The metal legends have announced the premiere date for The Metallica Podcast: Volume 1 — The Black Album. The eight-episode series will make its debut next Friday, August 20.
As its title suggests, the podcast will chronicle the making of Metallica’s iconic 1991 self-titled record, aka The Black Album, in honor of its 30th anniversary. Members James Hetfield, Lars Ulrich and Kirk Hammett will all appear on the show to recall their experiences, as will former bassist Jason Newsted and producer Bob Rock.
Also contributing will be “studio and touring personnel, music critics, fellow musicians, friends, and many more,” a press release promises.
The 16-times RIAA-certified Platinum Black Album officially celebrated its 30th anniversary earlier this week. The party will continue with a massive deluxe reissue, as well as the all-star The Metallica Blacklist tribute compilation, featuring 53 artists covering every song off The Black Album. Both releases arrive September 10.
The Killers have premiered the video for “Quiet Town,” a track off the band’s just-released new album, Pressure Machine.
The animated clip reflects the story of the song, in which frontman Brandon Flowers details the tragedies that have befallen his hometown, while also expressing love for where he came from. You can watch it now streaming on YouTube.
Pressure Machine, which is out today, arrives less than a year after the last Killers record, Imploding the Mirage, dropped in August 2020. With their touring plans canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Flowers and company decided to return to the studio to knock out another album.
“It was the first time in a long time for me that I was faced with silence,” Flowers explains. “And out of that silence [Pressure Machine] began to bloom, full of songs that would have otherwise been too quiet and drowned out by the noise of typical Killers records.”
Pressure Machine also includes a collaboration with Phoebe Bridgers titled “Runaway Horses.”
Grace and Frankie fans woke up to exciting news on Friday with the announcement that four new episodes from the final season are now available to stream on Netflix.
Series’ stars Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin engage in their onscreen banter as the titular characters in a video message to fans, and after a back-and-forth exchange, Lily reveals that the first four episodes of season seven have dropped.
“We’ve missed you, but more important, you’ve missed us,” she quips, adding that if she’d had it her way, fans would’ve instead gotten gift cards to her character’s favorite restaurant, Del Taco.
“But don’t worry, there’s plenty more to come. We just wanted to give you something special until we finish the rest of the season,” Jane assures.
The remaining 12 episodes of the final season will be released in 2022.
Since its debut in 2015, Grace and Frankie has been nominated for multiple Emmy Awards and a Golden Globe Award. It’s also the longest-running original series in Netflix’s history.
Earlier this week, Elton John and Dua Lipa teased their joint single, “Cold Heart,” and from a snippet, it sounded like a mashup of two Elton singles: 1990’s “Sacrifice” and the 1972 classic, “Rocket Man.” “Cold Heart” is now out and it turns out the track, created by Australian dance duo Pnau, is actually a mashup of four Elton songs.
In addition to “Sacrifice” and “Rocket Man,” the song also includes snippets of Elton’s 1983 single “Kiss the Bride” and a 1976 track called “Where’s the Shoorah?”
In the track, Elton sings the “Sacrifice” line, “Cold, cold heart/ hard done by you/ Some things look better baby/ Just passing through.” Then Dua follows by singing a line from “Rocket Man” — “And I think it’s gonna be a long, long time/ ’til touchdown brings me ’round again to find/ I’m not the man they think I am at home” — plus a line from “Kiss the Bride”: “And this is what I should have said/I thought it but I kept it hid.”
Elton and Dua have been friends since last year, when they performed at each other’s events. He reached out to her to work on “Cold Heart.”
“Having the opportunity to spend time with Dua, albeit remotely has been incredible,” Elton says in a statement. “She’s given me so much energy. She’s a truly wonderful artist, and person, absolutely bursting with creativity and ideas.”
Dua adds, “Ever since we first ‘met’ online, we totally clicked. Elton is such an inspirational artist and also has the naughtiest sense of humor — a perfect combination. It has been an absolute honor and privilege to collaborate on this track with him.”
A trippy animated video for “Cold Heart,” featuring cartoon versions of Elton and Duo, is streaming now.
Stranger Things star Joe Keery has offered his two cents into the ongoing celebrity bathing habits debate.
