Tony Bennett – HuffPost 10.22.12

Mike Ragogna: Tony, what advice do you have for new Latino artists?

Tony Bennett: I just hope they never change. This is personal with me. They’re not just going for the quick buck, “Let’s just get a hit record and we’ll make a lot of money and it’ll be forgotten, but so what, it’ll make a lot of money.” I don’t agree with that. I like quality. I like melody and harmony and a lot of soul. When you hear them singing, you say, “Boy that person really feels that song. They mean it.” That’s the kind of music like Ella Fitzgerald and Frank Sinatra and Nat King Cole and singers like that made. The music never dies. It never becomes old-fashioned. I guarantee you, fifty years from now, if you hear a Sinatra record or an Ella Fitzgerald Record or a Nat King Cole record, you’re not going to say, “Well that sounds dated now.” It’s never going to be dated. They stayed with quality, and that’s what I believe in. It’s worked with me. When I put my box set out, The New York Times reviewed it and they said from 1950 to now, there’s not one bad record. They don’t think it’ll ever happen again, but “…he made a catalog of just good music.” It never sounds dated when you do that. That becomes what the record companies adore — a catalog. That means it’ll never stop selling, it’ll always sell, and it goes on and on. It’s just not forgotten.