Tony Bennett at Mohegan Sun Arena

Winner of 19 Grammy Awards (including a Lifetime Achievement Award, presented in 2001) and two Emmy Awards, and named an NEA Jazz Master and a Kennedy Center Honoree, Tony Bennett is a jazz and big band singer, painter, and founder of the Frank Sinatra School of the Arts. Bennett's career began in 1950 with a cover of the 1933 hit "Boulevard of Broken Dreams"; a demo which led to him signing with Columbia Records. Bennett was a commercial pop crooner and had his first hit in 1951 with the ballad "Because of You", which peaked at number one, staying there for ten weeks and selling over one million copies. Throughout the 1950s, Bennett continued to have multiple chart-topping hits, and in the later half of the era, he built his reputation as a nightclub singer. His popularity grew once more in 1962 with the release of "I Left My Heart in San Francisco", which won Grammy Awards for Record of the Year and Best Male Solo Vocal Performance and became known as Bennett's signature song. In the 1990s, Bennett's music found success with a younger audience, and he appeared as a guest of several television programs throughout the decade, including Late Night with David Letterman, Late Night with Conan O'Brien, The Simpsons, Muppets Tonight, and several MTV programs. His 1994 album MTV Unplugged: Tony Bennett went platinum and won him the Best Traditional Pop Vocal Performance Grammy award for the third straight year, as well as the Grammy Award for Album of the Year. In 2014, Bennett (now in his late 80s) found appeal with a new generation when he collaborated with Lady Gaga on the Grammy Award-winning album Cheek to Cheek, which debuted at number one on the Billboard 200. To date, Bennett has sold over 50 million records worldwide.