Whenever crooner* Tony Bennett returns to the land of his roots, he feels overwhelmed*.

    “When I sing in Rome or anywhere in Italy, I get a complex*,” he said after performing for a sold-out hall at Rome’s Parco della Musica.

    “I know too much history, too much about the magnificence of Italy, the place where the orchestra was invented, the first piano, the first violin,” he said, the feeling of awe mixed with pride clear in his voice.

    Bennett, currently on a tour of Europe that will take him to Spain, Monte Carlo, Germany, Sweden, Finland, Norway and Iceland before it ends in August, left the Rome crowd sublimely* stunned that he could still belt out* his famous songs with style despite his 85 years.

    Don’t expect a light show or sound effects. A Tony Bennett concert, even if held in an auditorium or a piazza, feels as intimate as if it were in a small club in Greenwich Village. In fact, a number of people in the audience said later they felt as if he were singing just for them.

    He is accompanied on the European tour by Lee Musiker on piano, Gray Sargent on guitar, Harold Jones on drums and Marshall Wood on double bass.

    (SD-Agencies)