在长达超过7年的职业生涯,Tony Bennettreleased more than 60 albums, worked with such luminaries as Count Basie, Barbra Streisand, Paul McCartney, Willie Nelson and Aretha Franklin, to name a few, and worked side by side with the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. for civil rights.

But the popular jazz vocalist is best known for his signature song, “I Left My Heart in San Francisco,” which has left an indelible impression on anyone who lives or has lived in the Bay Area.

Bennett died Friday in New York at age 96, just two weeks short of his birthday.

Publicist Sylvia Weiner confirmed Bennett’s death. No cause was disclosed, but the singer wasdiagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease in 2016.

Bennett first sang “I Left My Heart in San Francisco写的,”乔治·科里和道格拉斯十字架,在December 1961 in the Venetian Room of the Fairmont Hotel to an audience that included then-Mayor George Christopher and future Mayor Joseph Alioto. Released in 1962, originally as a B-side on his “Once Upon a Time” single, the reflective ballad became a grassroots phenomenon, staying on the charts for more than two years and earning Bennett his first two Grammys, including record of the year.

In a 2015 interview with Downbeat magazine, Bennett credited his accompanist, Ralph Sharon, with pointing out the song to him.

“Ralph saw some sheet music in his shirt drawer … and on top of the pile was a song called ‘I Left My Heart In San Francisco.’ Ralph thought it would be good material for San Francisco. We were rehearsing, and the bartender in the club in Little Rock, Ark., said, ‘If you record that song, I’m going to be the first to buy it.’ ”

Bennett had no qualms aboutperforming the song, now one of the city’s anthems, over and over, as he did at the final NFL game at Kezar Stadium in 1970; the 50th anniversary celebration of the Golden Gate Bridge in 1987; and at the reopening of the Bay Bridge after the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake.

Fans can’t seem to get enough either. More than 100,000 people turned up to hear him sing it at City Hall to celebrate the 2012 World Series victory by the San Francisco Giants.

In April 2020, Bennett joined San Francisco’s chief of protocol, Charlotte Shultz, to lead a mass sing-along to “I Left My Heart in San Francisco” in honor of the frontline workers responding to the coronavirus pandemic.

“I think as an entertainer your job is to please the audience, so I have been blessed with a beautiful signature song that has made me a citizen of the world,” he told The Chronicle at the time. “I love to perform it for everyone.”

In 2012, to mark the 50th anniversary of the recording of the song, San Francisco declared Feb. 14 as Tony Bennett Day. For his 90th birthday in 2016, the city gifted him the Tony Bennett Commemorative Statue, which sits on the lawn outside the Fairmont Hotel atop Nob Hill. In 2018, he got his own street, Tony Bennett Way, along a stretch of pavement formerly known as Mason Street in front of the hotel.

On Friday, Mayor London Breed ordered the flags of City Hall to be lowered to half-staff in honor of Bennett.

“Tony Bennett provided us with a song, a spirit, and a magic that is intertwined with the history of this city and who we are,” Breed said in a statement. “His contributions to this city go far beyond words on a page or melodies in the air.”

California Sen. Dianne Feinstein called Bennett a “dear friend” and mourned his passing.

“A painting of us riding the cable cars together still hangs in my Senate office,” she said. “Tony was above all else a kind and generous person who was loved by so many and whose music transcended generations. His heart will forever be in San Francisco and ours will forever be with him.”

Born Anthony Dominick Benedetto in the Astoria section of Queens, N.Y., on Aug. 3, 1926, Bennett grew up during the Depression. His mother, Anna Suraci, was a seamstress, and his father, John Benedetto, was a grocer who had emigrated from Italy and died when Bennett was 10.

“We were very impoverished,” Bennett said in a 2016 interview with the Associated Press. “I saw (my mother) working and every once in a while she’d take a dress and throw it over her shoulder and she’d say, ‘Don’t have me work on a bad dress. I’ll only work on good dresses.’ ”

Growing up in the thrall of singers like Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby and Louis Armstrong, Bennett got his first job working as a singing waiter to support his family while attending the High School for the Industrial Arts in New York City.

He dropped out of school when he was 16 and was drafted into the U.S. Army infantry during World War II, serving on the front lines until April 1945. He later described the experience as a “front-row seat in hell.” After the war, he sang with the 314th Army Special Services Band using the stage name Joe Bari.

After he was discharged, Bennett used the G.I. Bill to study singing and acting at the American Theatre Wing. He developed his style by imitating the phrasing of popular musicians, such as the easy saxophone tones of the saxophonist Stan Getz.

In 1949, Bennett was discovered by singer Pearl Bailey, who invited him to perform with her in Greenwich Village. Bob Hope, who was in the audience, took him out on tour and suggested he change his name. “He thought for a moment, then he said, ‘We’ll call you Tony Bennett,’ ” the singer wrote in his autobiography, “The Good Life.”

A year later, Bennett signed with Columbia Records — just as Sinatra was parting with the label — and recorded his breakthrough single, “Because of You,” with producer Mitch Miller and arranger Percy Faith. It sold more than 1 million copies and hit No. 1 on the pop charts in 1951. His subsequent hits included “Blue Velvet,” “Rags to Riches” and “Stranger in Paradise.”

His musical success led to a job hosting the NBC Saturday night television variety show, “The Tony Bennett Show,” in 1956. It also helped him record a pair of albums with the jazz great Count Basie, 1958’s “Basie Swings, Bennett Sings” and 1959’s “In Person!” and landed him a huge concert gig at Carnegie Hall in 1962, which featured the saxophonist Al Cohn, guitarist Kenny Burrell and percussionist Candido, along with the Ralph Sharon Trio.

