Bennett’s lament for a fallen star
“Of all the young people I’ve met over the past 50 years, she sang the right way," said Tony Bennett about Amy Winehouse.
Tony Bennett felt a bond with Amy Winehouse, said Neil McCormick in the London Telegraph. Earlier this year, the legendary singer recorded a duet with Winehouse. Four months later, she was dead. “I broke down and sobbed when I heard the news,” Bennett says. “Of all the young people I’ve met over the past 50 years, she sang the right way. She was ready to take a chance, right on the spot, right on the microphone.” Bennett came to admire the young singer’s fluid, jazz-like phrasing and her “spontaneous and intimate” improvisations.
He understood Winehouse’s demons, too. Now 85, Bennett once had his own issues with drugs and alcohol. In 1979, he nearly died of a cocaine overdose. “I was almost the Amy Winehouse of my day.” A chance encounter changed everything. “I was talking to Woody Allen’s manager, Jeff Rawlins, and he said he used to handle Lenny Bruce. I said, ‘Oh, I knew Lenny, what did you think of him?’ And he said, ‘He sinned against his talent.’” That comment made Bennett clean up his act. “I threw away all kinds of corruption, I just went back to being pretty normal. I’d like to have talked to Amy about that. She had a gift. Don’t sin against your talent.”
Sign up for Today's Best Articles in your inbox
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Create an account with the same email registered to your subscription to unlock access.
-
A history of student protest at Columbia University
The Explainer Anti-Israel demonstrations at NYC's Ivy League university echo protests against Vietnam War and South African apartheid
By Harriet Marsden, The Week UK Published
-
'Trump is ruled in contempt'
Today's Newspapers A roundup of the headlines from the US front pages
By The Week Staff Published
-
Hainault sword attack: police hunt for motive
Speed Read Mental health is key line of inquiry, as detectives prepare to interview suspect
By Arion McNicoll, The Week UK Published