Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - Remembering Tony Bennett: Toronto Mike'd #1296

Episode Date: July 22, 2023

In this 1296th episode of Toronto Mike'd, Mike is joined by Steve Paikin and Bruce Dowbiggin as they look back at Tony Bennett's eight decades as a beloved entertainer. Toronto Mike'd is proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, Palma Pasta, The Moment Lab, Ridley Funeral Home and Electronic Products Recycling Association.

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Pillars of the community since 1921. Tony Bennett passed away this morning at the age of 96. Back in March 2022, Steve Paikin and Bruce Dobrigan joined me to celebrate the musical careers of Frank Sinatra and Tony Bennett. Steve went to bat for Frank. Bruce went to bat for Tony. To hear this 1 hour and 48 minute

episode in its entirety, I urge you to listen to episode 1010 of Toronto Mic'd. In honor of Tony Bennett, here's an edited version of that episode with all the Tony Bennett music and chatter intact. Rest well, sweet tea. I know I'd go from rags to riches If you would only say you care

And though my pocket may be empty I'd be a millionaire My clothes may still be torn and tattered But in my heart I'd be a king Your love is all that ever mattered

It's everything So open your arms and you'll open the door to every treasure that I'm hoping in your arms and you'll open the door to every treasure that I'm hoping for

hold me and kiss me and tell me you're mine evermore must I forever be a beggar? So, Bruce, what year are we talking about here?

This is 1953, I want to say, around there. When I hear this, it's like a scene out of Goodfellas or The Godfather. The guys are all in the club with their girlfriends. Of course, they never took their wives, they took their girlfriends. And they're all sitting there listening to Jerry Vale or one of the singers of the time. And it's that era. And it was an era of pop music. And as I say, Perry Como, all those other guys about the same time. It's funny you say out of Goodfellas because, of course, this song was in Goodfellas.

And it got a whole new group of people, as you alluded to earlier, saying, who's that guy singing that song? And this is in Goodfellas. Like 40 years later, this song gets a whole second life. And it comes out of that, as I said, the bel canto, Italian style that they brought over from Italy to America and the singers, there's a generation of them were like this. And Frank was that way too, although he got away from it relatively quick.

While Frank was a Bobby Soxer and the girls were chasing him, Tony was in the army. He had a different experience. And that was a big Soxer and the girls were chasing him, Tony was in the Army. He had a different experience. And that was a big difference between the two of them. Because while Tony did see action, Frank Sinatra, he got 4F because he had a perforated eardrum and he did not serve. And there was a lot of anger towards him by a lot of the men who went overseas while Frank Sinatra stayed home and was hitting on their wives. So that was a bit of an issue for a while in the 1940s. It certainly was.

And listen, Tony could have gone on for a long time being this sort of a singer. Up until the early 60s, there was a lot of stuff to be gained by being that kind of a singer. You could be on the pop charts. I think this was number one, the song. And he had two or three others at that time were number one. So he was comfortably up at the top. But as we'll get to in a few minutes, he kind of decides there's other places to go. Well, it's kind of amazing that Tony's at the top of the charts in the early 50s,

and he's still with us. He just retired in August of last year, and he's got Alzheimer's. And his son, Danny, who has run his career for about 30 years now his son danny says he can't remember if he's he's played a concert that night but he remembers the words to every song he's ever done astonishing music 95 years old yeah that's a very alzheimer's thing too of course is having a distant memory but not an immediate memory but yes so that's he's retired now from performing but he was performing last summer where he was able to, because of COVID. When we left Tony, he was having hit songs, but he decides he wants more.

He wants to be better than that. And he talks to, he gets involved with a guy named Ralph Sharon, who turned out to be his, his accompanist and sort of aid to camp for most of the rest of his career. And Ralph Sharon said, listen, you can have these hits for a little while, but it's not going to last. You've got to see about taking your full talent. Ralph Sharon knew how talented Tony was. And all of a sudden he starts listening to jazz musicians and phrasings

and things like that. And he's not the Italian bel canto guy anymore. Now he's a little bit like the piano singer that Steve was talking about before, the guy in that kind of an atmosphere, choosing that type of music. And Ralph Sharon really helped him focus his career and get himself to become the jazz singer that he was. And the song that I brought that sort of emphasizes a little bit of this is called The Best Is Yet To Come.

