You're listening to Comedy Central. I got tonight legendary Performers one fifteen Grammys. His new album is called Duets To Please. Welcome to the program. Tony Bennett gets too hungry for dinner at.
Let's see them.
Look at you, Look at you?
You look great.
Thanks for coming to see us.
I love it. Thank you.
This Duets Too. I just want to say, they're right right here, Tony Bennett. Duets Too the number one album in the country, Am I correct? The number one album? Is there any other performer you can think of that has been on the charts? When did you first start charting the fifties.
In the fifties, Yes, the fifties, sixties, seventies, eighties.
You've been on the charts every decade, right? Is there anybody else in history other than like Beethoven? Is there anybody that has that type of record? Do you know of? Would you even? Would you follow that?
I think it's the first.
It's unbelievable. It's a remarkable thing. Now you have these are how many duets? Is this is probably about nineteen nineteen? Who sucked? Who was terrible?
Who they were all going? And really, I really mean it. They were all great. Now, this is really nice. These are the most important, most popular young artists today that are doing very well there.
And is there anybody that wouldn't because I can't imagine if Tony Bennett calls you and says, hey, man, you want to sing a song? I would think it's like the honor of their careers.
Well, I must say I have my son is a my wonderful manager for the last forty five years, and he came up with his whole premise and I want to thank him for doing that.
That's Danny. He's a good man. Yeah, very nice guy.
Thank you. Uh.
He will though, because I've worked with him before, getting you to do gigs. He will muscle you.
He is.
He could be a vicious man. What was it like? You know, you you did a duet with Amy Winehouse?
Right?
Were you were you in the studio with her?
Was that was? It was at Abbey Road, you know in Britain, right, And that was the last record that she made.
Yes, that is it when you're working with somebody in that situation. And look, let's not be naive. You've been working in the industry since the fifties. You've seen people struggle you've unfortunately seen people die too young. Is that something that you feel from a performer or it's all just business. Do you get a sense that there's that there's trouble there?
Well, she was in trouble at that time because she had a couple of engagements that she didn't keep up. But people didn't realize at that time that she really knew. In fact, I didn't even know it when we were making the record, and now looking at the whole thing, she knew that she was in a lot of trouble, that she wasn't gonna live.
Wow.
Yeah, she because and it wasn't drugs. It was it was alcohol right toward the end, you know, and it was It's such a sad thing because she was really since Elvis Presley and the Beatles and the Rolling Stones and the whole contemporary change that came in, she was the only singer that really sang what I call the right way really yeah, because she was a great jazz
pop singer. And she was a little apprehensive about the whole thing that when we were doing the record, but I came up with one sentence that made everything work, and I just said, you know, I said, I may be wrong, but I bet you're influenced by Dinah Washington. And when she heard that, she said, oh my God, said that's my God, that's who I love, and it
really changed the whole record date. And she actually used some Dinah Washington phrases in the recording, and you could tell when you hear the record how wonderful she was really a great jazz singer, a true jazz singer, and that I regret that because that's the right way to sing, right.
And you feel in your you know, you really are intuitive now about the music, aren't you, Like you can just feel it from people. You've done it long enough that you know you will you see an artist sometimes on television or you'll hear them and you'll go, that's somebody I'll click with. Or can you hear somebody's phrasing and think, I'm not sure I can blame that? Like you can you feel the ingredients that will work with you that'll make a great record.
Well, you know, to answer your question here, you know I was ten years younger than the great master Frank Sinatra and Nat King Cole and Billy Eckstein and Sarah Vaughan and Ella Fitzgerald. You know who's better than anybody, and then Louis Armstrong. So I grew up loving that period of time. It doesn't sound dated to me, you know, any of the recordings. Even today, when you're hearing that
cold record, it doesn't sound old fashioned, you know. So the corporations will say, well, that's old music, but to me, it's not. It's gonna last forever, you know, not Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, Louis Armstrong is gonna sound great fifty years from now. You know who else, Well, they were my master's at there.
Thank you, I'm telling you about it when you came out for us, and when you came out for us in Washington and you said, I'm telling you, there was only one person I wanted at the end of there, standing up in front of the Capitol singing to those people, and you just you exceeded expectations, as you always do. And it's just an honor to see.
That was the most beautiful moment in my life because to sing America, the beautiful right there with the capital behind us in the flag, it.
Was something baby.
Thank you, Thank you for telling me about it.
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