Jeez, I love this man. I'm so glad he is still with us. It is sad to see him out of it and slightly lost. I'll just chalk up the confusion to what was probably a really loud room.
He needs to be protected and no longer give interviews. He embarsses himself when he is allowed to do so. Age is catching up with him rather quickly. Time to slow down, Danny!
The problem he faces is terrible interviewers. Most artists, no matter what their age have this problem - facing poor interviewers.
You can just see the confusion on his face as he is pelted with questions one after another. He is out of his current element doing this. He has placed his foot in his mouth more than once in recent years doing these interviews and it should either be discontinued or VERY controlled.
Hearing questions in a complex/cluttered sound environment is very difficult for most people over 80, even with the world's best hearing aides. Stupid questions take extra time to comprehend for anyone.
Terrible questions from people that really had no idea of his history, probably never listened to an entire album of his...etc. As one person said, stupid questions take longer to process. At his age I'm sure his hearing is not what it once was, and in a loud room, of course he had trouble hearing. I think he handled himself quite well. I can't imagine an artist having to endure the same rehashed questions night after night.
Perfectly right! That silly interview and the noisy situation would have been a challenge even for a young person.
And I found his remark on Beyonce very very funny! "What would be your dream collaboration with Beyonce" "That's very personal!"
A quick comparison to the existing recording from the 2008 album A Swingin' Christmas (Disc 73) seems to indicate this is a different version for Tony's parts of the duet: See also earlier in this thread: The Classic Christmas Album (2011)
He was fine when able to hear the question. Some of the questions were inane - Alec Baldwin impressions?
I quite agree, @Bob F Tony's voice seems "raspier" in the recording with Groban. Initially, it seems like a mismatch to me vocally.
There are lyric differences, also. In the last part of the duet, Tony sings, “Families drawing near.” In the 2008 version, he sings, “We'll be drawing near.” I think I detect a little auto-tuning on Tony's duet portion, as well.
Anybody else surprised that 90 got a Grammy nod? I thought it weak and commercial fluff. Johnny Mathis tackles new material and gets snubbed.
Yeah, guess you're right. I'm a big big Tony fan and I really grant him his Grammy sucesses. But to tell the truth, he's making the same album again and again for 25 years. Songbook after songbook and he receives Grammy after Grammy. Meanwhile he's a case for Guiness book of records I think. In my opinion the last real good album he did was "Astoria" in 1989. A real Grammy deserving album. Which didn't win!!!
Just got the original album release of "Long ago and far away". What a beautiful album, great arrangements and nice choice of songs. But what baaaad sound! Tony's voice is drowned in reverb and the whole album is hard to listen to soundwise. Is the Cd release any better? Or even the Dol Lp version?
One of the great mysteries is "What would ALL of Tony Bennett's recordings for Columbia in his first period with them have sounded like if they had recorded his voice (and the instruments) in a completely natural way, even with the same arrangements?" My expectation is a whole lot better.
We can thank the professionals at Columbia for that. The marketers who thought they knew what the public wanted, the producers who thought they themselves were the artists, and the engineers, who I suspect simply followed orders. If Columbia's staff had a clear head, they would have released more albums that would eventually be considered vocal classics of the ages. Instead producers like Norman Granz, and record labels like Capitol (and others) tended to produce natural sounding recordings and had a better sense of the art of singing and produced many more masterpiece vocal LPs.
