Tony Bennett talks about the song that changed his life
This appeared in Musician Magazine in October, 1994
Tony’s son Danny set up a time when Tony would call me for a brief interview for Musician. Honestly, when I picked up the phone and heard, “Hi, this is Tony Bennett,” I thought: well, of course it is! His voice was so distinctive. We chatted about our ‘Americanized’ last names: Benedetto for him, Bentivenga for me. Then he told me his choice: “Trees” by Al Hibbler.
“He was Duke Ellington’s vocalist. It’s based on that beautiful poem, and it’s very touching because of Hibbler being blind. His opening line is, ‘I think that I shall never see/ A poem lovely as a tree.’ When you hear a blind man singing that on a recording… I was very young when I heard that, I was 14 years old, and I think that’s one of the reasons I’m still in the music business. I just said, what a magic machine recordings are, what a form of entertainment it is to people: it allows you to dream, it allows you to get moved emotionally and intellectually. It was the sincerity of that record, the message of it, that touched my heart. It gave me goosebumps, and led me on a road to singing very sincerely on records, you know, not just making a record to make a buck. I just think it’s a precious record. Even now you hear it, it’s timeless. Al Hibbler is a wonderful singer, and that’s the record that motivated me to sing the way I do.”