FOG BLOG ENTERTAINMENT LOG: ONE OF THE BEST! LEGENDARY CROONER, TONY BENNETT DIES AT 96!

Legendary crooner Tony Bennett dead at 96 Bennett, diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease in 2016, won 19 Grammys in a decades-long career Tony Bennett, the eminent and timeless stylist whose devotion to classic American songs and knack for creating new standards such as I Left My Heart In San Francisco graced a decades-long career that brought him countless admirers, has died. He was 96, just two weeks short of his birthday.

Publicist Sylvia Weiner confirmed Bennett's death to The Associated Press, saying he died in his hometown of New York. There was no specific cause, but Bennett had been diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease in 2016.

The last of the great saloon singers of the mid-20th century, Bennett often said his lifelong ambition was to create "a hit catalogue rather than hit records." He released more than 70 albums and won 19 Grammy Awards among 41 nominations in a career that saw him collaborate with artists across several genres, including pairings with Lady Gaga, Amy Winehouse and Canadian singers k.d. lang and Diana Krall.

Bennett didn't tell his own story when performing; he let the music speak instead — the Gershwins and Cole Porter, Irving Berlin and Jerome Kern. Unlike his friend and mentor Frank Sinatra, he would interpret a song rather than embody it. If his singing and public life lacked the high drama of Sinatra's, Bennett appealed with an easy, courtly manner and an uncommonly rich and durable voice — "A tenor who sings like a baritone," he called himself — that made him a master of caressing a ballad or brightening an up-tempo number.

"I enjoy entertaining the audience, making them forget their problems," he told The Associated Press in 2006. "I think people ... are touched if they hear something that's sincere and honest and maybe has a little sense of humour.... I just like to make people feel good when I perform."