Get a kick out of this: At the age of 95, jazz singer Tony Bennett has become the second-oldest winner of a Grammy Award.
Bennett, together with pop superstar Lady Gaga, won the Grammy for traditional pop vocal album for 2021’s “Love for Sale,” their collection of Cole Porter standards.
The pair were nominated in five categories, including album of the year for “Love for Sale” and record of the year for “I Get a Kick Out of You.”
Upon receiving these nominations, Bennett became the oldest artist ever nominated in a “general field” category, and the second-oldest nominee in Grammy history.
The oldest Grammy winner is Pinetop Perkins, the Mississippi-born blues pianist. He claimed the honors at the 2011 Grammys, where his recording “Joined at the Hip” won for traditional blues album. Perkins, 97, died the following month on March 21.
Bennett received his first Grammy nominations at the fifth Grammy Awards in 1963. He took home honors for record of the year and solo vocal performance, male, for his hit single “I Left My Heart in San Francisco.”
Bennett has won 20 Grammy awards in total, including the Lifetime Achievement Award in 2001. He last won a Grammy in 2018, for “Tony Bennett Celebrates 90,” in the category of traditional pop vocal album. He has triumphed in the same category 13 times, including in 1995, when his live album “MTV Unplugged” won Grammys for both traditional pop vocal performance and album of the year.
Bennett was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease in 2016. In 2021 he was profiled in a segment for “60 Minutes,” which cast light on his final run of shows at New York’s Radio City Music Hall last August. Due to his condition, he could answer questions only with help from his wife, philanthropist Susan Crow.
“I think he really pushed through something,” Gaga told Anderson Cooper on “60 Minutes.” “He gave the world the gift of knowing that things can change, and you can still be magnificent.”
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