Tony Bennett and Lady Gaga are set to share a new MTV Unplugged show this month. The show will see the iconic duo playing stripped-down versions of songs from their new album Love For Sale, which is nominated for Album Of The Year at the 2022 Grammys.
The performance was filmed earlier this year in front of an intimate crowd in New York City, and will be broadcast on December 16 as part of MTV’s Love Music With MTV series, which will run throughout December.
Earlier this month, the duo shared a performance of Cole Porter’s “Anything Goes” from Cheek To Cheek for The Late Show With Stephen Colbert filmed earlier this year at Radio City Music Hall. Gaga also spoke with Colbert about her collaborative work with Bennett during an interview to pair with the performance.
“Watching him begin his journey with Alzheimer’s years ago, I remember I wanted to make good on a promise I made to him,” she explained. “Our album Cheek to Cheek went No.1 and I called him and said, ‘Hey Tone, we’re number one all over the world with a jazz record’. And he goes, ‘Hey Lady’ – that’s what he calls me – ‘we need to make a Cole porter record, all Cole Porter songs, all love songs.’”
The pair’s appearance at Radio City came as part of a two-night run that ultimately became Bennett’s final live performances before retiring at the suggestion of his medical team following a diagnosis with Alzheimer’s Disease.
“A couple years later, his Alzheimer’s just started to set on, and I said ‘let’s go into the studio now’… When I tell you that when jazz begins, this man lights up in a way that is such magic,” Gaga said. “It just reminded me that anybody that has a family member or someone they love that’s suffering from Alzheimer’s or Dementia, music is magic. Music is a miracle.”
“Anything Goes” is the opening track on Cheek To Cheek, the first collaborative album between Gaga and Bennett shared in 2014. It marked the first official full-length release between the pair and won a Grammy Award for Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album in 2015.
