In the 1970s, Tony Bennett’s career and life began to falter.
He performed primarily in Las Vegas, a declining city that tied him to a bygone era. His music was out of fashion – his last Top 40 single was in 1965. He used cocaine heavily. And his finances were ruined, prompting the Internal Revenue Service to threaten to take him home.
Well into the 1980s, it seemed like everything was going wrong for the singer.
Then came a comeback for eternity.
The rebirth of Mr. Bennett, who passed away Friday, ensured that he would remain one of the most revered singers in American pop music for generations to come. And he did so while staying true to his vocation as an advocate of the standards known as the Great American Songbook.
Mr. Bennett managed a professional resurgence in the late 1980s and 1990s without changing much about his music. All it took was meeting members of a new audience where they were: late-night talk show appearances, a cameo on The Simpsons, and a memorable appearance on MTV Unplugged in 1994 that led to steady airplay on the network and a surprise Grammy for Album of the Year.
Generation X, who valued the authenticity of indie and grunge rock, were ready for the understated voice of a 60-year-old Tony Bennett.
“That period was, quite simply, a Tony Bennett renaissance,” said Robert Thompson, director of the Bleier Center for Television and Popular Culture at Syracuse University.
Other musicians have experienced a similar resurgence: Kate Bush’s 1985 “Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God)” reached millions of new fans last year after it was featured on “Stranger Things” and topped the charts; Abba released a new album in 2021, the first in decades; In 2002, a remix of Elvis’ “A Little Less Conversation” became a worldwide hit decades after his death.
But what makes Mr. Bennett’s career path remarkable is that he has attracted new generations of young people as he released albums and toured the country into his 60s and well beyond, said Ariana Wyatt, an associate professor in Virginia Tech’s School of Performing Arts. His popularity increased whenever he teamed up with younger stars like Lady Gaga, with whom he last performed in 2021.
“Usually when you get to the age he was in the 80s, you’re sort of over,” Ms Wyatt said. “This kind of resurgence and regaining mainstream popularity is not standard.”
The comeback story begins after Mr. Bennett nearly died in 1979 while high in an overflowing bathtub. Soon after, he left the management of his career to his older son, Danny Bennett.
Danny Bennett didn’t immediately return calls for comment Friday night, but in a 1999 interview with The New York Times recounted the moment his father reached out to him for help.
The IRS wanted to collect $2 million in back taxes from Mr. Bennett, prompting the singer to turn to drugs to escape. When the IRS called his accountants to warn that his home would be foreclosed, Mr. Bennett was on drugs and had to be taken to the hospital, Danny Bennett said at the time.
“That was the day of reckoning,” said Danny Bennett. “Then he called me. I think that was a desperate move.”
Danny Bennett was then a 25-year-old punk rocker with long, dyed blue hair and no college degree. But he believed that if his father could be marketed as a living American legend, a brilliant master of his craft, his career could be reinvigorated.
Many have speculated as to why young people in particular are falling in love all over again with Mr. Bennett’s songs.
It may have been her universal appeal — simple lyrics and melodies, a soothing but sometimes husky voice — that helped Mr. Bennett transcend generations, Mr. Thompson said.
“Because Tony Bennett’s style isn’t aggressively contemporary, he becomes timeless himself,” said Mr. Thompson.
Danny Bennett’s direction helped too; His father stayed true to his musical lineage, singing the same classic songs that made him famous in the 1950s.
Mr. Bennett soon became a regular on late-night TV shows, beginning with David Letterman. Younger audiences loved the New Yorker, who sang melancholic, jazzy tunes with a smile.
“My next guest really is one of the greatest singers of all time,” said Mr. Letterman in 1986, introducing Mr. Bennett, who wore a dark suit and tie and swayed while yelling “Everybody Has the Blues.”
In 1993, Conan O’Brien noted Mr Bennett’s rise in popularity before asking, “What’s up?”
“Every young adult in America thinks I’m cool,” said a confused Mr. Bennett, before being showered with applause.
In fact, young Americans loved Mr. Bennett, and a big reason for that was MTV, which at the time was still courting her with music videos that defined pop culture.
In 1994, Mr. Bennett appeared on “MTV Unplugged” with guest appearances by singer-songwriters KD Lang and Elvis Costello. The album version later won the Grammy for Album of the Year, leading to Mr. Bennett saying in shock on stage upon accepting the award, “I really don’t believe it.”
MTV played his songs alongside alternative rock greats like Weezer and Green Day.
“If you look back in the ’90s, the really important place for musical invention was the MTV audience,” said Ms. Wyatt.
Movies and television shows also helped cement Mr. Bennett’s place in pop culture. Goodfellas, the 1990 mob film directed by Martin Scorsese, opens with an iconic sequence: Mr. Bennett roars the opening lines, “Petkers To Millionaires,” as Ray Liotta’s character begins to narrate his life in the mafia. Mr. Bennett also began playing himself in films and television shows such as The Simpsons and Analyze This, the 1999 mafia comedy starring Robert De Niro.
In his 2012 memoir Life is a Gift: The Zen of Bennett, the singer wrote that in the 1960s he was told he needed to change his music so that new generations would accept him.
“But over the years, every age has responded to my singing,” said Mr. Bennett, “even though I haven’t changed anything.”