Artist: Tony Bennett

Anthony Dominick Benedetto, known professionally as Tony Bennett, was an American jazz and traditional pop singer. He received many accolades, including 20 Grammy Awards, a Lifetime Achievement Award, and two Primetime Emmy Awards. Bennett was named an NEA Jazz Master and a Kennedy Center Honoree, and founded the Frank Sinatra School of the Arts in Astoria, Queens, New York. He sold more than 50 million records worldwide, and earned a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. 

In 1962, Bennett recorded his signature song, "I Left My Heart in San Francisco". His career and personal life experienced an extended downturn during the height of the rock music era. Bennett staged a comeback in the late 1980s and 1990s, putting out gold record albums again and expanding his reach to the MTV Generation while keeping his musical style intact. 

Benedetto was drafted into the United States Army in November 1944, during the final stages of World War II. He was assigned as a replacement infantryman to the 255th Infantry Regiment of the  63rd Infantry Division, a unit filling in for the heavy losses suffered in the Battle of the Bulge in 1945. He moved across France and later into Germany. As March 1945 began, he joined the front line of what he would later describe as a "front-row seat in hell". 

As the German Army was pushed back to its homeland, Benedetto and his company  saw bitter fighting in cold winter conditions, often hunkering down in foxholes as German 88 mm guns fired on them. At the end of March, they crossed the Rhine  and entered Germany, engaging in dangerous house-to-house, town-after-town fighting to clean out German soldiers. During his time in combat, Benedetto narrowly escaped death several times. The experience made him a pacifist; he would later write, "Anybody who thinks that war is romantic obviously hasn't gone through one", and later say, "It was a nightmare that's permanent. I just said, 'This is not life. This is not life.'" 

At the war's conclusion he was involved in the liberation of the Kaufering concentration camp, a subcamp of Dachau, near  Landsberg, where some American prisoners of war from the 63rd Division had also been held. He later wrote in his autobiography that "I saw things no human being should ever have to see." 

Upon his discharge from the Army and return to the States in 1946, Benedetto studied at the American Theatre Wing on the GI Bill. He was taught the bel canto singing discipline, which would keep his voice in good shape for his entire career. Based upon a suggestion from a teacher at the American Theatre Wing, he developed an unusual approach that involved imitating, as he sang, the style and phrasing of other musicians—such as that of Stan Getz's saxophone and Art Tatum's piano—helping him to improvise as he interpreted a song.

In 1949, Pearl Bailey recognized Benedetto's talent and asked him to open for her in Greenwich Village.  She had invited Bob Hope to the show. Hope decided to take Benedetto on the road with him and shortened his name to Tony Bennett.