Bennett is still classy after all these years

Melissa Schorr

Friday, Aug. 29, 1997 | 11:24 a.m.

Tony Bennett may be the darling of Generation X, but that doesn't mean he fully understands them.

You can almost imagine Bennett, sitting at home in his New York apartment, pecking away at a keyboard, attempting to field outlandish questions from fans around the country during a recent Prodigy chat session.

"Tony, have you ever thought of changing your wardrobe to reflect the styles of the generation you often play to?" one fan dares to ask.

"I'd rather take a bath," Tony replies.

"Let's Mosh Tony," another member bellows across cyberspace.

"I don't do that," Bennett primly replies.

"Boxers or briefs? The world is dying to know," types in a third.

"Mind your own business!" he cyber-thunders.

It would seem Tony Bennett has roused a monster.

Not content to spend his golden years playing to a graying audience, he has managed to awaken a new generation of fans to his crooning classics. Now, he must deal with the consequences -- like the praise of one fan who writes, with a unique grasp of the language, "You have such a vast array of listeners, dude. My mom and I both like you! How do you do this?"

Ahhh. This is a question Bennett can sink his teeth into, and he launches into his standard reply, explaining how he was trained in his early career performing at the Paramount Theater to play across the generations, doing seven shows a day, each of which catered to a different audience.

Born Anthony Benedetto in Queens in 1926, he began his career as a singing waiter and landed a part in a revue with Bob Hope and Pearl Bailey in 1949. The following year, he auditioned for Columbia Records and recorded his first hit, "Boulevard of Broken Dreams."

Since then, he has produced nearly 100 albums, sung with Lena Horne on Broadway and returned countless times to his favorite venue, Carnegie Hall.

But for a time, Bennett almost slipped into musical history when he refused to adjust to the rock era of the '70s and lost his recording contract with Columbia.

Who would have thought that if he just dug in his heels and waited, the era would come back around to Bennett?

Now, the 71-year-old singer is once again hot, commanding $65 a ticket at his appearance at Caesars Palace this weekend, appearing at Bill Clinton's 50th birthday party last year, and popping up on the new hip talk show "Vibe," this week, where they showed clips of Bennett from "The Perry Como Show" in 1957.

In February, he appeared to sing selections off his latest album, "Tony Bennett on Holiday," a tribute to jazz singer Billie Holiday, at a fundraiser for the Apollo Theater in February. (After tonight's performance, Bennett will sign copies of the CD from 11 to midnight at the opening of the Virgin Megastore at the Forum Shops at Caesars).

Just don't refer to his revived popularity as a "comeback." It wasn't he who changed at all, he insists.

Instead, the seven-time Grammy award winner stayed patiently true to his roots, a resolve which has gained him the respect of bands like Red Hot Chili Peppers and magazines like Rolling Stone, which called him "one of the few white role models who never became an embarrassment."

Behind that career re-engineering was the savvy management skills of son Danny, who landed dad a Letterman appearance here, a "Simpsons" cameo there, pushing Bennett's voice back into the public ear.

But all agree it was the appearance on '93's "MTV Video Awards" that pushed Bennett back into rotation, with airplay on MTV's "Buzz Bin" and and live engagements on cable A&E.

Ironically, for a singer with a career spanning five decades, most of his Grammys have been awarded in the last decade. Aside from his double Grammy in 1962 for "I Left My Heart in San Francisco," Bennett picked up two more for his '93 "MTV Unplugged" album, and one for each of his tribute albums of the '90s: last year's "Here's to the Ladies," which saluted American female performers from Barbra Streisand to Judy Garland; '92's "Perfectly Frank," an homage to Frank Sinatra; and '93's "Stepping Out," in honor of Fred Astaire.

Next up? Another tribute album, this one for Duke Ellington.

As if all this weren't enough for one lifetime, he is currently enjoying success in a vastly different form of artistic expression -- painting. Using his given name, Bennett has released a best-selling book, "What My Heart Has Seen," and painted the portrait of Billie Holiday that appears on the CD cover.

A Prodigy fan is surely not the only one who wants to know how he does it all.

"I wish I had two lifetimes," Bennett replies. "It would take that much for me to finish what I would like to do."