Out of the tree of life I just picked me a plum You came along and everything started to hum. Still it's a real good bet the best is yet to come. The best is yet to come and babe won't it be fine. You think you've seen the sun but you ain't seen it shine Wait till the warm-up's underway Wait till our lips have met Wait till you see that sunshine day You ain't seen nothing yet

The best is yet to come And babe, won't it be fine The best is yet to come Come the day you're mine Come the day you're mine I'm gonna teach you how to love All right, Bruce, tell us more about this jam. Well, I mean, it's the phrasing.

Now we get into the thing that Tony Bennett is known for. In fact, Frank Sinatra said he thought that Tony Bennett was the greatest singer of all of his generation. He thought that Tony technically was a better singer. And you can just hear him riffing through there. You've got the trumpet with the muted trumpet and all that sort of stuff. And it really kind of a hipster swinging song. You can see that playing at the time. You're a bit younger, Mike, but for Steve and I, you'll remember in those days when we were growing up,

their parents had the turntable, right? The vinyl records and the turntable. And nobody had like a hundred records. You had like seven or eight. And the seven or eight in our household, one of them was the greatest hits of Tony Bennett. And that included this, it included when Joanna loved me. We're going to get to San Francisco in a minute. All those things.

And we played that record over and over again. And my mom had been a singer in the jazz, singer in the troop shows during the second World War. So she loved Tony Bennett. And she was always pointing out to us just how fantastic Tony was. She liked Tony better than Frank. She thought Frank was maybe a little bit, a little bit, you know, the private life was a little bit much for her. So anyhow, it just, that was, we had this vinyl record. we played the Daylights out of it, and that's how I became a fan of Tony, but not only Tony, but that phrasing you were just hearing there.

I've got a little story about this song, Mike. Go ahead there, Steve. Let's hear it. This song written by Cy Coleman and Carolyn Lee, who also did Witchcraft, and I was told when I got married to my wife, Francesca, that there would be no speeches at the wedding.

Who made that decision? when I got married to my wife, Francesca, that there would be no speeches at the wedding. And so in the- Who made that decision? Well, Francesca made that decision. And when we got to the after party, after the wedding was over, I grabbed the microphone and I said to everybody in the audience, I said, a decision has been made.

There are no speeches allowed, but they never said I couldn't sing. Open the curtains. I'd arranged to have a, I think a three or four piece jazz band waiting there. And I sang that song to my wife, the best is yet to come. And I'll tell you what, I'm trying to remember now, Mike Murley on saxophone, David Braid on the piano, a couple other guys too and if i say so myself i didn't do too bad a job at it but you didn't know bruce was going to kick out that jam right this i didn't know so i just want to let the listeners know right we surprised each other with the lists i mean he chose frank first so i i went out beavered around on on tony

i was at i was at your wedding yes you were was. Did you not come to the after party? Do you not remember me nailing this song? I remember it being at St. Mike's and I just thought a Jewish guy at St. Mike's. How can we do that? It was not at St. Mike's. It was at Victoria College. Victoria. Well, even worse for Protestants. Even worse for Protestants. Little different. I went to St. Mike's for the record. That was one of the many songs that both Frank Sinatra and Tony Bennett both did great versions of. And they both, of course, stand this test of time. So, gentlemen, I mentioned we're live on the Pirate Stream.

I just think it's cool to tell people that this is a Pirate Stream. Live.torontomike.com. This is where the episodes of Toast go live because we play too much music. So don't tell anyone, okay? So one question, a couple of questions have come in. I see Andrew Ward and Moose Grumpy are there. So Andrew Ward says, how important or significant were musicians and conductors like Mitch Miller, who worked with Frank and Tony to their careers? So can either of you speak to the significance of the conductors? I can certainly talk about Mitch Miller because Mitch was the worst influence on Frank Sinatra's career ever. Tony, too.

And one of the reasons, I remember seeing Mitch Miller when I was a kid. He came to Hamilton and he conducted the Hamilton Philharmonic Orchestra. But Mitch said to Frank Sinatra, and this would be in the late 50s now, Frank, your day is done. The songs that the Great American Songbook, the stuff that made you famous, is not happening anymore because rock and roll is taking over and you're going to have to do something completely different. And Frank took his advice and we got such classic songs as Mama Don't Bark and some

other really awful stuff. And thankfully, the Mitch Miller years did not last long for Frank Sinatra because without question, you know, they brew a lot of coffee in Brazil and some other really, you know, just not his stuff. He was reaching out to stuff he shouldn't have been reaching out to. And thankfully, that era ended and he got back to doing what he does best. And that is singing the great standards, the great American songbook, etc. It's a great point. They did the same thing with Tony, with the next that as well. But these guys, there were about four or five of them.