Bennett used his popularity to draw attention to the civil rights movement, marching with King in Selma, Ala., in 1965. But his career and personal life were suffering at the time. The arrival of the Beatles and other British Invasion artists led to a downturn in sales while his first marriage, with artist Patricia Beech — with whom he had two sons, Danny and Daegal — ended in divorce. His first acting role, in the 1966 film “The Oscar,” was also a flop.

By 1972, he parted ways with Columbia after the label made an unsuccessful attempt to update his image with dismal rock albums such as “Tony Sings the Great Hits of Today!” After a brief spell with MGM Records also sputtered out, he was without a deal.

Bennett remarried, to actress Sandra Grant, had two daughters — Joanna and Antonia — and started his label, making a pair of albums with jazz pianist Bill Evans. He also moved to England to get a fresh start. But he couldn’t escape troubles with the IRS back home and declared bankruptcy.

In 1979, his substance abuse problems led to a near-fatal cocaine overdose. He spent most of the next decade out of the limelight until, under the guidance of his son Danny, who became his manager, Bennett reverted to singing the standards.

Signing again with Columbia, Bennett released “The Art of Excellence” in 1986, entering the charts for the first time since 1972.

By his early 40s, Bennett was seemingly out of fashion. But after turning 60, an age when even the most popular artists often settle for just pleasing their older fans, Bennett and Danny found creative ways to market the singer to the MTV Generation.

In the early 1990s, he put in high-profile appearances on late-night talk shows and was caricatured in “The Simpsons.” After the release of 1992’s Sinatra tribute, “Perfectly Frank,” Danny encouraged him to appear on the bill of several alternative radio music festivals as the ultimate alternative act. He appeared at the MTV Music Awards in 1993 with the Red Hot Chili Peppers, wearing shorts and a velvet top hat.

In 1994, Bennett appeared on “MTV Unplugged,” with guests Elvis Costello and k.d. lang, winning over a new generation of fans. The subsequent album went platinum and won the Grammy for album of the year.

Bennett also released a pair of books around this time: a 1996 coffee table book of his art, “What My Heart Has Seen,” and the 1998 autobiography “The Good Life.”

He toldThe Chroniclethe major takeaway from the latter book is, “That life is sweet, and it’s also bitter. If you just realize that and learn from your mistakes as you go through life, you end up a happy person. You end up saying, ‘What a great life. Look what I’ve learned, look where I’ve arrived.’ You don’t end up cynical, and you don’t end up as a failure.”

Bennett would go on to win Grammys for his tributes to female vocalists (“Here’s to the Ladies”), Billie Holiday (“Tony Bennett on Holiday”), and Duke Ellington (“Bennett Sings Ellington — Hot & Cool”). He also won Grammys for his collaborations with other singers: “Playin’ With My Friends — Bennett Sings the Blues,” and his Louis Armstrong tribute, “A Wonderful World” with lang, the first full album he had ever recorded with another singer.

He celebrated his 80th birthday with “Duets: An American Classic,” featuring Streisand, McCartney and Stevie Wonder, among others.

“They’re all giants in the industry, and all of a sudden they’re saying to me ‘You’re the master,’ ” Bennett told the Associated Press in 2006.

Still, he was hesitant to call his turn of fortunes a comeback. “I never went anywhere,” he said.

In 2001, he was presented with a Lifetime Achievement Award at the Grammys. He also was the recipient of a Kennedy Center Honor in 2005.

两年后,他结婚是一个结合起来d time to former schoolteacher Susan Crow, with whom Bennett founded the Frank Sinatra School of the Arts in Queens.

Bennett scored his first No. 1 charting album ever at age 85 with 2011’s “Duets II,” the follow-up album that featured collaborations with Lady Gaga, Mariah Carey and Amy Winehouse. He became the oldest living artist to top the Billboard 200.

The same year, he sparked controversy by linking American military actions in the Middle East to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks during an appearance on “The Howard Stern Show.”

He later clarified his position in a statement: “There is simply no excuse for terrorism and the murder of the nearly 3,000 innocent victims of the 9/11 attacks on our country. My life experiences, ranging from the Battle of the Bulge to marching with Martin Luther King, made me a lifelong humanist and pacifist, and reinforced my belief that violence begets violence and that war is the lowest form of human behavior.”

A year later, he called for the legalization of drugs after the deaths of Winehouse andWhitney Houston.

In August 2021, Danny, his son and longtime manager, said Bennett had retired from performing, just a week after the crooner joined Lady Gaga for two sold-out shows at Manhattan’s Radio City Music Hall. The announcement came weeks after the singer told AARP Magazine that he had been living with Alzheimer’s disease since 2016.

“I started out as a singing waiter in Queens — I would wait on tables and the customers would request a song and I would go back into the kitchen and if I didn’t know the song there were two Irish chefs who would quickly teach me the song, and then I would run back to the table and sing the song,” Bennett told The Chronicle. “I always said if it didn’t work out for me to have a professional career in the music business, that I would be perfectly happy to just continue being a singing waiter.”

He is survived by his wife, Susan; daughters, Johanna and Antonia; sons, Danny and Daegal; and nine grandchildren.

The Associated Press contributed to this article.

Reach Aidin Vaziri:avaziri@sfchronicle.com