When a Woman Loves a Man - Tony Bennett, Hanighen, Bernie
Me, Myself and I - Tony Bennett, Gordon, Irving
She's Funny That Way - Tony Bennett, Moret, Neil
If I Could Be With You (One Hour Tonight) - Tony Bennett, Creamer, Henry
Willow Weep for Me - Tony Bennett, Ronell, Ann
Laughing at Life - Tony Bennett, Kenny, Nick [1]
I Wished on the Moon - Tony Bennett, Parker, Dorothy
What a Little Moonlight Can Do - Tony Bennett, Woods, Harry
My Old Flame - Tony Bennett, Coslow, Sam
That Ole Devil Called Love - Tony Bennett, Fisher, Doris
Ill Wind - Tony Bennett, Arlen, Harold
These Foolish Things (Remind Me of You) - Tony Bennett, Link, Harry
Some Other Spring - Tony Bennett, Herzog, Arthur Jr.
Crazy She Calls Me - Tony Bennett, Russell, Bob
Good Morning Heartache - Tony Bennett, Drake, Ervin
Trav'lin' Light - Tony Bennett, Mercer, Johnny
God Bless the Child - Tony Bennett, Herzog, Arthur Jr.
For those of us who have long loved Tony Bennett, the singer's new album, "Tony Bennett on Holiday: A Tribute to Billie Holiday," is a sad affair. The 70-year-old crooner's voice now creaks where it once glided; it misse... more »s notes it once nailed to the wall. On this outing, his high spirits are as contagious as ever, but his elegant musicality is gone. Even in Bennett's best years, a tribute to Holiday would have been a dubious proposition, for it's hard to imagine two more different singers. He's a brassy bugle call of ringing declarations; she was a muted trumpet solo of sighs, hints, and whispers. This is especially obvious on the album's version of "God Bless the Child," which electronically combines Holiday's original track with Bennett's new one to create one of those hokey timewarp duets with the dead. But even on the 18 other songs associated with Holiday, one can hear how ill-suited Bennett's maximalism is for Holiday's minimalist arrangements. Even if he could still hit all the notes. --Geoffrey Himes« less
For those of us who have long loved Tony Bennett, the singer's new album, "Tony Bennett on Holiday: A Tribute to Billie Holiday," is a sad affair. The 70-year-old crooner's voice now creaks where it once glided; it misses notes it once nailed to the wall. On this outing, his high spirits are as contagious as ever, but his elegant musicality is gone. Even in Bennett's best years, a tribute to Holiday would have been a dubious proposition, for it's hard to imagine two more different singers. He's a brassy bugle call of ringing declarations; she was a muted trumpet solo of sighs, hints, and whispers. This is especially obvious on the album's version of "God Bless the Child," which electronically combines Holiday's original track with Bennett's new one to create one of those hokey timewarp duets with the dead. But even on the 18 other songs associated with Holiday, one can hear how ill-suited Bennett's maximalism is for Holiday's minimalist arrangements. Even if he could still hit all the notes. --Geoffrey Himes
Becky L. (kallikat) from OVERLAND PARK, KS Reviewed on 12/29/2006...
Great!!!
CD Reviews
A good tribute to Lady Day
G. Sawaged | Canada | 01/07/2002
(4 out of 5 stars)
"Although not one of Tony's greatest albums, this still makes for good listening. The songs of course, are all wonderful, and even though Tony's voice is a little off at times, a little raspy or slightly off-key, well, we must remember, that Billie's voice wasn't always at it's best either. The arrangements are well done, some with just Ralph Sharon on piano, and some with orchestra. Tony doesn't try to imitate Billie, he uses his own styling and phrasing, and for the most part, I think he's done a good job. 19 beautiful songs .. a fitting tribute to Lady Day."
A fine recording
David Bonesteel | Fresno, CA United States | 11/25/2001
(4 out of 5 stars)
"Before buying this CD, I did not own any recordings by Tony Bennett, so my opinion is not colored by comparisons with his previous work. I own a compilation of Billie Holiday's most famous tunes, which I have enjoyed immensely. Although the two singers may have very different styles, that only increases my interest in this fine tribute; it is at such times that something truly magical and unexpected can occur. I would not say that this disc rises to quite those heights, but I do find it to be an elegant recording by a mature, seasoned professional. I could have done without the duet from beyond the grave, though."
A great non-commercial Tony Bennett CD...
