Circa owner recalls experience with Tony Bennett

One of the legions of fans fondly remembering Tony Bennett today is Denny Hitchcock, owner/producer of Circa ’21 Dinner Playhouse, Rock Island.

Less than 13 years after the popular theater opened at 1828 3^rd Ave., the beloved crooner (who died Friday at age 96) made his first concert appearance at Circa. Bennett performed for sold-out crowds (including in the Circa balcony), during two visits – Feb. 19-20, 1990 and April 22-23, 1991, when he did three shows over those two days each time.

“I would tell people I wear my tux on opening nights and for Tony Bennett,” Hitchcock said Friday. “He was an incredibly warm, humble, talented man and just a regular guy. It was an honor and distinct pleasure to have met him and have him perform at our theatre. It was pure magic.”

Circa booked Bennett with the help of trumpeter Doc Severinsen, the former longtime bandleader for The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, who performed in Rock Island twice in the late 1980s, Hitchcock said.

“He was raving about incredible the acoustics were,” he recalled Friday. Hitchcock said Severinsen gave him his card and offered to give him recommendations for other top guest artists to book.

“A year or so later, I called Tony Bennett’s office and they said ‘Mr. Bennett doesn’t play dinner theaters’,” Hitchcock said. He mentioned Severinsen’s recommendation and two weeks later, Bennett’s office called back and said they would like to perform at Circa.

“Tony came in and it was amazing,” the Circa owner said, noting Bennett had several of his paintings flown in to be displayed at Davenport’s Putnam Museum during his time in the Quad Cities.

“He was just a great man,” Hitchcock said. In 1990, he said the legendary singer went to dinner with a group of eight (including Denny and his wife), at the old Le Figaro restaurant in downtown Rock Island.

“He was sitting next to my wife; she was a teacher,” Hitchcock said. “He started talking about his daughter’s dyslexia and his dyslexia. Instead of his being the star at the table, he was simply one of the eight people at dinner, talking about a problem he and his kid have.”

In 1991, Hitchcock visited Bennett in his Circa dressing room, and he happened to be talking with a friend from Chicago, while wearing just a T-shirt and briefs.

“He said, come on in and to his lady friend, he said, ‘I want you to meet my boss, Denny,’ ” Hitchcock recalled. “That summed up any contact I had with him. It was never a fan talking to a star. He was the only star that I was intimidated to meet.

“He had his biggest hits when I was in high school,” the 80-year-old Hitchcock said. “Forty years later, he was here in my theater.”

Though they asked for return appearances, Circa was never able to book Bennett after that, since his popularity shot up in 1994, when he released an “MTV Unplugged” special and album, featuring guest appearances by k.d. lang and Elvis Costello.

His performance of “Steppin’ Out With My Baby” was put into rotation on the network as a video. Bennett was 68 years old at this point, Rolling Stone noted in an article today. “This was a cover of an Irving Berlin song from 1948. Little effort was made to modernize it for a young audience.”

Bennett’s Unplugged album won Album of the Year at the 1995 Grammys, beating recent works by Eric Clapton, Bonnie Raitt, Seal, and the Four Tenors. Bennett looked genuinely stunned when his name was read that night.

“I don’t believe this,” he said then. “I really don’t believe it. This is the greatest moment in my whole musical career, and the greatest moment in my life. I want to thank you very, very much for voting for me. I love being with all of you. There are no words. It’s such a victorious feeling to sing good American music and have this happen. Thank you very much.”

It felt like the capstone moment of his career, Rolling Stone wrote, but Bennett still had 27 years of creating music in front of him. “It’s very hard to imagine that the musical world will see anyone quite like him ever again,” the magazine said.

“His price skyrocketed after that,” Hitchcock said of post-1994 Bennett. “It was out of our price range.” Among his many awards were 20 Grammys, two Prime Emmys, and he was a Kennedy Center honoree.

“He was a star unlike so many other performers,” he added. “You hear all the time about these diva singers. He never showed that. He was just recognized as an excellent performer regardless of the genre.”

MTV has set three back-to-back re-airings of its two Unplugged specials featuring Tony Bennett, commemorating the beloved singer’s death today at 96. MTV Unplugged: Tony Bennett from 1994 will return tonight at 9 p.m., followed by 2021’s MTV Unplugged: Tony Bennett & Lady Gaga at 10 p.m.

Both will repeat starting Saturday morning and Sunday at 6 p.m., according to Deadline.