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Legendary singer and impeccable musical artist Tony Bennett has just become the oldest musical artist to ever be nominated for a Grammy Award for Album Of The Year. While Pinetop Perkins may have won a Grammy for Traditional Blues Album for his record Joined at The Hip at 97 years old, no one comes close to the age of Tony Bennett for being nominated in one of the Grammy Awards general categories like Album of the Year. For the 2021 Grammy Awards, Tony Bennett will share that nomination with Lady Gaga for their recently released jazz standards album entitled Love For Sale. It is the second albums of jazz standards that Tony Bennett and Lady Gaga have recorded together. Their first album Cheek To Cheek was released in 2014.
The Cheek To Cheek album won a Grammy Award for Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album. The album also hit number one on both the Billboard Top 200 Album charts and the Billboard Top Jazz Albums. The album also earned Tony Bennett a spot in the Guinness book of world record for being the oldest person at 88 years old ever to score a number one album. Love for Sale earned him another Guinness Book World Record as being the oldest person ever at to release an album of new material.
Along with the nomination for Album of the year for the record Love For Sale, Tony Bennett and Lady Gaga were nominated for multiple Grammy Awards in this year. The duo who connect with probably the widest ranging audience ever in age were also nominated for Pop Duo Group Performance, Traditional Pop Vocal album and Music Video.
Tony Bennett is no stranger to the Grammy Awards. As one of the most successful and well respected pop music singers in history, the Grammy Awards have paid much attention to his work throughout his long career. Tony Bennett has already won a total of twenty Grammy Awards in his lifetime which is just a stunning feat. Lady Gaga has also had a spectacular run at the Grammy Awards. For an artist who has not really been around that long especially when compared to the length of a career like Tony Bennett‘s; she has already won a very impressive twelve Grammy Awards.
Tony Bennett’s first album release was issued in 1952 on Columbia Records entitled Because of You. That song would become the standard Wedding first dance for years. From that point on Tony Bennett would release sixty one studio albums. His rival Frank Sinatra once said that Tony Bennett was his favorite singer. While the music that Tony Bennett sang was so popular in the 50s and into the 60s, pop culture changed dramatically as jazz standards would soon take a back seat to rock and pop. Yet, there was always an audience there for artists like Tony Bennett. In the 1990s, Tony Bennett found a younger audience when his MTV Unplugged album was a huge commercial success. His recent collaborations with Lady Gaga has once again introduced him to an audience that might have never gotten to know him.
The success of Love For Sale and his collaboration with Lady Gaga is even more improbable and equally stunning because of the fact that Tony Bennett is suffering from Alzheimer’s disease for the past five years. This is one of the most tragic and dehabilting diseases of all time. In recent interviews, Lady Gaga praised the ability of Tony Bennett to still be able to achieve greatness in the studio and on stage regardless of the disease while saying that the man has shown the world that despite suffering from Alzheimer’s disease he was still able to contribute in a meaningful way to society and hopefully setting an example for others.
Source – Los Angeles Times
