Book summary

With a career that has stretched from the 1940s to well into the 21st century, the relaxed and good-natured Tony Bennett is the most enduring of the generation of crooners who took Bing Crosby as their model. THE GOOD LIFE is a series of typically candid and gentlemanly recollections of a long and artistically fulfilling career. After a three-year stint in the army, which sparked his lifelong revulsion for violence, the erstwhile Anthony Benedetto's early show business career was given an immeasurable boost by the patronage of Bob Hope, who changed the singer's stage name from Joe Bari to Tony Bennett, and he began an association with Columbia Records that was to last until 1971. Bennett is frank about the low points in his career in the mid-'80s, when slumping record sales, the attentions of the IRS, and his drug abuse almost overwhelmed him. He also expresses both wonder and gratitude at his remarkable latter-day transformation, under his son's direction, into a hip icon. Bennett's return to his roots as a performer of high-quality pop material, hailed by a new generation of fans, is a remarkable coda to a remarkable life.