And they were the A&R guys at the big record companies like RCA, Columbia, etc. And those guys basically decided what the pop trends were going to be, who was going to be a star, what music was going to get played. And it was destroyed. Thankfully, it was destroyed by the Beatles and the British invasion. They basically shattered that thing. But up until that point, if you were a singer, you went with the stuff that they wanted. You know, Patti Page doing how much is that doggy in the window? These fantastic singers having to do this real crap stuff.

But Mitch Miller and these people thought this is what the kids wanted today. And he didn't want anything that was too, too, too challenging. And again, with Tony and with Frank, they broke out and they were able to break through that and find their audience again. But yeah, for Tony, and as I say, we'll get to it here when we talk about the next song with San Francisco. But with Tony, they wanted him to record Beatles songs. They wanted him to record all sorts of junk. And for a while, he got lost. He really got lost, both professionally and personally, because he couldn't find what he was doing.

Like a lot of jazz musicians, he ended up with a drug problem, a serious drug problem that he had to overcome, etc. So these guys were very rarely much use to you if you were a big star. And again, thank goodness that for these guys and then the Beatles on the rock and roll side, they destroyed that model for the industry. And we got to hear stuff we would have never heard before. Okay, good points. Now we're going to kick out another Frank Sinatra jam in just a second.

But there's a nice observation made by Moose Grumpy on the Pirate Stream, where she talks about how amazing it is that a movie scene can change music for you. And this is true for me as well. Like, there are songs I'll hear, and I'll just visualize the scene in that movie movie and it's sort of like they're changed forever by the film i heard the song in because you know tony that tony bennett jam was in goodfellas and uh yep then there was a song we played i guess that was used in joker i can't remember the details there but uh the joker with joaquin phoenix from a couple years the Hey, one more quick comment from the pirate stream here. Can you comment on the collaborations

between Tony Bennett and Bill Evans? Some thought it would be a mismatch considering many of Evans' gems are better suited for the female voice, but the pair is simply magic. Well, I can sort of jump ahead because this person read my mind. That's the fourth song that I've

picked out for Tony is is his collaborations with Bill Evans as he got himself back up on his feet well save it and and yeah so we'll save the stuff about Bill so set up your third jam and then we'll put a pin in that and we'll come back to that on the yeah well we're still kind of in the 60s the 60s style of music and we're talking about iconic songs. And there's no more iconic song, of course, for Tony Benton, I Left My Heart in San Francisco. If you watched during the COVID sort of catastrophe that we've gone through, when people were locked up in San Francisco, Tony Bennett did a live link-in, and all these people went out on the balconies in San Francisco and sang

I Left My Heart in San Francisco to try to you know keep up their spirits and keep up the civic spirit and all that sort of stuff what's interesting about this one is it's a song that was around before it was offered if you can believe it I can't believe it it's offered to Tennessee Ernie Ford there's a name from the past Tennessee Ernie Ford was the cotton picking guy and I can't believe it was offered to him anyhow Tony Bennett somebody brought it to him, and he debuted it live at the Fairmont Hotel up on Knob Hill in San Francisco. I don't know if either of you have been there. Fantastic place, the Fairmont, tons and tons of history.

And he debuted it in 1961, but he didn't record it until 1962, and he recorded it as a B-side as well. It wasn't even an A-side, but it caught on as obviously in San Francisco as their theme song, the song that everybody associates with the city. Go ahead and we'll play, and we can talk more about it after. The loveliness of Paris Seems somehow sadly gay The glory that was Rome Is of another day

I've been terribly alone and forgotten in Manhattan I'm going home to my city by the bay

I left my heart In San Francisco High on a hill High on a hill, it calls to me to be where little cable cars climb halfway to the stars The morning fog May chill the air I don't care My love waits there

I almost don't want to bring it down. Written by two San Franciscans who were living in New York City at the time. And of course, Frank, Tony was a New Yorker too. In fact, he had no connection to the city of San Francisco particularly. This became his connection.

It was successful. It only got to number 19 on the pop charts, but they put out an album and that was the title track on the album. And the album was a big hit and that helped to get it out there.

