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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