STANDARDS STILL CATNIP TO BOOMERS BENNETT, SEGER, MANILOW SELL DESPITE YOUNG FANS' DEDICATION TO DOWNLOADS.

Byline: GREG HERNANDEZ Staff Writer

Television director Scott Winant had picked up Tony Bennett's latest CD while getting his morning coffee at Starbucks and was now at Tower Records on Sunset Boulevard, scanning the racks for the new Keith Jarrett CD to listen to on his evening commute home.

The 50-year-old music lover buys an average of five CDs a week and has no plans to start downloading tunes off the Internet anytime soon.

``I don't want to buy music song by song. I'd rather not know what I'm about to experience,'' said Winant, an Emmy winner for ``thirtysomething.''

``I'm old-fashioned in the sense that if I'm interested in an artist, I'm not just interested in the single or the hit.''

In general, CD sales have lagged in recent years as digital music libraries expand. But with teenagers and twenty-somethings downloading music from the Internet onto their MP3 players, the CD sales charts have been something of a flashback to the Billboard archives of the 1960s or '70s.

It is fans like Winant who are largely responsible for Bennett's new CD, ``Duets: An American Classic,'' being No. 1 on the Amazon.com sales chart every hour since its release Tuesday.

It joins the latest releases from Bob Dylan, Diana Krall and Jerry Lee Lewis in the top 10.

And Elton John's latest debuted in 10th place on the Billboard top 200 chart last week, while Barry Manilow landed on top of that prestigious hits list for the first time in 29 years last February.

``I had an iPod, but I gave it to my wife,'' said another Tower shopper, John Glasgo, 42. ``I didn't like when they switched from album to CD and now I don't want to switch again.''

Glasgo's attitude is typical of many in the over-30 crowd who still prefer what is most familiar to them.

``You are dealing with the baby boomer generation, who grew up on rock 'n' roll and their tastes haven't changed very much,'' said Gary Bongiovanni, editor of Pollstar magazine. ``The Bob Seger fan from 1976 is probably still the Seger fan of 2006.''

Seger's current release, ``Face the Promise,'' was No. 4 on the Billboard 200 last week. Seger's contemporary, Rod Stewart, is already in Amazon's top 20 even though his new disc, ``Still the Same ... Great Rock Classics of Our Time'' isn't out until Oct. 10.

``When a consumer gets a little older -- maybe over 40 -- their music buying slows down because they aren't finding new artists the way you might if you were in high school or college,'' said Russ Crupnick, president of The NPD Group's music and movies division.

``So it's really big news when someone you grew up with like Dylan or Seger puts something new out. It's like, `Wow! There's something out there that's for me.'''

Many of these music stars also benefit by being widely available at such chains as Wal-Mart, Kmart and Target.

``They can also appear on `The Today Show' or on `Oprah' or any of the talk shows, where their (fan) base can find them,'' Krupnick said.

Phillip Graham, who oversees writing and publishing activities at BMI, said many of the older artists -- Dylan, Manilow, John, Stewart and Seger are past or near 60, Lewis is 71 and Bennett just turned 80 -- have enjoyed commercial comebacks because they have relied on classic songs.

``A good song makes a good record, and they make great records that are kind of timeless,'' Graham said. ``In the case of Manilow, he cut a bunch of old tunes and made a great record.

``If you make a really great record, you have the ability to also attract the younger generation.''

Manilow's ``The Greatest Songs of the '50s'' had first-week sales of 156,000, the singer's best showing since 1991. He is following that success with ``The Greatest Songs of the Sixties,'' out Oct. 31.

``For a few years now, since CD burners and peer-to-peer had an impact on how younger people buy music -- a shift that has also been affected by legitimate distribution sites such as iTunes -- we do see that mature leading acts do stick out more on the chart,'' said Geoff Mayfield, a senior analyst for Billboard magazine. ``It's something that we've been noticing.''

Walmart.com spokesman Ravi Jariwala said 2006 has been a banner year for music icons. ``We've seen a resurgence in the online CD sales of classic artists this year,'' Jariwala said. ``Some of our top performing classic artists include Bob Seger, Jerry Lee Lewis, Rod Stewart and Barry Manilow.

``We've also seen the recent Tony Bennett album, `Tony Bennett Duets: An American Classic' -- which features several other classic artists such as Elvis Costello, Paul McCartney and James Taylor -- perform well online since its release earlier this week.''

Bennett's CD features a solo version of the singer's signature song, ``I Left My Heart in San Francisco,'' but the other 18 tunes are all duets, which include pairings with Barbra Streisand, Stevie Wonder, Bono, Billy Joel, Krall, Sting and k.d. lang, among others.

Richard Whitaker, a 50-year-old software developer from Simi Valley, likes the old music from artists such as Bennett and a lot of the new music.

But he is a music fan in technological transition who hasn't quite settled in. He is now downloading songs from his CDs onto an iPod, which he uses during his daily commute to Woodland Hills.

He spent part of his lunch hour Wednesday at a Best Buy store near his office buying CDs by Pink Floyd and Joe Cocker and the newer act Blue October.

``I prefer to have the hard copy. I prefer to have it in my hand,'' said Whitaker, who estimates that he buys six to 10 CDs per month. ``I listen to some of it online and then I might buy it.''

Bongiovanni believes that while the over-30 set may be keeping the CD format afloat for now, it is inevitably ``a dead format. Everything will be digital at some point. The good news for the concert business is you can't bootleg or download a live experience. The older baby boomers haven't been on the front page of the iPod wave, but they are catching on.''

greg.hernandez(at)dailynews.com

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(1 -- 2 -- color) Tony Bennett's ``Duets'' An American Classic'' has been a nice 80th birthday gift for the crooner: It has been No. 1 on Amazon.com since its release Tuesday.

(3 -- color) Diana Krall's new collection of standards, ``From This Moment On,'' is currently the fourth-hottest seller on Amazon.com. Krall also sings a duet on Bennett's new CD.

(4 -- color) Jerry Lee Lewis, a sensation in the 1950s, proves he's still a force in the new millennium with ``Last Man Standing,'' which debuted in the Amazon.com top 10 this week.

(5 -- color) ``The Captain and the Kid,'' Elton John's long-awaited sequel to 1975's ``Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy,'' quickly rode into Billboard's top 10.

(6 -- color) Bob Dylan's ``Modern Times'' is No. 3 on Amazon.com, giving the songwriting icon yet another commercial and critical success.

(7) Barry Manilow's ``The Greatest Songs of the Sixties'' is out Oct. 31 and follows a CD of '50s covers that gave the singer his first No. 1 debut in 29 years.

(8) Rocker Bob Seger was No. 4 on the Billboard top 200 last week with his new hit release, ``Face the Promise.''

(9) Rod Stewart is about to release his fifth top-selling CD of covers in a row with ``Still the Same: Great Rock Classics of Our Time,'' which reached the Amazon.com top 20 based on pre-orders alone.