Tony Bennett (1926 - 2023) RIP

I left my art in San Diego...

I remember a friend asking me, "can you believe Lady Gaga brought Tony Bennet in to do a song with her?" My answer: Yes. I can believe that Tony Bennett agreed to let Lady Gaga work with him :-) 96 years young and missed. If ya know, ya know.

A lovely write-up, Eric - nicley done. Mr. Bennett was a unique talent deserving of such praise.

This is a RIP announcement that I hoped would never happen, and with a guy like Tony, it seemed like it might never happen, because he just seemed eternal.   We were constantly being reminded of his presence, either with a movie appearance (Bruce Almighty or Analyze This) or a new release of one of his famous Duets albums, or you'd just google him occasionally to see if he was still around ... and he always was!  Like you said, he ... outlasted.  If there is an apocalyptic future in our cards, I imagine that the world will be ashes and dust ... except for one lone Tony Bennett CD lying in the rubble.  But hopefully we'll use his uplifting music to treat each other right and create a happy future.  Cuz how annoying would it be to have that one Tony Bennett CD without a boombox to play it on?  Okay, I kind of went way out on a tangent there ... thank you for the beautiful tribute, Eric.

Yeah, I totally get that.  Tony Bennett was like the Betty White or George Burns of singers.  I could never imagine the idea of his not being around.  Even if you weren't necessarily thinking of him, or didn't directly see him, there was always this sense of permanence.  For myself, I know from this day on, whenever I hear him singing, I'll still find it hard to believe he's actually gone.  Thanks for the comment my friend.

Tony Bennett was like George Perez or Jason Pearson or Charles Schulz--Someone you didn't realize how much you'd miss until after he was gone. But the great thing is that he left a part of himself that we can always enjoy.