The news broke in 2016. After four years of silence, Tony Bennett finally revealed that he had Alzheimer's.
In a long interview with
Aarp The Magazine
, the 94-year-old singer confided in the fight he leads against the disease and on his future projects, which he does not abandon.
Read also: Tony Bennett, the roaring 90s
Because the interpreter of
I left my heart in San Francisco,
18 times winner of a Grammy Award, is far from having lost his desire to create.
The latter has just announced the release of an album in collaboration with singer Lady Gaga, recorded between 2018 and 2020. This disc follows their collaboration in 2014 on
Cheek to Cheek
, which had climbed to the top of the charts Americans.
"Sometimes lost and perplexed
"
Their reunion was nevertheless marked by the singer's health problems.
As
Aarp The Magazine
notes
, archival footage taken at Electric Lady Studios in New York City showed Tony Bennett "
looking lost and bewildered at times
."
“
He doesn't always know where he is or what's going on around him,”
his wife Susan says during the interview.
Familiar objects like a fork or a set of keys can be completely mysterious to him.
"
Read also: "Fighting the fatalistic view of Alzheimer's disease"
A vaporous state that touched his singing partner, especially during a solo love song.
His wife says: "
The pain and sadness on Gaga's face were so clear at times (...) Gaga looked at him from behind his microphone, his smile turned into a shudder, his eyes moistened, before she puts her hands over her eyes and starts to sob
”.
A complicated promotion
Tony Bennett, for his part, remains optimistic.
In a social media post he says, “
Life is a gift - even with Alzheimer's.
Thanks to you Susan, my family for their support and AARP magazine for telling my story
”.
If her condition worsens, her neurologist Gayatri Devi has assured that she needs to continue singing in order to stimulate her brain.
But Tony Bennett remains vulnerable.
For his wife Susan, his illness now makes him "
unable to make important decisions on his own
."
As such, he will not be able to ensure the promotion of this new disc recorded with Lady Gaga.