At the Great Auditorium. Ocean Grove, NJ, USA. By Paul Goldfinger
TONY BENNETT
Tony Bennett
“Once Upon a Time:” A tribute to Tony Bennett who once upon a time magically performed in the Great Auditorium of Ocean Grove.
July 1, 2025 by Blogfinger
2 Responses
I vividly remember that incident. Ronald Naldi, a fan of Bennett’s, had sung the Star Spangled Banner without amplification. Of course his voice projected all over the hall.
When Bennett came out he said, “How can I follow that?”
He tried to sing his first number also without amplification, but I recall that it didn’t work very well.
Subsequently I spoke to Naldi about the incident, and he said that opera singers are trained to project their voices without amps.
When Eileen and I bought our first “stereo,” my first album was by Tony Bennett. It was called “Tony’s Greatest Hits Part III” on Columbia Records. The cover portrait was by the famous portraitist Richard Avedon. You can see that cover on this post.
I played “When Joanna Loved Me” over and over again. He wrote that song. And, the song featured on this post. “Once Upon a Time” is also on that same album.
A sad loss for the music world. The last time he played the Auditorium, he said how great the acoustics were, so he put aside the microphone and sang without amplification. It was a magical moment. RIP Tony.