Michael Feinstein, the vocalist and arbiter of the Great American Songbook, is kicking off the next leg of his concert tour Because of You: My Tribute to Tony Bennett. Here, he offers a holiday paean to his friend Tony Bennett, who left us last year at age 96. As you read, you might want to get in the mood by cueing up a bit of Bennett or Feinstein.

Longevity is a rarity in the entertainment business, and vocalist Tony Bennett is an extraordinary example of someone who enjoyed a free-flowing, 70-year career that included (or concluded with) a bittersweet yet triumphant last act. How did he do it? The simple answer is talent, but there is much more to the equation than natural ability and fine filial management.

Tony was a principled man with singular and sometimes eccentric tastes, one who refused to compromise such tastes despite the impediment they might have caused his career.

Perhaps such doggedness harkens back to his beginnings. The son of Italian immigrants, he was raised with a strong moral compass and a requisite education in the essentials. But he was schooled equally so in the arts, which, as they loomed larger in his life, were supported by his family, especially when he started pursuing a real career in show business. That was an unusual type of backing, but he had an uncle who was involved in the entertainment world and encouraged him.

It was after Tony was drafted in 1944, at the age of 18, that his life changed dramatically. His singing career was placed on hold. He was sent to the front to fight during the Second World War, experiencing the horrors and folly of combat firsthand. Witnessing the liberation of a concentration camp helped make him a lifelong pacifist. And the racism of a commanding officer—who demoted him for having Thanksgiving dinner with a Black comrade—ignited another fire within, an instinct to always stand for equality and inclusion. But as the war concluded, the Army also gave him opportunities to make music; after his discharge, he worked with many diverse musicians, for jazz was his passion and his music was always colorblind.

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Tony ascended rather quickly. He signed with Columbia records in 1950. And aside from a few hiccups in the middle years, he stayed with the label for most of his recording career. From the start, he released contemporary songs alongside older standards that benefitted from his swinging style and his ability to reinvent them. The record-buying public didn’t know that some of those songs were 20 or more years old at the time, because he made them sound fresh and vibrant. He considered himself to be a jazz singer and took interpretive liberties that were often exciting and unexpected for a pop record.

His repertoire was rich and different from those of other singers of his time because Tony was always pushing to perform more sophisticated songs, sometimes battling with music executives who just wanted to sell hot platters. At times, his unusual song choices yielded some of his biggest hits (“I Left My Heart in San Francisco,” “I Wanna Be Around,” “The Good Life,” and “Because of You” come to mind) and other signature tunes (“If I Ruled the World,” “The Best Is Yet to Come”), even as record producers were turning more and more to gimmicky pop sounds, often with novelty effects to prick up the ear. Production was becoming more important than the lyrics or melody, but Tony wanted to tell a story when he sang, and doggedly stuck to his guns.

Once I mentioned to Tony that I had heard a recording he had made of a song that I thought was wonderful—“What Makes It Happen”—a composition I had not previously known. I said, “Tony, that’s a good song.” He replied, “Michael, I never sang a bad song.” The truth is that he sometimes he did, especially in the early days before he had free reign over what he could record. Gems like “Shoo-gah (My Pretty Sugar)” or “From the Candy Store on the Corner to the Chapel on the Hill” are the equivalent of musical heavy furniture. When Sony later issued a “complete” CD box set of his albums, he refused to let them include various tracks he felt were not up to his standards.

As the ’60s morphed into the ’70s, and rock took over the airwaves, Tony’s style of singing was no longer producing as many hits and he suffered for his unswerving commitment to what he felt was a higher level of art. He worked with independent labels and continued to do what he did best, though his record sales were no longer stellar and audiences were changing. Even his studio collaborations with the great pianist Bill Evans in the ’70s—today thought of as jazz gems—were underappreciated.

But Tony stayed true to his code. He wouldn’t compromise. He couldn’t. Of course, he still had a great number of fans, but he was no longer considered a relevant contemporary artist, as pop music had ushered in a new wave of music and singer-songwriters whose work, over time, has proven to be equally significant and classic as the stalwarts of the earlier golden age of Tin Pan Alley. The songs of the ’20s through the ’50s were still abundantly heard by the mid-to-late 20th century, but were yet to be classified as ageless and were generally considered remnants of nostalgia.

Then an unexpected revival happened. And it can be traced to the ushering in of his 1986 album The Art of Excellence. It was a canny collection that only Tony could have assembled: classic standards cozily mixed with newer songs, bringing a burst of fresh air to the ’80s music scene. Suddenly, he was seen in a different light. He was classic, not old-fashioned. He was hip, and the music was fresh to fresh ears, which had never heard him before.

What changed? Not Tony. The audience caught up to him at a time when a subconscious yearning for a certain kind of musical integrity hungered in listeners who were perhaps weary of more formulaic sounds. He had weathered a musical storm and come out on the other side.

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His son Danny helped get him on MTV and coupled him with contemporary artists. Some performed better than others in tandem with Tony, but by this point he was bulletproof and they wanted to hitch their wagons to his venerable star. Offstage he had no great love for the music that a few of his duettists were producing. He frankly often found some of their musical excursions incomprehensible, to put it politely. But that didn’t matter. He was singing the same way, with jazz-rooted phrasing, as he weaved musical playlets in 32 bars.

And he wore a suit. He was elegant and charming and reflected an aesthetic his partners desired and embraced. He had accomplished the impossible with an amiable smile and ironclad lung power. Famously, he would put down his mic during his concerts and perform one tune without the benefit of amplification, delivering a seemingly effortless blast to those sitting in the furthest seats from the stage. He became a legend and had 19 Grammys to prove it. About 10 years ago, when I asked him if he was surprised to have won a Grammy—in his 80s—he simply gave me a glance and wryly replied: “No.” Big smile.

Then, after revealing he was coping with Alzheimer’s, a condition he weathered with poise, inspiring millions, Tony left our corporeal world. There was an emotional outpouring, as if from everywhere, and a rare collective feeling of loss accorded few. Tributes flowed and statements were offered, but the voice would never be heard again live.

Never had I considered offering a full-scale musical tribute to him because you can’t copy the Mona Lisa, and who on Earth can fill those shoes and not get hurt trying them on? Then I considered his raison d’être, and what I shared in common with him as a friend who encouraged me at the start of my own singing career, introducing me to his colleagues and sending me his favorite cough drops as a secret weapon to keep the throat strong.

Tony wanted nothing more than to make music that would bring people together and keep the classic songwriters’ legacy alive. And so his musical mission started to make sense. There is a story to be shared about Tony’s journey and it needs to be told in anecdote and song. It’s a story of the American Dream, of passion, and, most of all, of love. And it shall go on as long as we keep the music playing.