flowering of the high-romantic style invented in the 1940s by Sinatra [with] arranger Axel Stordahl. Pure and throbbing, ...Bennett's voice adds a semi-operatic heft to Sinatra's more intimate crooning style. Male pop singing since [the mid-1950s] has never been [so] unabashedly sweet." In 1957 Bennett would begin a longstanding working relationship with jazz pianist Ralph Sharon who Bennett would recall advised him: "If you keep singing...sweet saccharine songs like 'Blue Velvet' sooner or later...you're going to stop selling [records]" and with his 1957 album The Beat of My Heart - produced and conducted by Sharon - Bennett had launched a new musical persona as an intensely intimate song stylist. A live version of "Blue Velvet" was featured on the 1962 concert album Tony Bennett at Carnegie Hall, with the selection being included on The Good Life, a 1963 EP release in the UK. Bennett dueted with k.d. lang on a remake of "Blue Velvet" for his 2011 album Duets II, while Bennett's 2012 album Viva Duets featured Bennett duetting on "Blue Velvet" with Maria Gadú, who sang her part in Portuguese. ("Blue Velvet" was a bonus cut on an edition of Viva Duets sold exclusively through Target.) The Clovers version In 1955, the Clovers released a version of the song through Atlantic Records as a single. The song was initially recorded, produced, and released when the R&B group was still composed of John "Buddy" Bailey (lead singer), Billy Mitchell, Matthew McQuater, Harold Lucas, Harold Winley, and Bill Harris. Various members of the group left, died, or were replaced, although the group as a whole still performed the song regardless of whom its members were. The single reached No. 14 on Billboard's Rhythm & Blues Records chart of "Best Sellers in Stores". In 1956, the Clovers released the song on their eponymous album. The Statues version The first version of "Blue Velvet" to appear on the Billboard Hot 100 during the rock 'n' roll era was recorded and released by the Statues, a Nashville-based doo-wop trio consisting of Buzz Cason, Hugh Jarrett, and Richard Williams. In 1959 Cason and Williams, members of local rockabilly band the Casuals, had been invited by Jarrett, a former member of the Jordanaires and later a disc jockey at WLAC, to join him - along with veteran background songstress and composer Marijohn Wilkin - to form a vocal chorale who would back artists recording in Nashville;