And of course, he sung this song at the San Francisco Giants games and San Francisco 49ers games. Various other things things, public events. Here's the big finish. Yeah. Your golden sun will shine for me. Wow.

That last, the finale is the rags to riches, Tony, again, just making an appearance. The ballad style singing, it's a song that's just iconic. And other people have recorded them, nice versions of it, but it's forever attached to Tony and he forever has to sing it well i would argue you find 100 random people and you say uh what's tony bennett's signature song uh 99 maybe all of them actually 100 of them are going to say that song right there yeah yeah for sure it's classic beautiful arrangement um yeah and it's it's not really jazzy but it's the song that everyone associates with him so i had to put it on the list.

Oh, you had to or we would have outrage. But just what was that hotel before I played it? What was the hotel you referenced? The Fairmont Hotel. If you go up on the streetcar to the top of Knob Hill, and if you ever study about the friar they had in San Francisco, Knob Hill was one of the last places that burned down. But anyhow, the Knob Hill Hotel and the Fairmont

was across the way from it. And if you watch the movie Bullet, you'll see a lot of- Steve McQueen, love that movie for the car chases. Now Lady Chat, who's in the Pirate Stream, stayed there in 2011. She said it's a fantastic hotel. Yeah, great location.

Everything in San Francisco is fantastic views. Sorry, Steve. No, two things about that song. Number one, I had the great honor of interviewing Tony Bennett once upon a time, many years ago for TVO. And I did ask him how he found that song. And Ralph Sharon, whom you referenced earlier, Bruce, Ralph found that song and brought it to him.

And it ended up being his signature song. I don't think Tony thought much of it when he first got it, but it became his signature song. And I remember asking him during the interview, song. I don't think Tony thought much of it when he first got it, but it became his signature song. And I remember asking him during the interview, you know, you have to sing that song at every concert. You can never do a concert where you don't sing that song. Do you get tired of singing that song? And he said, can you get tired of making love? He never got tired of singing that song. And I'll tell you what, I've seen Tony Bennett in concert, I think, three times. And of course, I've heard him numerous other times.

He never sang it the same way twice in a row. He would always find a slightly different way, either through phrasing or maybe he'd go up a third for something or down a third, whatever. He sang it differently every time. And as a result, it kept it fresh for him. I think that was one thing that really, it was important to him to do it differently so that people didn't think that he was mailing it in. He gave you a new version every time he sang it. Yeah. Now, it's interesting too. You've met him and I met him a couple of times as well. One time I was doing sports and I used to run into the, into the

makeup room at 11 o'clock and just get a quick makeup job and go. And this is when Pam Wallen had her show. And occasionally I'd walk in, there'd be somebody there. One night, Bill Gates was there. Robert Palmer, the rock and roll singer. The big night was when I walked in and Tony was in the chair. And I just said, should I get up so you can get your makeup job done? I said, yeah, right. Me before Tony Bennett. The other thing was, as I say, my mother loved him.

And Tony, I don't know if he paints anymore or not, but he's a terrific painter. And he was up at Mirvish Village, I'm just guessing in the 1990s, with a book that he brought out. I took my mother to Mirvish Village to meet him. guessing in the 1990s with a book that he brought out. My mother, I took my mother to Mirvish Village to meet him. And he was so kind and there was no attitude. I mean, Frank was like, hey, who is this broad type of stuff? Get out of my way, these people. Tony, none of that stuff. The fame and that type of thing never affected him. Whatever personal demons he had, and he had some, he kept very below the surface. It was never a part of his narrative and a wonderful guy to his fans. Mike, how's this for a weird story? I remember being 12 years old,

growing up in Hamilton, Ontario, and Tony Bennett came to town to the brand new theater auditorium, which was then called Hamilton Place in downtown Hamilton. And I said to my folks, let's go see Tony Bennett. Now, this is in the early 70s when Tony was kind of on the outs, right? I mean, as Bruce alluded to earlier, he went through this phase, some drug use. Anyway, he was not popular at this time, but I wanted to go see him anyway. And my folks would not take me. So I said, well, I'm going to go by myself then. And here's this little 12-year-old pipsqueak going down to Hamilton Place to see Tony Bennett in 1972. Fast forward, gosh, I don't know what, 20 years, maybe more, maybe 30 years, right?