David Bonesteel | 06/05/2000
(5 out of 5 stars)
"This very artisticly rewarding CD places Tony Bennett in the able hands of The Ralph Sharon Trio(with occasional strings). This CD is excellent, Bennet never sounded better, and he truly feels the songs of Billie Holiday. The only down side is the creepy duet with Billie Holiday(wouldn't it have made more sense for him to duet with fellow Billie Holiday idolizer Anita O'Day, who's still an active singer). Anyhow this CD is recommedned and is very jazz oriented, also don't forget to pick up his latest "Bennett Sings Ellington: Hot & Cool" and a couple of classic recommemded Bennett re-issues on CD are "Tony Bennett/Bill Evans-Together Again" and "The Beat Of My Heart" are both very jazz priented, and highly enjoyable."
Very nice tribute album.
David Bonesteel | 09/17/1999
(4 out of 5 stars)
"Bennett's voice is ageless, in fact he sounds more meaningful at 70, then he did in the 1950's, when he was a nervous young performer pernouncing Darn That Dream is Darn That Drum. Anyway this tribute is very nice, although it would have been better without the duet with Holiday and the srings, A trio setting thoughout would have been perfect, however this album is worth picking up."
A Triple Triumph
Samuel Chell | Kenosha,, WI United States | 04/25/2008
(5 out of 5 stars)
"I've heard enough bad, misguided, exploitive Billie Holiday "tributes" to know better than to pick one up by a male singer standing in front of an image of a stern, jut-jawed black woman who barely resembles Billie Holiday and with a program including a Phil Ramone-produced duet between the featured artist and the deceased. But curiosity won out over my better judgment, leading to the discovery of a simply magnificent album. The project is at once a heartfelt and touching performance by Bennett, a remarkably empathetic and supportive one by his pianist (Ralph Sharon), and above all the most convincing, respectful tribute to, and evocation of, the music of Billie Holiday that I have ever heard.
Ignore the last track, if you prefer (though the similarity in the voices is telling). This album is as generous in song selection (19 tunes altogether) as it is in spirit. Bennett frequently strikes me as somewhat of an "overachiever," trying to attain a gravitas or grandeur that really is more Sinatra's domain than his. Lady Day's art, on the other hand, calls for a singer who can hold his own in spare, lean and intimate settings. Although the album indeed does employ strings, it's always Ralph Sharon's stride-style piano that, like Teddy Wilson's in the case of Billie, is in the foreground, often supplying a tune's only accompaniment. What a refreshing change not to hear Bennett smothered by strings, his voice doctored by excessive reverb. The absence, moreover, of a booming walking bass works to evoke the historical musical context in which these songs first took flight.
This is not Billie Holiday the icon, or Billie the tragic victim of society's or her own excesses, or the faded, decrepit diva who became a ghoulish preoccupation of the latter-day groupies drawn to the "Lady in Satin" album. This is the Billie Holiday whom most listeners have never heard--or simply cannot hear. "I didn't know she sounded like that!"--a typical reaction upon first hearing those inexhaustible miniature masterpieces of the Columbia years in the 1930s or the Commodores in the 1940s.
But the Lady Day who is one of the two greatest female singers of American popular song was "that" Billie Holiday rather than the later one of which sensational stories and movies are made. From now on, before I loan out my copy of "Lady Day: The Best of Billie Holiday" (an absolutely essential two-disc collection on Columbia), I may first give to the curious a copy of Bennett's tribute as a sort of preparation.
It's instructive to listen to "Willow Weep for Me," comparing the Bennett with the Sinatra reading. Whereas Sinatra goes straight after the drama--the emotion, the loneliness and despair--suggested by the lyric, Bennett emulates the image of a willow, "personifying" through the use of dynamics and the onomatopoeic qualities of the lyric, the sound of a willow weeping. The approach is equally valid and effective, setting up an aesthetic "buffer" between the emotion and its artistic expression. Moreover, it captures the very essence of Holiday's art--the antithesis of anything introspective or ponderous--before the breakdown in her voice all but obliterated the line between art and life.
As for that Amazon "expert" who offers the introductory review panning the album, he probably had the same biases as this writer, but it's clear he's never heard the music on this album--even if he listened to it. Especially puzzling is the characterization of Bennett's voice as a relic of itself, barely able to make some of the notes (maybe he didn't bother to listen to the album after all). The singer is in excellent, if vintage, voice--in fact, I don't hear a single "bad" note. More to the point, music is about "play," and Billie knew how to keep the music in play with every note, inflection, and unexpected turn. So do Tony Bennett and Ralph Sharon."
Track Listings (19) - Disc #1
Becky L. (kallikat) from OVERLAND PARK, KS 
