GOODBYE SINEAD O'CONNOR AND TONY BENNETT

Two celebrated singers passed away in the last few days. 

Sinead O’Connor’s death was declared on 26 July by her family. The cause of death is unknown but she was just 56. 

Sinead hit the top of the charts in 1990 with the deeply moving song ‘Nothing Compares 2 U’. Ruchir, Shumita and I would listen to it many times in a day and I still play the video often. The video is exceptional for the intense passion Sinead puts in the song. In my list, it is right on top of love and heartbreak songs. 

It reminds me of three similar songs from my younger days sung with enormous feeling. Johnnie Ray recorded ‘Cry’ in 1951. There was no video those days but it sounded as if Ray was actually crying while singing the song. The other two, ‘I’ll Never Fall in Love Again’ and ‘Yesterday’ are by Tom Jones who sounds and looks as if he is breaking down while singing the songs.

I don’t really know more about Sinead but that one song is unforgettable. Nothing compares to ‘Nothing Compares 2 U’.

Tony Bennett was 40 years her senior and breathed his last on 20 July, a little short of 97.  He came into the limelight in 1951 with ‘Because of You’ and kept bringing out hits after hits in a career lasting 70 years. His last disc release was ‘Love For Sale’ with Lady Gaga in 2021 with which he broke the individual record for the longest run of a top-10 album on the Billboard 200 chart for any living artist with his first Top 10 record being ‘I Left My Heart in San Francisco’ in 1962. With ‘Love For Sale’, he also broke the Guinness World Record for the oldest person to release an album of new material at the age of 95+. In his long career, he won 20 Grammies, a Lifetime Achievement Award and a star on Hollywood Walk of Fame.

His singing style was smooth like that of Frank Sinatra who said of Bennett in 1965,  “For my money, Tony Bennett is the best singer in the business”.

Apart from ‘Because of You’ and ‘I Left My Heart in San Francisco’, my pick of his songs includes, ‘Stranger in Paradise’, ‘I Get a Kick Out of You’, ‘Don’t Get Around Much Any More’, ‘I Can’t Give You Anything But Love’ , and ‘Cheek to Cheek’ with Lady Gaga. And special mention for ‘Shoo-Gah (My Pretty Sugar)’ which I wrote about in my earlier post, ‘Sugar is Sweet'.

Sinead O'Connor and Tony Bennett, RIP.