I met Tony backstage at the Grammy awards in 1992, but he already seemed omnipresent to me. Everybody knew Tony Bennett. He asked me to perform on his MTV Unplugged album in 1994 and the sparks started flying when we sang together. I felt elevated, comfortable and just in sync with him when we were doing Moonglow – as if I was with a teacher but also a friend. It was like an opening. It just felt right.
I always got the sense that Tony’s dedication to cultivating young artists to the Great American Songbook was driven by a desire to teach and develop the understanding of good songwriting and the symbiotic relationship between the singer and the song. I think he wanted young singers to experience the American Songbook and to set a standard in them, intuitively, about being a singer. I was a big fan of Peggy Lee and Carmen McRae so I was not a stranger to this music. But being embraced by someone who helped define it, in the way I was with Tony, gives you a deeper, more resonant understanding.
MTV Unplugged happened two years after I came out and I was aware that our duet was radical. I perceived it as a kind of salve for society at that time, to see an older man and a young dyke in a healthy, happy, productive relationship. I knew where Tony sat politically, but he never brought his political agenda to the stage, which speaks to his professionalism. He never told stories about marching with Martin Luther King from Selma to Montgomery; he didn’t brag on it. He just was, which added to his elegance: carrying his political beliefs fully and truly, but not imposing them. I was always in awe of that.
We bonded over music and mutual respect. He was very generous with his compliments but I tried not to listen to them! I haven’t ever really examined his voice, which speaks volumes – he’s always been Tony Bennett. You can hear Frank Sinatra in him, but there is a more elevated celebration in Tony’s voice – and a kind of wisdom and understanding of how music touches everyone, how it is the great common leveller. He loved to sing for everybody. For him, it wasn’t anything other than giving the gift of music to people. That’s what makes Tony’s voice sound the way it does because that is his authentic self. It didn’t change, didn’t get affected by fame or whether he was in a low period.
In the early 00s, I was approached by Tony’s camp about recording an album of Louis Armstrong songs, A Wonderful World. It was an amazing opportunity to go into a world that I hadn’t dipped my feet into as a listener or a singer. We recorded it live in an empty theatre in New Jersey. It was a really beautiful environment for recording because an empty theatre is somewhere that a touring musician feels very comfortable – the space and elegance of the room, the interior, the acoustics. It was just the producers Danny Bennett and T Bone Burnett, Tony and me, the musicians and a few people taking pictures. It was very intimate and creative, very safe. Safe and intimate are the words I keep coming back to.
Tony always wore a suit for recording. Always a dress shirt. Usually an ascot. Not always a suit suit, sometimes a sports jacket and trousers, but he always looked good. I’m usually a mess! But there was a kindred spirit between us and the fact that I was allowed to remain who I was in those instances was a huge commentary on who he was. He embraced who I was and let me be me. You can see that with Amy Winehouse too – when I watch them together, I see him supporting who she was, no judgment. He loved Amy’s voice.
I became a practitioner of Buddhism around the time we made A Wonderful World and I settled into a more internal place. I tried to be really conscious of space and presence on stage with him, and that’s where I learned the most. On stage is where he really shone. That moment when he and Lady Gaga are performing at Radio City Music Hall in New York in 2021, when he has dementia and has been calling her “sweetheart” for weeks, then on stage he recognises her – it’s a good indication that the stage was his planet. To share that with him was such an honour.
He had an idea for us to do another album, of Harold Arlen songs. I didn’t know who that was when he was talking about it, which shows my ignorance. We never got around to it. He had a million ideas. He always sent me flowers on my birthday. I would call him at Christmas or I would email his wife, Susan Benedetto, and talk to him through her. The last time I saw him in person was during his 90th birthday show in New York. Then Covid happened and our communication started to wane.
I found out that Tony passed on the Friday morning. It was to be expected, of course, but as with a parent or an elderly friend, you can’t fathom that it is going to be an actuality. On Friday afternoon I got a call asking me to come to Los Angeles to record for CBS Sunday Morning. I hadn’t sung for three years. Of course I was going do it – it’s what he would have expected. But I was reluctant. I thought I should sing What a Wonderful World because I could pull it off easier. I put my foot down in true diva style. But when I got to LA, I heard that Because of You was the last song he sang, a couple of days before his passing, and that it was his first hit song. I realised: this is really important to his family. I quickly got my shit together and switched gears. It felt like it was an offering to Tony and his family.
I wanted this new recording of the song to benefit his arts education fund. Tony believed that the arts make people into better human beings. I watched him dedicate his existence to producing and consuming art for years. He was always reading a biography of some artist, such as Billie Holiday, always painting, always on tour. He walked the walk. He truly was a renaissance man. I was involved in fundraising with him a few times. Every time you would get a clear idea of how many lives were being changed.
Two memories of Tony stand out for me, and both of them take place around the airport – I toured with him a lot and we travelled by commercial plane. One time we toured Australia, so we were flying for a long time. My manager and I are having dinner. Afterwards, Tony stands up and hands my manager a sketch of him. That’s just who he was – always creating, always generous. The other thing was his grace in the airport – he is super-recognisable and he would be stopped all the time. Travelling gets pretty taxing and he was in his mid-70s when we were touring. But he was always available, always gracious. If he didn’t have time to engage in a full conversation, he would look at someone, smile and say, “thank you” and then move on. It was enough for people. To me, that education almost surpassed everything.
I keep saying elegance and grace when I talk about Tony. The space that he existed in as a famous singer, as somebody who carried the aura and the weight of being Tony Bennett; that old-school elegance, the jazz-era royalty – I don’t know if that’s going to exist any more. Maybe he was its last remaining proprietor. That is one of the things that I mourn the most.
• kd lang’s cover of Because of You is out now on Nonesuch; lang’s proceeds from the song will benefit the Tony Bennett Legacy Fund
