Originally published January 1995
Tony Bennett finds it encouraging that listeners and record executives alike are beginning to rebel against marketing stereotypes and the “big score” philosophy that has driven record companies since the 1960s. After the Beatles, he said, record companies only wanted blockbuster albums that could sell millions of copies. In his own case, he severed his contract with Columbia Records in the early 1970s because they wanted him to sing rock songs. “They wanted me to sing Janis Joplin,” Bennett said. “I told them, ‘You do it.’” He rejoined Sony/Columbia in 1986 and says the company has given him complete freedom to record the standards that he loves. And looking ahead, that is exactly what he intends to keep on doing. “The myth has always been that after
