Tony Bennett Shaped My Family

With the passing of Tony Bennett—the last, original twentieth-century American crooner—it's impossible to ignore the impact his music had had on countless generations of music lovers who can trace their own history through his voice and professional journey.

Whenever one of Bennett's countless songs blares over a speaker or car stereo, listeners of all ages may find themselves transported back in time, to a yesteryear of evening wear, of jazz and cocktails, of first loves—of more innocent times.

Growing up in New York during the early '90s, my Puerto Rican grandmother, Elsie, regaled me with tales of her young life in the 1950s, when she came-of-age in The Bronx and married the boy next door, Anthony, a first-generation Italian American.

They were broke but happy and the radio served as the soundtrack to their budding relationship. When Bennett's first #1 hit "Because of You", written by Arthur Hammerstein and Dudley Wilkinson, flooded the airwaves in 1951, it aligned directly with the development of their youthful romance. Tony's big break single became their song and nobody else's.

When Elsie and Anthony finally married in 1957 in a nearby church, they used their savings to attend the Copacabana—the hottest nightclub in the city, if not the world—to see Bennett live. It was an evening my grandmother would tell and retell countless times over the years.

The cigarette girl snapped a picture of their table, surrounded by their close friends and family. That photo lay inside an album that I open once in a while, next to a flattened matchbook from that evening. I used to stare at that page, imagining how excited my grandparents must have felt that night and about the rest of their lives together, and how Tony Bennett's music encapsulated their entire mood and optimism in the late '50s.

While I valued my grandmother's nostalgia, I didn't connect with Bennett's music as a kid. I was more interested in rock, hip-hop, and other contemporary music being marketed to my generation. But in my 20s, when I was stocking shelves at a local bookstore, I stumbled across a copy of Tony's memoir The Good Life, co-written by Will Friedwald.

I was hungry for more stories of my grandparents' golden era and reading the book opened my world into a musical past that made me curious to hear Tony's classic records with fresh ears. I scoured used CD and tape stores, buying up reissues on the cheap. Some obscure recordings like Bennett & Brubeck, The White House Sessions, Live 1962 gave me a sense of what it must have felt like to hear him live in his prime.

To my luck, as well as millions of other fans, he continued to tour into the twenty-first century and I couldn't miss my chance to see him perform. In 2015, my then-girlfriend Michelle and I went to see him in concert at Turning Stone Casino in Verona, NY. He was in his late 80s at the time and sounded just as dynamic as he did six decades earlier. I felt close to the young Elsie and Anthony that evening.

Anthony passed away in 1987 from cancer. Elsie continued to play Tony's records––as well as albums by Eydie Gorme, Frank Sinatra, Dinah Washington, and other Great American Songbook singers––in her apartment but dared not spin "Because of You" for fear of losing control of her emotions.

I played it on her turntable by accident once and she asked me to stop but couldn't bring herself to explain why.

Though her marriage wasn't perfect, the time and place in which that song resonated with her was deeply personal and a period she held closely.

Elsie died in 2018, and with my own forthcoming memoir Colorful Palate: A Flavorful Journey Through a Mixed American Experience coming out soon, I've carefully sifted through her photo albums and LPs, searching for clues she may have left behind but I'm starting to realize that life doesn't always come with liner notes.

I still spin Tony Bennett's music daily, like a family heirloom passed down to me. I think of Elsie and Anthony whenever his first hit single comes on. I stare at Michelle, my wife of four years now, from across the kitchen table and remind myself how lucky I am, and how beautiful life can be when you lose yourself in the music.

"Because of You" was the last song Tony Bennett ever played—I think it was a fitting ending to a life well lived.

Raj Tawney is a writer whose work is largely influenced by his Indian, Puerto Rican, and Italian American heritage and New York upbringing. His debut memoir Colorful Palate: A Flavorful Journey Through a Mixed American Experience is due out this fall through Empire State Editions/Fordham University Press.

All views expressed in this article are the author's own.

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