By: Valerie Milano, Pasadena, CA (Hollywood Today) 1/27/12

             Tonight, Friday, January 27, PBS showcases 85-year-old legend Tony Bennett performing Duets II with a variety of artists, young and old on Great Performances. The show was a mix of interviews with performers, the producer, Phil Ramone, and Bennett himself all followed by the song being performed for the album.  During the clip of the show, @ PBS’s portion of Press tour, Bennett sings with Lady Gaga, Amy Winehouse and Willie Nelson and Michael Bublé, among others.

            Besides being a fifteen-time Grammy winner and Kennedy Center honoree, Bennett also has three original paintings in the Smithsonian Institution, not to mention the distinct honor being the first celebrity guest on The Simpsons. To celebrate his 85th birthday, Bennett released Duets II, which debuted at number 1 on Billboard charts, meaning Bennett the oldest artist at the top position.

            Bennett’s son, Danny, who is an Emmy- and Grammy-winning producer, has managed Tony Bennett’s career since 1979 and acted as executive producer for Duets II.

            Tony Bennett spoke to HT of Amy Winehouse, whose last recorded performance is on Duets II, fondly, remembering first meeting her by saying, “She just had the gift of knowing how to sing as good, and was influenced by, Billie Holiday, Dinah Washington, Ella Fitzgerald, and her dream was to become very, very famous doing that.” He continued, “I was doing my 85th birthday at the Palladium, and BBC was televising it, and I wanted her on the show. But my son called up two months after we did the record and tragically told me that she died, and the whole world went, ‘Woof.’ They couldn’t believe it, especially in Britain. She was very famous in Europe, and it was, but then her father many months later came to America, and her mother got me on the side. She said, ‘You know, everybody feels so tragic about her dying, but as a mother,’ she said, ‘I’m very different.’ She said, ‘All I know is her whole life she wanted to and she actually did what she really wanted to do, and she became world famous, and to me, even though she had a very short life, she had a very successful life because what she really wanted, what she dreamt about her whole life happened,’ and that was so different than anything I ever heard a mother say about this tragedy that the whole world felt so bad about. It was quite different.”

            Bennett’s fans may be disappointed to know that he recently admitted that he is not planning a Duets III, however, he’s game for new projects.  “I love what I’m doing, and I know something is going to come up,” he said. “I don’t know what it is yet, but I know for years Stevie Wonder and I have been talking about doing an album.”

            Tony Bennett praises Lady Gaga’s work on Duets II and as an artist. “Well, you know, you meet performers, and then all of a sudden you meet someone that has a touch of genius,” he said. “She’s highly intelligent, highly creative. She knows so much about performing. She sings magnificent.” Continuing on Gaga, Bennett adds, “And Lady Gaga is from NYU. So they all had teachers that really told them what to expect and what to do and how to do it right. So by the time they came to us, they were all so professional. Like Lady Gaga, when she finished recording, she went around to the whole crew and thanked everybody for believing in her and being so good to her. It was a wonderful thing you know,  I would see that with the great professionals like Jack Benny or George Burns or Frank Sinatra, where they would really appreciate everybody that helped them out.”

            Danny Bennett also adds his praise for the Duets II performers by saying, “Each and every one of these performers showed up prepared. And what you’re seeing in the video is the actual recording of the song. And it’s spontaneous, and, you know, we filmed it in such a way that you’re privy to that process. And that spontaneity is something that Tony really brings to the table. And particularly Bublé and a lot of the artists like Bublé said he was one of the repeat artists that we had, and he said from that day that’s how he records. Producers don’t particularly like it, but as he said, you know, it doesn’t matter there’s mistakes or he says it’s a great performance, of capturing the performance. And I think that’s something that you’ve really taught these guys, and they appreciate it a lot.”

            Speaking on Bennett’s timelessness, his son explains, “The most interesting thing for me was to watch him perform with a Lady Gaga or an Amy Winehouse – these people are 20, 27 years old, you don’t get a sense that there’s someone who is 85 working with a 22-year-old. It’s an absolute respect that he shows, and he has for other great artists. And in music or in pop music particularly, it’s interesting because we never tell an 8 year old, ‘You’re too young to look at a Van Gogh,’ you know. They go to museums, and we encourage that. But in music, I think, because of kind of the commerce side of it, you know, the balance between art and commerce, the emphasis is on demographics.”

            Danny Bennett has also just finished The Zen of Bennett about his father to offer fans more insight on the legend.

                        Demonstrating the importance of education, Bennett and his wife started a school, the Frank Sinatra School of the Arts, a public school in Astoria, his hometown.  As Bennett explains, “It became so successful that now we have 14 schools throughout the five boroughs of New York City. And 99 percent graduate, and 97 percent go to college.” 

            Regarding his duets, Bennett offers, “Each one is very special,” Bennett said. “It’s like meeting a new friend each time I perform.” At the beginning of the show, Bennett also explains that for a successful duet “both singers have to be different.”

            Highlights of the program include Carrie Underwood performing “It Had to Be You,” which Bennett specifically requested for her, as well as Willie Nelson singing “On the Sunny Side of the Street.” Nelson likened the experience to “working some small club.”

            Bennett also traveled to record with some musicians, including Andrea Boccelli, who performed at his home in Pisa with Bennett. Boccelli said he was “very proud to have him in my house.” Another international star to join the album was Alejandro Sanz, who sang his portion of “Yesterday I Heard the Rain” in Spanish. A natural for the album based on her jazz background, Norah Jones sang “Speak Low” with Bennett. Faith Hill, whom Bennett described as the “female Frank Sinatra” sang “The Way You Look Tonight.”

            Winehouse, who referred to Bennett as “Tone,” performed what would be her last recording before her death, “Body and Soul,” and admited that she is her harshest critic but that the recording “couldn’t have been better.”

            Lady Gaga, in more reserved attire than usual – save for the blue hair – sang “That’s Why the Lady Is a Tramp” with Bennett and added her own improvised parts, which appeared to delight Bennett.  Lady Gaga also exuded, “I would have gotten on any plane from anywhere around the world” to sing with Bennett.

            A noticeably nervous John Mayer sang a more celebratory version of “One for My Baby” than usually heard.

            Closing out the program, two legends came together when the Queen of Soul Aretha Franklin recorded “How Do You Keep the Music Playing?” with Bennett. Franklin summed up the performance perfectly by calling the recording a “historical moment in music.”