Sixty years ago, Tony Bennett was in the middle of quite a role. This week in 1951, Bennett was on the third of eight consecutive #1 weeks atop the Billboard Sales chart with the beautiful song, Because Of You. The song was written by Arthur Hammerstein and Dudley Wilkinson, and first appeared in the movie I Was An American Spy. It was Bennett's first #1 song, the start of a long and storied career as a singer. The following clip shows you Tony Bennett singing Because of You on a television special in 1966, and he follows it up with Taking A Chance On Love, written by John Latouche and Ted Fetter for the 1940 Broadway musical, Cabin In The Sky. That production was noteworthy for it was the first time a production was mounted on Broadway with an all-minority cast. A few years later, it was recorded and released by Benny Goodman.
