Tales From the Newsroom: Chasing Tony Bennett
Trying to get interviews with big stars a hit or miss affair
I missed more than I hit, that’s for sure.
Over the years, there were certain musicians I very much would have liked to interview. Not that I would necessarily do it better than other reporters or critics, but I think I would have asked different questions.
But the big stars who would come to town each year — playing Humphrey’s, the Sports Arena, or one of the big bayfront venues — generally didn’t do media interviews. Their show was going to sell out, their time was valuable, and so they didn’t have to give up part of their day to promote the show. And if they did, it would usually only be for the biggest outlet in town, the major metro. Which I didn’t write for.
I get it.
Still, I would try.
Year after year, I would submit an interview request for Ray Charles. For B.B. King. For Johnny Cash and Willie Nelson.
And every year, I’d receive a very nice response, “I’m sorry, but Mr. Charles isn’t giving interviews for this show.” Or Mr. King, or Mr. Cash.
But 11 years ago, something interesting happened. Tony Bennett was set to perform at one of the local Indian casinos — and the casino publicist felt like he owed me a favor because I’d interviewed a fairly unknown band who’d played there a few months ago.
He owed me nothing — the band was interesting and well worth the coverage.
Still, he felt a debt was due, and he promised to at least get Bennett’s personal assistant to consider my request.
This was right after Bennett had first performed with Lady Gaga, and everyone was running articles about the classic crooner and the young pop chanteuse.
While interesting, I had no desire to write about that — it had been covered to death.
What intrigued me were two albums Bennett had recorded in 1959 with the Count Basie Orchestra. While jazz critics had written for years in rapturous tones about a series of albums Basie had cut with Sinatra in the early ’60s, as well as some ’70s sessions with Ella Fitzgerald, I hadn’t seen much on the albums Bennett had done with Basie.
When his assistant called me a day or two later to see what topics I wanted to discuss with Mr. Bennett, I told her I wanted to chat about his experience with doing both a studio album (“Count Basie Swings / Tony Bennett Sings”) for Basie’s Roulette label, and a live set (“In Person!”) for Bennett’s Columbia label.
She said she’d run it by Mr. Bennett and see.
A few days after that, I was busy working in the newsroom when my extension rang. I picked it up in my usual, gruff, “Newsroom — Trageser” greeting.
“Jim? It’s Tony Bennett! Let’s chat about Count Basie!”
And so we did.
While Bennett had issued his first album eight years before those two LPs, he was still a few years away from his huge breakthrough hit, “I Left My Heart in San Francisco.”
Truth is, in 1959, Basie was the bigger star.
And he had apparently shown great kindness and respect to a young Italian-American singer, who never forgot that, even many years later when he himself was an old man showing great kindness to another young singer — and boosting her career by recording with her.
I often have wondered since if it was the topic of Basie that scored me an interview with Bennett — our paper was smaller than the competition, and every other year I’d requested an interview I’d been turned down before I could even pitch my specific area of interest.
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Great reminisce Jim. I enjoyed every sentence.