I was searching for a recording of Love For Sale and tripped across the version by Lady Gaga and Tony Bennett. I enjoyed it so much I started listening to a number of other things that they recorded together.
Wow. Having listened only to her pop releases I did not realize what a great singer she really is. Her mainstream stuff is fine and probably better than a lot of overproduced mass-market pop today but I would much rather hear her really SING like this than watch her sing Poker Face or Born This Way, or Speechless with her piano on fire.
They’ve been singing together since 2014, at least. Yes, they sound wonderful together! The older I get, the more I enjoy that kind of music (though my tastes in music cover a very wide range).
The movie A Star is Born actually parallels her life and rise to fame. She has always had outstanding singing chops and is very versatile and talented. Many people have that and that alone alone doesn’t make you a star. She had to develop this over the top persona in order to make it in the music business because that is what the people expect. It turned a lot of people away from her as well because they just thought of her as weird.
Then she became so famous that she could then do what she actually wanted to do, which is what you are seeing with Tony Bennet and Bradley Cooper. She is a true star that worked the music and movie businesses to her advantage. And she no longer has to be that persona that she developed at the start of her career unless she chooses to do so again.
I hated her made up persona and I’m not a fan of that type of pop music but I have grown to like her as an artist and a person. She is a great singer.
Try to catch the 60 Minutes piece on her and Tony Bennett. The love she has for him is obvious and genuine. He is very far gone but it’s remarkable how his brain focuses in when the music starts. When she joins him on stage and he recognizes her have some tissues ready.
ETA: I found it. It’s from the 60 Minutes YouTube page so it’s an authorized clip.
And for the other side of Lady Gaga, here she is singing one of the most iconic rock songs of all times, “Gimme Shelter”, with the Rolling Stones while wearing 9" heels. The Stones have had numerous singers on stage with them for “Gimme Shelter” and in my opinion no no does it better except the original Merry Clayton. And she never did it live. This Lady has pipes!
I remember the first time I saw her do a non-Lady Gaga song with just her on the piano singing during her early career and thought to myself, this girl has them all fooled because she is actually smart and talented just the way she naturally is, it was stunning to see her like that and not as the hyped up glamor icon that the industry made her out to be.
I’m a fan of all aspects of Lady Gaga. I even love the song her name came from.
Watching the Tony Bennett 60 Minutes segment, reminded me of what I saw on a doc about people with strokes years ago. If someone were aphasic, they couldn’t talk, but they could sing what they wanted to say. Pretty weird how the brain works.
