Speaker 1: You're listening to Comedy Central. I got tonight legendary Performers
Speaker 1: one fifteen Grammys. His new album is called Duets To Please.
Speaker 1: Welcome to the program. Tony Bennett gets too hungry for
Speaker 1: dinner at.
Speaker 2: Let's see them.
Speaker 1: Look at you, Look at you?
Speaker 2: You look great.
Speaker 1: Thanks for coming to see us.
Speaker 2: I love it. Thank you.
Speaker 1: This Duets Too. I just want to say, they're right
Speaker 1: right here, Tony Bennett. Duets Too the number one album
Speaker 1: in the country, Am I correct? The number one album?
Speaker 1: Is there any other performer you can think of that
Speaker 1: has been on the charts? When did you first start
Speaker 1: charting the fifties.
Speaker 2: In the fifties, Yes, the fifties, sixties, seventies, eighties.
Speaker 1: You've been on the charts every decade, right? Is there
Speaker 1: anybody else in history other than like Beethoven? Is there
Speaker 1: anybody that has that type of record? Do you know of?
Speaker 1: Would you even? Would you follow that?
Speaker 2: I think it's the first.
Speaker 1: It's unbelievable. It's a remarkable thing. Now you have these
Speaker 1: are how many duets? Is this is probably about nineteen nineteen?
Speaker 1: Who sucked? Who was terrible?
Speaker 2: Who they were all going? And really, I really mean it.
Speaker 2: They were all great. Now, this is really nice. These
Speaker 2: are the most important, most popular young artists today that
Speaker 2: are doing very well there.
Speaker 1: And is there anybody that wouldn't because I can't imagine
Speaker 1: if Tony Bennett calls you and says, hey, man, you
Speaker 1: want to sing a song? I would think it's like
Speaker 1: the honor of their careers.
Speaker 2: Well, I must say I have my son is a
Speaker 2: my wonderful manager for the last forty five years, and
Speaker 2: he came up with his whole premise and I want
Speaker 2: to thank him for doing that.
Speaker 1: That's Danny. He's a good man. Yeah, very nice guy.
Speaker 2: Thank you. Uh.
Speaker 1: He will though, because I've worked with him before, getting
Speaker 1: you to do gigs. He will muscle you.
Speaker 2: He is.
Speaker 1: He could be a vicious man. What was it like?
Speaker 1: You know, you you did a duet with Amy Winehouse?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 1: Were you were you in the studio with her?
Speaker 2: Was that was? It was at Abbey Road, you know
Speaker 2: in Britain, right, And that was the last record that
Speaker 2: she made.
Speaker 1: Yes, that is it when you're working with somebody in
Speaker 1: that situation. And look, let's not be naive. You've been
Speaker 1: working in the industry since the fifties. You've seen people
Speaker 1: struggle you've unfortunately seen people die too young. Is that
Speaker 1: something that you feel from a performer or it's all
Speaker 1: just business. Do you get a sense that there's that
Speaker 1: there's trouble there?
Speaker 2: Well, she was in trouble at that time because she
Speaker 2: had a couple of engagements that she didn't keep up.
Speaker 2: But people didn't realize at that time that she really knew.
Speaker 2: In fact, I didn't even know it when we were
Speaker 2: making the record, and now looking at the whole thing,
Speaker 2: she knew that she was in a lot of trouble,
Speaker 2: that she wasn't gonna live.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 2: Yeah, she because and it wasn't drugs. It was it
Speaker 2: was alcohol right toward the end, you know, and it
Speaker 2: was It's such a sad thing because she was really
Speaker 2: since Elvis Presley and the Beatles and the Rolling Stones
Speaker 2: and the whole contemporary change that came in, she was
Speaker 2: the only singer that really sang what I call the
Speaker 2: right way really yeah, because she was a great jazz
Speaker 2: pop singer. And she was a little apprehensive about the
Speaker 2: whole thing that when we were doing the record, but
Speaker 2: I came up with one sentence that made everything work,
Speaker 2: and I just said, you know, I said, I may
Speaker 2: be wrong, but I bet you're influenced by Dinah Washington.
Speaker 2: And when she heard that, she said, oh my God,
Speaker 2: said that's my God, that's who I love, and it
Speaker 2: really changed the whole record date. And she actually used
Speaker 2: some Dinah Washington phrases in the recording, and you could
Speaker 2: tell when you hear the record how wonderful she was
Speaker 2: really a great jazz singer, a true jazz singer, and
Speaker 2: that I regret that because that's the right way to sing, right.
Speaker 1: And you feel in your you know, you really are
Speaker 1: intuitive now about the music, aren't you, Like you can
Speaker 1: just feel it from people. You've done it long enough
Speaker 1: that you know you will you see an artist sometimes
Speaker 1: on television or you'll hear them and you'll go, that's
Speaker 1: somebody I'll click with. Or can you hear somebody's phrasing
Speaker 1: and think, I'm not sure I can blame that? Like
Speaker 1: you can you feel the ingredients that will work with
Speaker 1: you that'll make a great record.
Speaker 2: Well, you know, to answer your question here, you know
Speaker 2: I was ten years younger than the great master Frank
Speaker 2: Sinatra and Nat King Cole and Billy Eckstein and Sarah
Speaker 2: Vaughan and Ella Fitzgerald. You know who's better than anybody,
Speaker 2: and then Louis Armstrong. So I grew up loving that
Speaker 2: period of time. It doesn't sound dated to me, you know,
Speaker 2: any of the recordings. Even today, when you're hearing that
Speaker 2: cold record, it doesn't sound old fashioned, you know. So
Speaker 2: the corporations will say, well, that's old music, but to me,
Speaker 2: it's not. It's gonna last forever, you know, not Sinatra,
Speaker 2: Ella Fitzgerald, Louis Armstrong is gonna sound great fifty years
Speaker 2: from now. You know who else, Well, they were my
Speaker 2: master's at there.
Speaker 1: Thank you, I'm telling you about it when you came
Speaker 1: out for us, and when you came out for us
Speaker 1: in Washington and you said, I'm telling you, there was
Speaker 1: only one person I wanted at the end of there,
Speaker 1: standing up in front of the Capitol singing to those people,
Speaker 1: and you just you exceeded expectations, as you always do.
Speaker 1: And it's just an honor to see.
Speaker 2: That was the most beautiful moment in my life because
Speaker 2: to sing America, the beautiful right there with the capital
Speaker 2: behind us in the flag, it.
Speaker 1: Was something baby.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Thank you for telling me about it.
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