All the Things You Are: The Life of Tony Bennett - Hardcover

by David Evanier (Author)

The first complete biography of singing legend Tony Bennett

Among America's greatest entertainers such as Frank Sinatra, Judy Garland, Ray Charles, and Sammy Davis Jr., Tony Bennett alone is still here and at the top of his game. For the first time, All the Things You Are tells the incredible story of Bennett's life and sixty-year career, from his impoverished New York City childhood through his first chart-topping hits, from liberating a concentration camp to his civil rights struggles, from his devastating personal and career battles and addiction in the 1970's to his stunning comeback and emergence as a musical statesman, America's troubadour, role model and mentor, and unmatched interpreter of the American songbook.

• Takes a candid, unvarnished look at the amazing life of one of America's most enduring musical icons
• Based on dozens of author interviews with Bennett's family members, ?agents, musicians, composers and managers, and experts on the last fifty years of popular music
• Filled with stories involving leading figures and entertainers of the twentieth-century, including Cary Grant, Frank Sinatra, Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Fiorello LaGuardia, Martin Luther King, Jr., Ray Charles, Dean Martin, Billie Holliday, and more

Whether you've been a Tony Bennett fan for decades or are just discovering him, this book will deepen your understanding of this hugely gifted entertainer and his music.

Front Jacket

In "All the Things You Are," award-winning author David Evanier offers an intimate and unvarnished portrait of one of the most beloved singers of all time. Among America's greatest entertainers, from Garland to Sinatra, Tony Bennett alone is still here and at the top of his game. He has led an amazing life. At age ten, he stood beside Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia at the dedication of New York City's Triboro Bridge and, leading the throng of people across it, sang "Marching Along Together." He fought in World War II and helped liberate a Nazi concentration camp. He was discovered by Pearl Bailey and Bob Hope. In the 1960s, he marched alongside Martin Luther King Jr. in Selma, Alabama, and several of his paintings are in the permanent collection of the Smithsonian American Art Museum. And, of course, he sings, too.

Evanier probes deeply into the life and career of a genuine living legend. Drawing upon interviews with scores of Tony's friends, family members, and fellow musicians, as well as experts on the last fifty years of music, he vividly captures the musical history of an era. He brings deep insight into a man who has stayed perennially young because of his devotion to his art and to humanity. Friends speak affectionately of how Tony would rebuke them when they said that Tony was a better singer than his idol, Frank Sinatra. One friend tells how the singer's brief unannounced appearances at small music clubs lifted the hearts of mourning New Yorkers after 9/11. Another describes Tony's repeated visits to listen to and sing with his former music teacher during the last year of the teacher's life.

Evanier recounts Tony's impoverished yet happy childhood in Depression-era Astoria, Queens, and re-creates the heady early years of his career, as he produced one great hit record after another. He examines Tony's bleakest years, during the 1970s, when the singer struggled with addiction, a difficult second marriage, and evaporating interest in the Great American Songbook he loved to sing. Evanier also reveals the pivotal role Tony's children played in helping him relaunch his career by becoming popular music's ambassador to new generations of listeners. Today he is a musical statesman, America's troubadour, style model, mentor, and the unmatched interpreter of the greatest American composers of popular music, from Gershwin to Berlin to Rodgers and Hart and Cole Porter.

"All the Things You Are" is a story that includes some of the foremost personalities of the past sixty years: Judy Garland, Fred Astaire, Frank Sinatra, Cary Grant, Duke Ellington, Bob Hope, Ray Charles, Count Basie, Jimmy Durante, Billie Holiday, Stevie Wonder, Diana Krall, k.d. lang, and many more.

Complete with candid assessments of Tony Bennett's life and career by the likes of legendary radio personality Jonathan Schwartz and the "Wall Street Journal"'s Terry Teachout, "All the Things You Are" is a masterful, groundbreaking biography and must reading for anyone who has heard that voice and fallen in love with the artist behind it.

Back Jacket

The first complete biography of singing legend Tony Bennett

"David Evanier's "All the Things You Are" is a work of profound empathy and musical understanding. Tony Bennett lives in these pages as a matchlessly joyous singer whose brilliance refracts from a deep and subtle soul."
--James Kaplan, author of "Frank: The Voice"

"Much as Tony Bennett's music is appreciated, so will be this insightful book about the man behind the music."
--Gay Talese

"Like the American songbook, Tony Bennett is indestructible. He has become the greatest champion of classic songs and thanks to his interpretation of them, they will go on and on. "All the Things You Are" is a stylishly written book that mirrors its subject. David Evanier has great knowledge and depth of understanding of Tony Bennett and his legacy. This is a significant work of art."
--Michael Feinstein

"The great thing about David Evanier's biography--beyond its reliable research, nuanced evaluations, and stylistic eloquence--is that by looking closer at a great artist than the artist might have wished, it uncovers a man even more worthy of our admiration than we knew: a valiant defender of civil rights as well as the classic American songbook and the singer's right to enhance it by his own light."
--Gary Giddins, author of "Bing Crosby: A Pocketful of Dreams and Warning Shadows"

Author Biography

David Evanier is a critically acclaimed and award-winning author of both nonfiction and fiction. He was formerly senior editor of the "Paris Review," and his work has appeared in "Best American Short Stories." He is a recipient of the Aga Khan Prize for Fiction and the McGinnis-Ritchie Short Fiction Award. Evanier has written for the "New York Times" (including "Paper Cuts," its music blog), the "New York Times Magazine," the "Village Voice," the "New Republic," the "Nation," and many other publications. He has received residence fellowships from the MacDowell Colony, Yaddo, and the Wurlitzer Foundation, is a full-time member of the Writers Room where he wrote this book, and has taught at UCLA. His other books include "Making the Wiseguys Weep: The Jimmy Roselli Story," which was a "New York Times" Notable Book of the Year, and "Roman Candle: The Life of Bobby Darin."