Maps of Music

Here's to the Ladies (1995)

Where the lyrics of Here's to the Ladies take you, and where it was really made.

Each of the album's 18 tracks is a tribute to a female singer, and Margaret Whiting is honored twice.

Place unknown

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Here's to the Ladies: studio album by Tony Bennett, released in 1995
Theme: songs made famous by female singers
Eighteen tracks, each credited as a tribute to one singer
Tribute titles name Barbra Streisand, Judy Garland, Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, Liza Minnelli, Ethel Merman and others

The album won Bennett the Grammy Award for Best Traditional Pop Vocal Performance
It peaked at No. 1 on Billboard's Traditional Jazz Albums chart
On November 8, 2011, Sony Music Distribution included the CD in a box set entitled The Complete Collection

Ralph Sharon on piano, Clayton Cameron on drums, Doug Richeson on double bass
Lew Soloff plays the trumpet solos
Jorge Calandrelli arranged and conducted the orchestral charts on tracks 2, 4–7, 13–15
Bill Holman arranged and conducted the Big Band charts on tracks 1, 3, 9, 11
The session orchestra and big band are unidentified, except on tracks 8, 10, 12, 16, 17 and 18

Born Anthony Dominick Benedetto on August 3, 1926, in Long Island City, Queens, New York City.
Grew up in poverty after his father, a grocer, became unable to work and died when Tony was ten.
Sang for money from age 13 as a singing waiter in Italian restaurants in Queens.
Attended New York's School of Industrial Art but dropped out at 16 to help support his family.

Drafted into the U.S. Army in November 1944 and fought as an infantryman in the final stages of World War II.
Stayed in Germany with the occupying force and sang with an Army Special Services band under the name Joe Bari.

Studied bel canto at the American Theatre Wing on the GI Bill; Pearl Bailey and Bob Hope helped launch him, and Hope shortened his name to Tony Bennett.
Signed with Columbia Records in 1950; first number-one hit "Because of You" in 1951.
Shifted toward jazz singing in the late 1950s; "I Left My Heart in San Francisco" (1962) became his signature song.
Declined commercially during the rock era and struggled with addiction and debt until a comeback in the late 1980s, managed by his son Danny.
The 1994 MTV Unplugged album won the Grammy for Album of the Year.

Collaborated with Lady Gaga from Cheek to Cheek (2014) through Love for Sale (2021).
Won 20 Grammy Awards, including a Lifetime Achievement Award, and sold more than 50 million records worldwide.
Received a Kennedy Center Honor in 2005 and a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Co-founded the Frank Sinatra School of the Arts in Queens with Susan Crow.

Released in 1995 as a studio album by Tony Bennett
Theme: songs made famous by female singers
Eighteen tracks, each credited as a tribute to one singer
Margaret Whiting is honored twice, on Moonlight in Vermont and My Ideal
Tributes include Streisand's People, Garland's Somewhere Over the Rainbow and Holiday's God Bless the Child

Entertainment Weekly: praised Bennett's sensitivity to the female side of prerock popular music, balanced against the craggy muscularity of his vocal style
The review's point is that the vocal style balances tenderness with rugged force

Grammy Award for Best Traditional Pop Vocal Performance, won by Bennett for this album
Peaked at No. 1 on Billboard's Traditional Jazz Albums chart
On November 8, 2011, Sony Music Distribution included the CD in a box set entitled The Complete Collection

Margaret Whiting appears twice in the track listing, on Moonlight in Vermont and My Ideal
Tribute tracks include Barbra Streisand (People) and Judy Garland (Somewhere Over the Rainbow)
Ella Fitzgerald is honored with You Showed Me the Way; Billie Holiday with God Bless the Child
Lew Soloff plays the trumpet solos on the album
Bill Holman and Jorge Calandrelli each handled different sets of arrangements and conducting