Bennett is Gaga over Winehouse
CROONER Tony Bennett keeps finding ways to reinvent himself, writes Cameron Adams.
CROONER Tony Bennett keeps finding ways to reinvent himself, writes Cameron Adams.
When a naked 25-year-old woman is in front of a man 60 years her senior, you would generally presume something not quite right is going on.
But when she is Lady Gaga and he is Tony Bennett, it is all in the name of art.
Bennett, who has long balanced painting (under his real name Tony Benedetto) with his renowned singing career, sketched Gaga - sans clothing - last year.
The charcoal sketch was done while Gaga was posing for Vanity Fair and photographer Annie Liebowitz.
'I felt shy and thought, 'It's Tony Bennett, why am I naked?', Gaga mused at the time.
Bennett had no such qualms. 'She was beautiful, she did a great job,' he tells Hit, as ever in gentleman mode.
Bennett's Duets II album, last year's companion piece to the 2006 original, has cast Gaga in a new light.
Their playful reading of The Lady is a Tramp reveals a hitherto hidden jazz side to Gaga's vocal arsenal.
Bennett did not even flinch when she arrived with a turquoise rinse in her hair, and says she could well become America's answer to Picasso.
'She's unpredictable, there's no one like her,' Bennett says. 'She's very different, but a very talented person. And a beautiful singer. She's a sweet little angel. When all is said and done I met her with her mother and father and she's a sweet little Italian-American girl.'
Forget the meat dress and shock frocks - Bennett busts another Gaga myth from their recording session.
'She went around to the whole crew of people that the public never sees - the cameramen, sound men, all that - and she politely thanked each and every one of them for being so nice to her. It was so professional.
'I thought, 'Boy this gal's going to be around a long time'. She learnt that from going to school in NYU. And the public adores her. Oh my God, I never saw an audience react to anybody like they react to her.'
The brainchild of his son and manager Danny, Duets continues to introduce Bennett to a new audience, a trick Danny pulled off previously by reinventing his father's dwindling career with an MTV Unplugged session in 1994.
This time around the likes of Michael Buble, Josh Groban, John Mayer and k.d. lang were along for the ride, joining Bennett on old-school readings of old-school classics.
And the songs were recorded old-school, too. Bennett insisted on being face to face with each artist - even travelling to them if need be. "My son chose all the most famous artists in the world today, the newest ones. What I loved about it, they're all coming out of performing arts schools,' he says.
'When Rosemary Clooney and I started years ago it was way back when we were just amateurs. Even when we started selling millions the older entertainers like Jack Benny and George Burns would tell us, 'You're doing well but it's gonna take you about six years to learn how to really perform on that stage'. And they were very accurate.
'But now the new performers, this group like John Mayer and Michael Buble, these young performers all came out of good performing arts schools. They've all had good training.'
Duets II houses the final recording by Amy Winehouse, Body and Soul. Bennett flew to London to sing with Winehouse at Abbey Road studios.
'That was something special. She showed up completely sober and she and her boyfriend and her father were all big fans. They were just wonderful to us,' Bennett says.
'I wanted to tell her to just slow down with the drugs... I never got a chance to do it, we had to get back to the States. It was regretful to find out a month later that she died.
'I never got a chance to try to talk her into slowing down with everything. She was a big talent ...'
Bennett is more informed than most to offer such advice. During a career slump in the '70s he developed a raging cocaine habit, nearly overdosing in 1979.
'I learnt to stop,' he says. 'That was the best thing that ever happened to me. I wouldn't have been here now if I kept that up.'
As well as touring Australia for a third time this year, Bennett is about to record a version of Duets for the Spanish market ('I'm singing in English, they're singing in Spanish') and is still hoping to record an album with Stevie Wonder, something they've planned for decades.
'Eventually it'll happen. I don't know when, we have been waiting to do that for a long time,' Bennett says.
Bennett will turn 86 in August, but loathes the thought of retirement.
'I'm doing the two things I love - music and painting. It doesn't feel like work for me, it feels inspiring,' he says.
'I don't want to stop. I've started studying sculpture and music. I have a lot to learn.'
SEE TONY BENNETT
VIC: Tony Bennett, Regent Theatre, April 2 and 4, $100/$199.90, Ticketmaster
QLD: Brisbane Entertainment Centre, April 7. $100/$199.90, Ticketek
NSW: Sydney Opera House, April 9,11. $103.60/$203.50, Ticketmaster. Tempus Two Winery, Pokolbin. April 14. $119.90/$699, Ticketmaster
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