Two new CDs for Tony Bennett

Tony Bennett is one of the rare recording artists to have new albums chart in five different decades. Over the course of his career, he has earned 13 GRAMMY Awards, including a GRAMMY Lifetime Achievement Award and honors for Record of the Year ("I Left My Heart in San Francisco, " 1962) and Album of the Year (MTV Unplugged, 1993). He is also the recipient of an EMMY Award and the Kennedy Center Honors.

To commemorate this lifetime of achievement--and in celebration of the artist's 80th birthday milestone--Starbucks Hear Music will introduce customers to two Tony Bennett CD projects this year. The first of these is a Starbucks Hear Music Opus collection, Through the Years, which will be available exclusively at Starbucks Company-operated locations in the U.S. and Canada beginning April 4.



For Through the Years, Starbucks Hear Music worked with Bennett to select landmark hits as well as some of the artist's handpicked personal favorites, to create a portrait of Bennett's musical career. On the 15-track CD are songs for which Bennett created definitive interpretations including "I Left My Heart in San Francisco, " Cy Coleman's "The Best Is Yet To Come, " Hammerstein's Sound of Music classic, "My Favorite Things, " Hank Williams' "Cold, Cold Heart, " Rodgers and Hart's "Blue Moon, " "The Way You Look Tonight, " "Smile, " and "It Had To Be You." Also among the tracks are the memorable "Just In Time, " "I Wanna Be Around, " "The Good Life, " "I Could Write a Book, " "Steppin' Out with My Baby" and a version of "My Foolish Heart" recorded with the great jazz pianist Bill Evans.

The Starbucks Hear Music Opus series showcases songs by artists essential for any music collection. The Starbucks Hear Music content team compiles a mix of classic tunes with songs people may not have ever heard to create a portrait of each artist. Previous Starbucks Hear Music(tm) Opus Collections include: Miles Davis, Joni Mitchell, Frank Sinatra, Billie Holiday, and Ray Charles.



This fall, Starbucks will offer a second CD, an RPM/Columbia release, which will feature newly recorded duets with Bennett and a wide range of musical artists, among them Bono, the Dixie Chicks and Billy Joel. The repertoire will include the songs most closely associated with Bennett's celebrated catalogue, which comprised countless hits over five decades of recorded output. The duets album, which is currently untitled, will be available simultaneously at Starbucks Company-operated locations and traditional retailers.