Exclusive Content! Johnny Hartman singing "Lush Life" in 1983. This is an unreleased live version that is stunning. The video is incomplete but shows Johnny having a fine time with his signature song.

 

Exclusive Content! Johnny Hartman singing "I Get A Kick Out of You" in 1982. He is so completely at ease with the audience and cameras that it is mystifying he wasn't on national television on a regular basis.

Exclusive Content: Hartman performing "Nightingale" for Apollo Records in 1950. This rare 78-rpm disk has never been issued on CD so Gregg Akkerman has put together a video to share his copy. Thanks to Ed Olmos for his digital restoration of the audio.

The Story Behind this "Lush Life" Video: In 1983, pianist Tony Monte was music director for the Jonathan Schwartz Show broadcast in New York and, in late April, Hartman taped an episode. During the requisite performance of “Lush Life,” Monte, who had learned over the years to read the most subtle variances in the singer's voice, became quite alarmed: “He kept turning around and looking at me while he was singing, to kind of telegraph, ‘I’m having trouble.’” This ended up being Hartman's last performance. Appropriately, “Lush Life” would be his swan song.

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