Yeah, maybe 35 years. And I'm interviewing Tony Bennett. And I said, you won't remember this, but the first time I saw you perform was at a new theater auditorium in Hamilton called Hamilton Place. And he interrupts me and he says, oh, I remember that very well. I said, how do you remember that? He says, how do I remember it? How could I forget it? It was a beautiful new hall and it had this. Anyway, he went on to describe various aspects of the hall and totally blew me away with the fact that he remembered that occasion. So on the pirate stream, Andrew has a mind blow. He says, Ray Brown was part of Oscar Peterson's trio.

Yep. Yeah. And I think was married to Ella Fitzgerald for a while as well. So he's jazz royalty to be sure. He also, by the way, wants you two to start a podcast. He says, I feel like I'm watching Steve and Bruce from the 90s and I don't want this to end.

Mike, could this be? When Steve slows down, maybe when Steve slows down, I got the time, but he's too busy. He's got too much going on. Let's table that idea. I like that idea. All right, we'll revisit that one for sure here.

Bruce, what would you like to say before I kick out your fourth Tony Bennett jam? Well, Steve was just talking about how many of the great composers and people wanted to work with Frank Sinatra and it was the same same thing for Tony Banner, the guy who began, as I say, as a pop singer. By the 70s, there's people who want to work with him, all these top people. And the earlier person, I forgot the name, I should have written it down, but they mentioned Bill Evans is just like, for some people, he is the quintessential trio, jazz musician, composer, arranger, etc. I did fantastic work with a lot of people. And he and Tony did two albums that are, I think, for jazz aficionados that are legendary. There is the Tony Bennett, Bill Evans album.

And then there's another one called Together Again. And the thing with Evans is the harmonics that he brought back into jazz, the layering. His was a richer kind of jazz. They're moving away from bebop. They're moving away from some of those kinds of things now. And Bill Evans is there. And he sees in Tony a singer who is technically able to match his mind.

A lot of people thought that Bill Evans could only work with women. But in this case, he saw Tony as being the kind of guy who could handle what he was going to put out. So this one is called Who Can I Turn To? See, when you're Bill Evans, you get to do a long intro. Who can I turn to When nobody needs me My heart wants to know and so I must go where destiny leads me with no star to guide me

and no one beside me I'll go on my way and after the day the darkness will hide me And maybe tomorrow I'll find what I'm after I'll throw off my sorrow, beg steel to borrow My share of laughter With you I could learn to

With you on a new day But who can I turn to If you turn away? So pure, so pure. Tony had recorded that song back in the 60s, that vinyl album I talked about. This song was on it in another arrangement when he was a little younger. And as Steve was just talking about a little more sandpaper on the voice, well, not as much damage to his voice, vocal cords as Frank had had. But you can just hear Bill Evans making him work, you know, with the piano. And he's right there. He's spot on. He's up to every

challenge that Bill Evans is putting out. That was, I think, Tony Newley and Leslie Brickus who wrote that song. And it reminds me as well, I hear it evokes a lot of the stuff that Michelle LeGrand wrote later, maybe a decade later. And Tony would also sing How Do You Keep the Music Playing? Those songs, I feel, have a lot in common. And boy, he was so good at, I guess, one of the things that makes these guys geniuses is that when they sing these songs, it just feels so honest. You think they are singing about things that they have experienced and that they need to share with their audience. And you know that the wide panoply of life's experiences, they haven't missed out on any of it. And it just gets so reflected in every note, every phrasing. Tony can sing so,

like he can push so much air through those lungs, so much power. And anyway, I just marvel. Now, the phrasing thing, I think I mentioned this before, Mike, when you and I were doing the top 10 thing and we were talking about Sinatra, the phrasing, what Steve just talked about, was what's amazing is how many bars they can go without taking a breath. And they asked Frank Sinatra how he was able to develop that technique. And, of course, he'd started out in the Dorsey band, watching Tommy Dorsey, who was a trombonist play.

And he could see Dorsey could do 10, 12 bars without taking a breath. And he said that I've got to be able to emulate that physically. And of course, when you have that ability, then there's none of the gasps for breath. There's none of the sort of staccato stuff you get with people who don't have the same technical ability.

