Tony Bennett

Tony Bennett turns 80 this year and amidst the tributes, honors and accolades, the world's most down-to-earth living legend is celebrating this milestone the same way he essentially lives his life: enjoying each moment to the fullest, weathering the storms with good cheer and optimism, and connecting to people everywhere through the magic of his music and the power of his art.

"Mr. Bennett," wrote Stephen Holden in The New York Times (August 2, 2006), "has steadfastly remained the embodiment of heart in popular music. He pours it into every note he sings and every phrase he swings with a sophistication that deepens his unguarded emotional directness. In the polluted sea of irony, bad faith and grotesque attitudinizing that pop music has become, he is a rock of integrity."

As he has done virtually every year or so since the 1950s, the forever young octogenarian has recorded a new album, an unaffected and unabashed exaltation of what he calls "the Great American Songbook," a timeless treasure trove of standards, classics, and sometimes overlooked gems of traditional pop and swinging jazz.