I never thought the day would come when I was defending Rod Stewart from Tony Bennet, but Bennet’s smackdown seemed a little bizarre. Bennet said: “”It’s not as good as Nat Cole or Frank Sinatra. He has a kind of a female voice. It’s not definitive performances. The game is really how can you own a performance of a song? And that’s the game of communicating as a performer – to own that song that you’re doing.”
No it isn’t as good as Sinatra or King Cole. It is a unique, maybe not very good but certainly very popular, Rod Stweartism off the American Songbook.
I would think Bennet would be appreciative of anybody who is keeping it alive, and if Stewart isn’t, why did it take him ten years to mention it?