Pop-jazz singing legend Tony Bennett died July 21 at age 96, after being diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease seven years earlier. His 75-year career followed a classic three-act structure: a rise th…
and is celebrating as well as grieving. Excerpts from our conversation with him follow.
I always said that Sinatra was like the Rolling Stones and Tony was like the Beatles. You had that dichotomy happening… People wanted to take him home. In the ’50s, he and Mitch Miller [Bennett’s mentor at Columbia Records] argued like crazy. They were cats and dogs. To Mitch’s credit, ‘Because of You” and “Rags to Riches,” those hits were all Mitch’s records. But Tony just wanted to sing jazz. Tony said that when he was playing the Paramount at one point during that time, he felt like he was ripping the audience off, because he wanted to be playing with Duke Ellington, and he thought this was just kind of bubblegum, pop Idol stuff.
He did “MTV Unplugged” after that, and when he got the Grammy album of the year award for the album, I know it sounds corny, but I told everybody that Tony spelled backwards is “Y-N-O-T.” He always said, “When they zig, I want to zag.” Doing the final special with Gaga at Radio City Music Hall two years ago was nerve-wracking. We’re finishing this documentary called “The Lady and the Legend,” which is going to be on Paramount+ in September, and it chronicles their 10-year relationship. What you see in this documentary is not what you saw on the special. You’re seeing backstage, where people are like, “He has no idea where he is.
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