Nightline Playlist: Tony Bennett

Sept. 27, 2007 — -- It may be no surprise that Tony Bennett's love for music and performing is in his blood line.

"My father used to sing in Podàrgoni, a little town out in Calabria, Italy," Bennett said. "And he impressed my brother and myself as children. … He used to sing on top of a mountain and the whole valley would hear him."

Bennett was born in 1926 and grew up in Astoria, Queens, in New York City listening to music and sharing it with his family.

"We grew up during the Depression, and when you bought a record in those days the whole family had to like it. You couldn't buy a record for yourself. … And everybody contributed," he said. "The grandparents, the parents, the young relatives would always talk about the music that we liked. My brother was older than I was, and he liked jazz and he influenced me."

By age 10, Bennett found his niche for performing. He sang at the opening of the Triborough Bridge and went on to attend New York's High School of Industrial Art. But at 16 he dropped out of school to help support his family, and it was then that he decided to make a living as a professional singer.

His first gig: working as a singing waiter in Queens making $15 a week.

In 1944, Bennett's performing career was interrupted when he joined the Army during World War II. Stationed in France and Germany, Bennett wrote of his experience in his 1998 memoir, "The Good Life":

"The main thing I got out of my military experience was the realization that I am completely opposed to war. Every war is insane, no matter where it is or what it's about. Fighting is the lowest form of human behavior. It's amazing to me that with all the great teachers of literature and art, and all the contributions that have been made on this very precious planet, we still haven't evolved a more humane approach to the way we work out our conflicts."

Back in the states after the war, Bennett continued performing whenever he could and studied at the American Theater Wing on the GI Bill. But his big break came in 1949, when Pearl Bailey — one of the most popular black Broadway performers of the time — spotted Bennett's talent and asked him to open for an act she was doing in Greenwich Village, N.Y.