Speaking to GQ, the 29-year-old actor revealed that he not only doesn’t wash his hair, he also rarely ventures into the barber’s chair. Keery said he doesn’t “get” haircuts, but that they “simply happen” to him as part of his job.
Fans do take Keery’s hair seriously, as he sports long brunette locks on the popular Netflix horror series as the lovable bad boy Steve Harrington. That said, when he rocked a bowl cut during a red carpet event in 2019, it became a headline craze as fans outwardly demanded on social media that he bring back his old look.
Little did his fans know, he was counting on their outrage. The 29-year-old actor admits he is aware of what is expected of him and goes out of his way to subvert those expectations, which he says is fun.
So, would he ever shave off the hair he admittedly doesn’t wash all that much anyway? Keery admittedly has been thinking of getting a buzz cut for quite some time.
The actor is set to reprise his role as Steve in the upcoming fourth season of Stranger Things and he revealed he did not expect his character to last this long.
“I figured I was going to get killed,” he said, noting the type of character he plays — “d****ey sort of boyfriend” — is always “the first guy to die.”
Thankfully, the showrunners fell in love with Steve and his magnificent mane, so they bumped him up to the main cast.
(NEW YORK) — With the CDC estimating that the delta variant accounts for more than 90% of new COVID cases in the U.S., scientists are still learning more about what makes this variant different from prior versions of the virus.
There are dozens of COVID-19 variants. Some emerge and quickly fade away. Others emerge and sweep the globe. The delta variant first emerged in India in December 2020 and quickly became the dominant strain there and then in the United Kingdom.
It was first detected in the United States in March 2021 and proved so dominant it supplanted the prior strain, called the alpha variant, within a few short weeks.
Now, experts say there’s good news and bad news when it comes to this new variant.
Here’s what we know now:
1. The delta variant is more contagious than earlier strains of COVID
Delta is more contagious because it “sheds more virus into the air, making it easier to reach other people,” said Dr. Loren Miller, associate chief of infectious disease at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center and Researcher at Lundquist Institute in Torrance, CA .
“There is also some evidence that the virus can more easily attach to human cells in the respiratory tract,” Miller said. This means that “smaller amounts of virus [particles] are needed to cause infection compared to the original strain.”
2. It could cause more serious illness in unvaccinated persons, but scientists don’t know for sure.
Scientists are racing to study the severity of the delta variant in real time. Until more studies are verified by a panel of scientific experts or gain “peer-approval,” public health officials cannot definitively say for sure that it does cause more serious illness.
Here is what we know so far:
One peer-reviewed study in Scotland looked at over 19,000 confirmed COVID cases between April to June 2021. Scientists were able to differentiate between the delta variant and the alpha variant by molecular testing for one of multiple mutated genes known as the S gene.
About 7,800 COVID cases and 130 hospitalized patients had the delta strain confirmed by presence of the gene. Scientists noted that there was an increased risk for hospitalization in patients with delta when adjusting for common factors such as age, sex, underlying health conditions, and time of disease.
Another recent study awaiting peer approval in Singapore, noted that the delta variant was significantly associated with increased need for oxygenation, admission to an intensive care unit, and death when compared to the alpha variant.
Similarly, a Canadian study awaiting peer approval looked at over 200,000 confirmed COVID cases and found that the delta variant was more likely to cause hospitalization, ICU admission and death.
It’s hard to know whether delta is in fact making people sicker or if it is just affecting more vulnerable, unvaccinated populations with high case numbers and overburdened healthcare systems.
3. Delta is now the dominant variant in the US and around the globe.
COVID cases are skyrocketing again in the U.S., particularly where vaccination uptake has been particularly slow.
According to the CDC, more than 90% of COVID cases in the U.S. are currently caused by the delta variant. We know that “there is a lot of Delta out there … from the public health authorities who regularly survey for delta [and other strains] using special tests called molecular typing” said Miller.
4. COVID vaccines still work against the delta variant.
The “majority of currently hospitalized COVID patients are unvaccinated,” said Dr. Abir “Abby” Hussein, clinical infectious disease assistant professor and associate medical director for infection prevention and control at the University of Washington Medical Center in Seattle, Wash.
Studies show that vaccines still dramatically reduce the risk of hospitalization and death, though the delta variant may be more likely than prior variants to cause asymptomatic or mild illness among vaccinated people.
