Bernstein croons posthumous tribute to Steward, Dundee, Tapia, others

The voice of Hall of Fame broadcaster Al Bernstein graces a musical tribute honoriing boxing figures such as  Hall of Fame trainer Emanuel "Manny" Steward, and Angelo Dundee, boxers Hector Camacho and Johnny Tapia, and boxing historian Bert Sugar, all of whom died during 2012.

The tribute can be viewed on The Boxing Channel by clicking here. Bernstein is the recording artist as well as the vocalist in the musical portion of the feature, during which he sings, "What a Wonderful World."

"There were so many people this year, a lot of people that I was close to, it seemed, that we wanted to do something that would be a nice, little tribute to all of them. So I thought about maybe doing a musical theme. I thought that I would find a good song. I searched, and searched and searched, and at the end of the day, the one song that everybody loves, when it comes to all of these things is that tune. It kind of crosses all boundaries," said Bernstein.

"I thought, 'You know, this song is just such a wonderful song.' I thought that that we could do a nice enough job, and I thought that Lorenzo Rocha did a great piece with the video. Our group did a wonderful job in helping me to produce it, and so far, everybody has liked it. To be honest, when I was singing it, I was thinking about all of those people, and then when you put the pictures to it, it just felt very, very personal to me. I didn't think that anyone would mind if I stepped out of my comfort level a little bit to do something like this."

Photo by Ed Mulholland, Fightwireimages.com

Lem Satterfield can be reached at lemuel.satterfield@gmail.com