{"id":74012,"date":"2024-02-07T04:53:10","date_gmt":"2024-02-07T04:53:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/2024\/02\/07\/stevie-wonder-says-emotional-tony-bennett-grammys-duet-was-his-idea\/"},"modified":"2024-02-07T04:53:10","modified_gmt":"2024-02-07T04:53:10","slug":"stevie-wonder-says-emotional-tony-bennett-grammys-duet-was-his-idea","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/2024\/02\/07\/stevie-wonder-says-emotional-tony-bennett-grammys-duet-was-his-idea\/","title":{"rendered":"Stevie Wonder Says &#8216;Emotional&#8217; Tony Bennett GRAMMYs Duet Was His Idea"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.etonline.com\/people\/stevie-wonder\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Stevie Wonder<\/a><span> is opening up about the touching GRAMMYs tribute he pulled off in honor of his late friend, <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.etonline.com\/people\/tony-bennett\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Tony Bennett<\/a><span>.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Talking with ET&#8217;s Kevin Frazier from the red carpet premiere of\u00a0<\/span><em><span>Bob Marley: One Love<\/span><\/em><span> in Los Angeles on Tuesday, the legendary musician, 73, said it was his idea to perform a duet with Bennett at music&#8217;s biggest night.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>&#8220;It was an emotional moment,&#8221; the &#8220;Superstition&#8221; singer tells ET. &#8220;It was an idea I sort of came up with. And I kind of brought it to the people at the GRAMMYs and &#8212; and they said, &#8216;We&#8217;re gonna make this happen,&#8217; and they did.&#8221;\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<figure class=\"shortcode shortcode-image content-in\"><figcaption class=\"content-in\"><span class=\"shortcode-image__credit\">Getty Images<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><span>During the GRAMMYs, Wonder performed &#8220;For Once in My Life&#8221; set to archival footage of Bennett before turning to a rendition of &#8220;The Best Is Yet to Come.&#8221; Bennett died in July at the age of 96.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>&#8220;Tony, I&#8217;m going to miss you forever,&#8221; said the singer during the In Memoriam segment. &#8220;I love you always and God bless that God allowed us to have you, and have us, in this time and space in our lives.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Wonder also took a moment to acknowledge the &#8220;Rags to Riches&#8221; singer for his &#8220;love for art, his love for peace, his love for unity, his love for civil rights.&#8221;\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Over the years, Bennett and Wonder collaborated a handful of times, including for a version of &#8220;For Once in My Life&#8221; for <\/span><em><span>Duets: The Making of an American Classic<\/span><\/em><span>. The song went on to win a GRAMMY in 2007 for Best Pop Collaboration With Vocals.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Wonder&#8217;s interview with ET on Tuesday took place at the premiere for a movie honoring another one of his late friends, Bob Marley, who he performed with several times early on in his career.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>One of those performances occurred in Marley&#8217;s home country of Jamaica during the Wonder Dream Concert in October 1975. Wonder said he remembers distinctly the night leading up to the big show and feeling nervous and excited.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>&#8220;The night before, I was in L.A. and I recorded the vocals of &#8216;Loves in Need of Love Today,'&#8221; the singer said. &#8220;And, obviously, I was excited to celebrate music with Bob Marley, and it was just a wonderful, wonderful moment. When I think of moments in life, I think of that concert. I think of performing with him.&#8221;\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<figure class=\"shortcode shortcode-image content-in\"><figcaption class=\"content-in\"><span class=\"shortcode-image__credit\">Getty Images<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><span>Wonder mentioned that it was thinking back on that night that led to him to write his song, &#8220;Master Blaster (Jammin),&#8221; which by all accounts is considered an ode to the Jamaican singer. The song released in 1980, just one year before Marley&#8217;s untimely death.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>The &#8220;Superstition&#8221; singer told ET he had hoped and thought &#8220;someday we&#8217;d perform together again,&#8221; but that ultimately that did not happen, as Marley died at just 31 years old from\u00a0acral lentiginous melanoma.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>&#8220;Unfortunately, the spirits called him to another journey. But I just celebrate his commitment to our culture, to the world culture of peace, unity.&#8221; Wonder said.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><em><span>Bob Marley: One Love<\/span><\/em><span> premieres in theaters on Feb. 14.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong><span>RELATED CONTENT:\u00a0<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.etonline.com\/stevie-wonder-reveals-emotional-tony-bennett-grammys-duet-was-his-idea-exclusive-219391\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Stevie Wonder is opening up about the touching GRAMMYs tribute he pulled off in honor of his late friend, Tony Bennett.\u00a0 Talking with ET&#8217;s Kevin Frazier from the red carpet premiere of\u00a0Bob Marley: One Love in Los Angeles on Tuesday, the legendary musician, 73, said it was his idea to perform a duet with Bennett [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":74013,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[6387,174,75,21,20,1221,565],"class_list":{"0":"post-74012","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-bob-marley-one-love","9":"tag-entertainment-tonight","10":"tag-movies","11":"tag-music","12":"tag-news","13":"tag-stevie-wonder","14":"tag-tony-bennett"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74012","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=74012"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74012\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/74013"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=74012"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=74012"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=74012"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}