They can just like, you know, legato go right through a song and you hardly ever noticed the spl just like, you know, legato, go right through a song, and you hardly ever notice the splice marks, you know, between the breaths and stuff. So anyway, just a perfect example. If you don't know Bill Evans, for the people who are, you know, we're giving them an education maybe about Frank and Tony,

but if Bill Evans just is at records with Jim Hall, his records with Stan Getz, just a fan, and his solo records, Waltz for Debbie is one of the great piano pieces if you ever get a chance to listen to. And no relation to Boston Red Sox, Daryl Evans. Daryl Evans never played for the Red Sox. Dewey Evans played for the Red Sox. Oh, who did?

Daryl Evans played for the San Francisco Giants. Are you sure? I'm going way back with that one. In my head somewhere. Am I sure? I know he would know. You're asking me? I can visualize. That's right.

You've got to be careful, Mike. You're in with a couple of polymats here. Sometimes it can be a little frightening. I know. I'm feeling the heat over here. Holy smokes. Okay. By the way, Bruce, when you referred to the top 10 thing,

you kicked out the jams, Bruce Dobe, again. You kicked out the jams. I'm sorry I didn't. I should put the little R after kick out the jams. That top 10 thing, he says. Come on. I had the same thing as Steve. I kept sending you lists and I kept getting longer.

You'd say, no, it's got to be shorter than that. The next one would come back longer. We're sure Daryl Evans never played for the Red Sox, right? Daryl Evans was a first baseman for the Giants. Dwight Evans was the greatest right fielder. Well, one of the great right fielders anyway in Red Sox history. Daryl Evans with the Tigers, too. You know, you're 100% right.

With the Tigers. I want to apologize. And was Tony Armas on that team? Who else am I? Tony Armas played center field for the Red Sox for a while, but that was not where he, he had 40 home runs one year for the Red Sox, but that was not where he played most of his best years.

And his son pitched for the Expos. Yeah. Tony Armis too. Right. Love it. Okay. Love it all. But Red Sox still suck.

I just want to put that on the record before we get. What he said. Yeah. Passing. All right, Bruce set up your final Tony Bennett jam for us. Well, the final thing is of course,

and we talked about this off the top is the reason we're talking about these two guys is because they transcended guys of the forties, fifties, sixties, and seventies. It could have easily been, you know, I don't like,

like, uh, uh, try to think of some, uh, some performers from the sixties who we don't talk about. Dean Martin, let's say they transcended the Dean Martin level. As good as the Dean was as popular. They never got that level. And what happened was with Tony in his case is in the late seventies. He is, he's a terrible businessman. He's trying to run his own show.

He goes bankrupt. And in addition to that, he develops a really bad cocaine hat. He leaves his wife, develops a very bad cocaine habit, nearly ODs. And he realizes he's at his lowest level. And he goes to his two sons, Danny and Di, and says, what am I going to do? Well, they've been trying to be musicians themselves. And they realized they weren't really that great. But Danny knew he had a head for business. And so he and his brother took over Tony's career from that point. We're talking about 1980. And from then until the present day, Danny has still run his father's business. And Danny understood that Tony had a brand and the brand wasn't going running after whatever's hot. He wasn't going to be doing grunge stuff. He wasn't going to be doing covers of, you know,

rock and roll stuff. The suit, the look, the presentation, that was going to be Tony. And he was able to sell it to people like, now MTV came aboard, right? They showed up, they were looking for material, and they packaged Tony in a way that nobody had been able to do in the past to make him relevant to young people. He got onto the David Letterman show. He was on all the late night shows. And he all of a sudden became a hip guy. I think one of the records was Steppin' Out With My Baby. They did a really good video of that.

Anyhow, Tony transcends all of the things that you think would have stopped him. And he becomes an MTV star and all that sort of stuff. And one of the things he does in the last number of 10 years, of course, is he starts doing duets with people you would never expect. Michael Buble, Harry Connick, Katie Lang, Elvis Costello, and of course, the famous one is with Lady Gaga. And Lady Gaga is also at this point, she's trying to get away from being just a pop star. She wants to be taken seriously as a musician as well. And so she and Tony are involved in this record of duets.

And, well, let's hear how it went. Ladies of Tramp. She gets too hungry for dinner at eight I'm starving She loves the theater, but she never comes late I never bother with people that I hate That's why this chick is a tramp She does it like crap games With barons and earls

I won't go to Harlem In armies and pearls And I definitely won't dish our dirt With the rest of those girls That's why the lady is our champ. I love the free, fresh wind in my hair. Life without care. Oh, I'm so broke.

