Lady Gaga is never leaving Tony Bennett’s side.
On Tuesday, November 23, the Recording Academy announced the nominees for the 64th Grammy Awards, revealing that the “Bad Romance” singer and the 95-year-old legend were nominated for six awards for their Cole Porter tribute album, Love for Sale.
The record, which was released on October 1, has been nominated for Album of the Year, Record of the Year, Best Pop Duo/Group Performance, Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album, Best Music Video, and Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical.
Following the big news, Gaga took to Instagram to thank the Recording Academy while praising her collaborator, posting a photo with Bennett and art celebrating their nominations.
“Thank you so much to the @RecordingAcademy for these 6 nominations for Love For Sale. I am stunned and shocked and beyond grateful. I don‘t know what to say. I just keep crying and am utterly speechless,” she wrote. “This means so much to me, @itstonybennett, the Bennetts, my family, jazz music, and the great Cole Porter who wrote all these timeless classics.”
Gaga continued, “I’ll never forget that today he could track every word I was saying and understood the world was celebrating him and celebrating jazz - a genre that embodies the joy, abundance and imagination of Black music throughout history. Thank you to all the Grammy voters for recognizing me and Tony’s dedication to jazz music and for also recognizing it in major categories where this music is often not nominated.”
That same day, the Star Is Born actress appeared on BBC Radio 2‘s The Zoe Ball Breakfast Show to talk about her collaborator, who has been living with Alzheimer’s disease since 2016. The singer’s family publicly revealed Bennett’s diagnosis earlier this year, though his wife Susan Benedetto has said that he still remembers Lady Gaga.
When asked how Tony is doing, Gaga said, “Tony is one of my most favorite people on the whole planet and I love him with all my heart. I love his family with all my heart, I love his wife, Susan, with all my heart. I can‘t tell you how much I learned from him and what it’s like to sing with a legend for so many years.”
She continued, “I’ve sung with Tony for almost 10 years, and it’s heartbreaking to watch what he’s going through having Alzheimer’s, and also I wish to say to anybody that‘s listening that knows somebody with Alzheimer’s or dementia that‘s dealing with that in their lives.”
“If you are with that person that you love, play some music from their childhood and I promise you that they will come to life in a way that is not expected, and not everyone you know, every case is different and everybody’s different, but they’re still there and my heart goes out to you and this album was made while he had Alzheimer’s and we sang it while he had Alzheimer‘s and he were still able to do it, I am just floored by him,” she said.
The 64th Annual Grammy Awards will be held on Monday, January 31, 2022.
