TONY BENNETT: HIS HEART IS IN THE OFT-SUNG SONGS

Tony Bennett repeats, repeats, repeats. He answers the same questions in interview after interview; he sings the same songs night after night. But doing things once more doesn’t bug the affable Bennett: In fact, he sees it as the heart of the matter.

“In the world of professionalism, what really separates the men from the boys is ability to do the same thing every night and make it believable,” the renowned pop singer said in a recent phone interview from Atlantic City, N.J.

“Like Woody Herman playing ‘Woodchopper’s Ball’ or Sinatra doing ‘New York, New York,’ to make it work and have the audience thrilled by it, it has to be very believable, has to be vital, has to sound like the first time you’re doing it.”

For Bennett, the tune he repeats more than any other, and has to make believable, is “I Left My Heart in San Francisco,” the multimillion seller that made the 61-year-old singer an international star. The song, written by George Cory and Douglas Cross in 1954, was recorded in the spring of 1962 and that year won Grammy Awards for Record of the Year and Best Male Vocal Performance.

Doesn’t he ever get tired of it?

“My stock answer to that is ‘Do you get tired of making love?’ ” Bennett answered, laughing. Then, getting serious, he said: “Look, it’s my signature song, and I feel blessed with it and, no, I don’t mind doing it every night. It feels fresh to me because I hear it that way. I know the audience; I can tell by their reaction, they come to hear that song. They all cheer it, and it makes me feel good at the end of the night. Besides, I’ve always wanted to be an immortal performer somehow.” The song, “a perennial favorite that is still selling,” has certainly assured Bennett of that.

Fortunately, Bennett--who appears Saturday at Irvine Meadows Amphitheatre, accompanied by the Ralph Sharon Trio and the Pacific Symphony Orchestra--is, as he puts it, “one of those guys that really loves what he’s doing.”

“Very simply, I just can’t wait to get on stage,” he added. Still, he has a few methods to get himself charged up for a performance.

The one he usually employs is listening to his chief influence, Louis Armstrong. “I don’t listen to him every day, but if I’m not listening, I’m thinking about him,” he said. “I think: ‘That’s the way to do it, that’s the feeling, that’s the one that gets you.’ When he hits a note, he doesn’t fake it. You feel like the gates of heaven are opening up, or it’s almost like Zen: It goes beyond what you could dream of doing; it goes into some other plateau that’s never been there before. He hits a note that’s so full of quality and sincerity and integrity that it’s better than anything you’ve ever heard.”

Bennett, who has been singing for almost 40 years, has kept his distinctive voice in remarkably good shape, so much so that his latest two CBS releases--”The Art of Excellence” (1986) and “Tony Bennett Jazz” (a 1987 reissue of 1954-65 material)--sound amazingly similar.

“I’m trying to break the myth that at a certain age, your voice goes down,” he said. “I don’t think that’s true. There are too many examples: Maurice Chevalier, Bing Crosby, Fred Astaire, they still sounded very good right until they went out. With the microphone, which is (integral to) the art of intimate singing, you don’t have to push. It’s not a physical, athletic thing, like opera. If you take care of your voice, it’ll be right in there.”

Bennett, who also paints and plays tennis daily, keeps his voice fresh by “using the old-fashioned bel canto system, which is going up and down the scales for about 15 to 20 minutes,” he said. “It’s one foolproof way of keeping your voice healthy right through your life.”

The singer--whose first hit was “Boulevard of Broken Dreams” in 1950--has long chosen his performing repertoire from “the great classical popular music” of the ‘30s and ‘40s, written by such composers as Irving Berlin, Cole Porter, Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart. He also performs more recent songs, in a similar vein, by Stephen Sondheim, Burton Lane, Sammy Cahn and Michel Legrand, among others.

Bennett sees these standard songs as “hard to beat.” “If you compared them to painting, they’d be like the Impressionists, of a quality that will last forever,” he said. “And they’re still the greatest ambassador the United States has got. Fans the world over know great songs like ‘Night and Day’ and ‘Dancing in the Dark.’ They start singing them (when he sings them). They love the American music.”

The singer’s lifelong love of painting--”I have been painting as long as I can remember, and I have always been going to art school”--has turned into an occupation, he said. “Johnny Carson had me on his show a number of times and had me bring my paintings, and soon thereafter I started showing in nice galleries.

“Now I really have two occupations. Recently, I worked at Harrah’s in Lake Tahoe, and the pay was pretty good. Well, I had a show at the same time at the Lake Galleries there and I did better with the paintings. I sold one for $40,000.”

But Bennett, who estimates he has made between $50 million to $100 million from singing, is not in art for the money but for the way it nurtures him. “Art has changed my life,” he said. “I’ve gotten an education. Studying art history is an indirect way of learning the whole history of the world. I wouldn’t change my life for anything. I’m blessed that I did gravitate toward music and art because it’s given me my balance about things.”

LIVE ACTION: The James Harman Band and the Mighty Flyers will play the Coach House in San Juan Capistrano on Sept. 4. . . . Tender Fury will be at Big John’s in Anaheim on Aug. 28. . . . The Celebrity Theatre has added a dance music show featuring Bardeux, Egyptian Lover and others to its schedule on Sept. 6.