It's oak. I hate California. It's crowded and down Bruce, I dig it. Let me just, if you don't mind, jump in here to shout out a couple of salty vets who got another shot at the MTV generation, if you will. Tom Jones.

Do you remember this comeback? Because I'm of an age where I watched a lot of much music, and Tom Jones had a comeback. Does this ring a bell for any of you two gentlemen, the Tom Jones comeback for Generation X? Well, I think if you're British, Tom Jones never went away. Maybe that's true. Maybe that's true.

I didn't see him bottoming out. I mean, Tom Jones is a character in and of himself. But a bunch of guys would have. This guy's 85, 90 years old. He's out there with Lady Gaga singing this stuff. Knock that out of the park. He also did some stuff with Amy Winehouse. Yes.

And he was very upset, of course, when she had her demise, when she overdosed. He became a spokesman for legalizing recreational drugs. No, actually, that's a good point that came up in the Pirate Stream, was that Tony Bennett went from cocaine to cannabis, and it helped him escape his financial and creative

woes, so shout out to Canna Cabana there. You bet. Oh, you're clever. But hey, one more, because Tom Jones, I remember his comeback for us North Americans anyways, but the other big name, I think the best example of this is Johnny Cash.

Yeah, he certainly North Americans anyways. But the other big name, I think the best example of this is Johnny Cash. Yeah. Because Johnny... Johnny had, yeah, he certainly had his downs, that's for sure. Ups and downs. Right. You're not going to believe this, Mike. Willie Nelson too.

Bruce, you first, then Steve. What were you going to say, Bruce? No, I just said Willie Nelson too. Go ahead, Steve. Yeah, Willie Nelson's a good example too. But Johnny Cash, when he covered, for example, he did a bunch of those American recordings with Rick Rubin. But when he did Hurt, the Nine Inch Nails song,

that was a massive Much Music and MTV hit, and it's sort of at the end of his life, and it was sort of like bringing, then a lot of us Gen Xers went back and said, let me hear some of this old Johnny Cash, because this guy's got it going on, and the next thing you know. What were you going to say, Mr. Paykin?

I was just going to say, after Johnny Cash was done with his Tennessee trio and he sort of made it huge, Folsom Prison Blues, A Boy Named Sue, all that kind of stuff, my dad's uncle was his manager. You know what? I think you dropped that bomb on me before and I'm still

reeling. The other bomb you dropped on me, which I've since been researching and find fantastic, is Frank Sinatra's... Whose dog is that, by the way? Is that yours, Bruce? That's my dog. Okay. That's okay. I like the dog. We're almost done here. The first ever Frank Sinatra number one was written by a Toronto woman. We need to shout that out. Oh yeah, indeed. Ruth Lowe. And you and I talked about this when we were kicking out the jams once upon a time. Ruth Lowe, who used to live at Bathurst and Eglinton in West End of Midtown Toronto.

Right. She wrote two of his greatest songs, I'll Never Smile Again. And then she also wrote the song that was his theme song that they played at his funeral, which was Put Your Dreams Away for Another Day. See, there's a Toronto connection since we're on Toronto Mike tier. We got to bring it back to the T-dot. Now, gentlemen, you both share this final jam. I'm going to ask a question to you and off the top, Mike,

because this is a Toronto show. Is there a song, because we did San Francisco and we did New York, New York in a second. Is there a song that's synonymous with Toronto? As big as Toronto is and influential, is there a song? Yeah, I heard it on Mike's show. It's Toronto People City. Shout out to Ed Conroy from Metro Ontario.

He would definitely say that. I actually think about this a lot because there's a number of songs that reference Toronto. And there's, you know, Drake has a song called Running Through the Six of My Woes. But I don't think there is a definitive Toronto song. The closest you might get is this song right here. But yeah, I don't think, what do you think, Steve?

I don't think there's a definitive Toronto song like you have with San Francisco or another city, a Big Apple we're going to refer to in a moment. There's Chicago. Chicago has two songs. There's the, you know, Chicago, Chicago, that toddlin' town, wonderful town. And there's also My Kind of Town, Chicago is. And Chicago has two songs. There's the, you know, Chicago, Chicago, that toddlin' town, a wonderful town. And there's also My Kind of Town, Chicago Is.

And those are two songs. You know, there's L.A. Is My Lady, which Sinatra tried to make as a big hit, didn't quite make as big a hit. Quincy Jones did that one. L.A. Is My Lady. Mandy Newman's L.A. song. I love L.A. What about YYZ?

