But I knew in 1990 that she was a great jazz singer with the release of Red Hot + Blue, an album of Cole Porter songs with covers by artists from the The Neville Brothers to Tom Waits to Lisa Stansfield (whose “Down In The Depths” haunts me to this day) to U2 to k.d. lang who sang “So In Love,” all to raise money to fight AIDs. She made this memorable video of a woman caring for her lover who has AIDs.

And then in 1992 came “Constant Craving.”

So, yes, I’m a huge fan of hers. Her work with Tony Bennett has been breathtaking. I’ll be featuring the songs from their 2002 album A Wonderful World. But before that was her duet with Tony on Playin’ With My Friends in 2001. She has sung on both of Tony’s duets albums. We have a lot of great music to choose from this month.

Happy birthday, k.d. lang. And thanks for all the great music.

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Song of the Day: Because of You

The song of the day for November 2, 2013 is “Because of You.”

About This Song

“Because Of You” was written in 1940 by Arthur Hammerstein (uncle to Oscar Hammerstein II) and Dudley Wilkinson. It wasn’t really popular or much recorded until after Tony Bennett’s recording in 1951. In that time period, the song was used in a movie called I Was An American Spy.

About This Version

Today’s version is the one-and-only original from 1951; arranged and conducted by Percy Faith. The story of how this song came to be recorded is quite wonderful. Tony Bennett had been singing with Columbia for a year and there was concern that he hadn’t really had a hit, at least since his first song recorded for the label: “The Boulevard of Broken Dreams.” In fact, he’d been warned by Percy Faith that if he didn’t have a hit soon, he might be released from his contract. Tony Bennett tells this story in his autobiography The Good Life:

I went into Percy’s office and he said, “In this next session you really have to deliver. We only have three songs ready, so we need another song.” I remember that he looked through a bunch of sheet music on his desk, grabbed a song, and said “Well, let’s do this one.” The song was ‘Because Of You.” I was doing a lot of dramatic singing on my early records like ‘Sing You Sinners” and ‘Boulevard,’ but Percy said to me, “Just relax, Use your natural voice and sing the song.” I took his advice.

And what great advice that was. The song got popular not on the radio, but on the jukeboxes, who then called the radio stations and requested the song. It reached #1 on the Billboard charts in June, 1951 and stayed on the chart for a remarkable thirty-two weeks, ten of them at #1. It was most definitely a hit.

I’ll go on the record as thanking Percy Faith for encouraging Tony Bennett to sing in his natural voice. Why mess with perfection? For Tony Bennett’s voice, then and now, is pure perfection.

http://open.spotify.com/track/4DTO96EvOW9JT6OIUNFpZW
“Because of You,” as well as the collected early singles by Tony Bennett on The Columbia Singles, Vol. 1, is available from iTunes.

The Year of Tony Bennett would like to wish k.d. lang a very happy birthday. In honor of her birthday (and because it’s YouTube Saturday), we are pleased to present this video of k.d. and Tony singing their duet of “Because of You” from the album Duets: An American Classic; the video also includes portions of an interview with the duo by the late Phil Ramone.

Happy Birthday, k.d.!