I know they say YYZ, but I refuse to do that. Rush has a song about YYZ? I know they say YYZ, but I refuse to do that. Rush has a song called YYZ. I guess I'm looking for a song that is not only popular in Toronto, but that's also internationally popular. I guess Rush would be... Rush is getting there, but you're right. There's nothing like this.

Should I start playing it, and then we could talk about wind things down here, but this is kind of the ideal closer, because it's both Frank and, uh, of course, Tony, but here,

let's get this going here. Start spreading the news You're leaving today Tell them, Frank I want to be a part of it New York, New York Your vagabond shoes They are longing to stray And step around the heart of it

New York, New York I wanna wake up In that city that doesn't sleep And find your king of the hills Top of the heap Your small town blues They're melting away Just fantastic. Toronto needs a song like this. Steve, we got to commission this or something.

We got to get one. See that they play at the end of every Blue Jay game when they win. This is what they play at the end of the Yankee games. San Francisco is what they play at the end of the Giant games. We need something like that. Here in Calgary, by the way, for people who don't know, there you go. In Calgary, when the Flames win, they play Ring of Fire, the Giant. We need something like that. Here in Calgary, by the way, for people who don't know, there you go. In Calgary, the Flames win. They play Ring of Fire, the Johnny Cash Ring of Fire.

That doesn't refer to Calgary at all, other than just the gas, the hot air. The oil, right. Now, this is off Frank's album. This is off one of Frank's duets albums. Many other artists joined him, including Tony Bennett, for this iconic New York, New York song, other artists join him, including Tony Bennett for this iconic New York, New York song, which Frank always likes to say was written by John Kander and Fred Ebb for Liza Minnelli and Stolen by Me. Right.

And that's true. Remember, it was in that New York, New York movie with Robert De Niro and Liza Minnelli, and Frank heard it and loved it and stole it and made a humongous hit with it. Yep. Right. Now, I'm just back to the, what is it, Lady Chat points out that Frank, the song, obviously Frank's solo version of this fantastic song, is played at the start of the New York City Marathon.

But it's iconic. Like when you think of New York, this is the song. And New Year's Eve as well, isn't it, in Times Square? Oh, yeah. Yeah, and now my brain is running through all the songs that reference Toronto from the old apartment from Barenaked Ladies or Ambulance Blues from Neil Young, and we do not have this.

This does not exist for the city I live in. We need one, though. There's another song which is iconic with New York City, and that was, of course, in the musical Annie, NYC. That's a big song. I can New York City, and that was, of course, in the musical Annie. NYC. That's a big song. Right.

I can remember walking around. We'd gone to see my wife, and I had gone to see Annie years, obviously decades ago, and walking around town. That's all we could think of was, NYC, what is it about you? You're big, you're bold, you're whatever. Well, now you've got Empire. Here's the finish. Oh, here's the finish. Okay.

So at the close here, gentlemen, why Frank Sinatra and Tony Bennett? Why did they rise above all others? Well, I think, Steve, if you don't mind me saying so, the reason that they survived into this era is because they became identifiable brands. They became things that you could sell and you could market above and beyond their music. And this is no knock on them, but they were identifiable by the market as people who endured. And what they had to sell was a brand like any other one that has some prestige. And that's why we're still talking about them is because they're identifiable. As Steve has said, before you think of them, you see them right away in your mind. And it doesn't matter whether they're 90 or 20, they still work. A definitive Torontoonto jam how about this one rosy and gray from the lowest

of the low and that brings us to the end of our 1296th show you can follow me on twitter i'm at toronto mike our friends at great lakes brewery are at Great Lakes Beer. Palma Pasta is at Palma Pasta. Getting Hip to the Hip is at Getting Hip Pod. Save 10% on your ticket to Getting Hip to the Hip when you go to gettinghiptothehip.com and use the promo code FOTM10. That saves you 10%. Do it. Join me on September 1st. Recycle My Electronics are at EPRA underscore Canada. The Moment Lab are at The Moment Lab.

And Ridley Funeral Home are at Ridley FH. See you all Tuesday when my special guest is Fergie Oliver. Cause my UI check has just come in Ah, where you been? Because everything is kind of rosy and green Yeah, the wind is cold but the snow wants me today And your smile is fine and it's just like mine

And it won't go away Cause everything is rosy and green