Still, even amid the delta surge, this is still a “pandemic of the unvaccinated,” said Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky.
Although there are rare cases of severe breakthrough infections that require hospitalization that can occur in persons with a “weakened immune system,” Miller said. This comes in time for the new guidelines for booster COVID shots in immunocompromised patients.
5. The delta variant surge is hitting younger, unvaccinated people harder
More COVID cases are being reported in teens, young and middle-age adults. That’s not because delta is inherently more dangerous for younger people — but rather, because younger people are less likely to be fully vaccinated.
Hussein explains that this is likely due to early vaccination efforts to vaccinate older high-risk people, particularly those who live in nursing homes. According to the CDC, more than 80% of adults over the age of 65 have been fully vaccinated and more than 90% of adults over 65 have had one dose (of a two-dose vaccine).
“Unfortunately, many younger adults have not been vaccinated, resulting in this shift to younger hospitalized patients,” Hussein said.
Collectively, experts agree that the delta variant poses a new threat. Stopping transmission is the key to controlling all variants, not just delta. The best way for everyone to protect themselves against delta includes tools that are already at our disposal — vaccination, masking, social distance and hand washing.
While we all want to return to a state of normal, Miller said “sticking to these basic messages is a very powerful way to prevent COVID transmission and protect yourself.”
(JACKSON, Miss.) — As Mississippi faces a “skyrocketing” surge in coronavirus cases and hospitalizations — its highest increase on record — health officials are sounding the alarm about a state hospital system on the brink of collapse.
The University of Mississippi Medical Center, in partnership with state officials, will reopen a surge facility Friday in the medical center’s parking lot, with help from the federal government.
Doctors, nurses, pharmacists and respiratory therapists will be deployed to work at the field hospital for at least the next 14 days.
“Unfortunately, we were standing in a tent again. None of us wanted to come back to this point, but it’s gotten to the point where we’re just not able to care for the patients at UMMC, and in the state of Mississippi, that need the care with COVID,” Dr. Alan Jones, associate vice chancellor for clinical affairs, said at a press conference on Thursday. “I think when you’re seeing a field hospital at a major academic medical center, we’re pretty much at a collapse-like system.”
The arrival of federal assistance comes as the state faces an influx of coronavirus patients, with more than 1,500 patients hospitalized with COVID-19 across the state, marking the highest number of patients receiving care since the onset of the pandemic.
The bed capacity is “extremely tight,” said Dr. LouAnn Woodward, vice chancellor for health affairs and dean of the School of Medicine. “Our ICUs today are full. Our patient beds are full.”
Prior to the field hospital’s opening, ABC News received an inside look as federal teams worked to set up the facility Thursday afternoon.
“I feel like we’re beyond disaster. … It really should be a scary time for everybody because it means that we feel like we have no capacity to deal with the things that we should be able to take care of,” Jones told ABC News correspondent Elwyn Lopez. “It really needs to be a wake-up call for those people.”
Although the facility will give the hospital a buffer to help manage the surge, Jones said, ultimately, “it’s just a Band-Aid,” or a temporary fix, for the problem.
The surge facility will give the hospital system a bit of relief, officials said, in managing both COVID-19 patients and other patients, as the number of hospitalizations continues to increase.
“We do not believe that we’re at a point where we’ve hit the peak or we’re turning the corner. In fact, we think we’re still on that upward climb,” Woodward said.
On Thursday, Mississippi reported more than 4,400 new cases, according to State Health Officer Dr. Thomas Dobbs, almost 1,000 more than the state’s previous record, he said, which will inevitably result in more hospitalizations and deaths.
“That means we’re gonna have about 93 more deaths, just for today. It means we’re gonna see over 300 new hospitalizations, just from the day. And that’s on top of a system that is already overtaxed. Let us be very clear that the vast majority of cases, and hospitalizations, and deaths are unvaccinated,” Dobbs continued.
Officials reported that they continue to see a rise in “relatively healthy” younger patients, the vast majority of them unvaccinated, in need of care. Similar to the uptick seen nationally, UMMC, which is the state’s only children’s hospital, has seen a concerning increase in pediatric patients.
“A large proportion, much larger than we’ve ever seen before, proportion of children being hospitalized, or hospitalized in the ICU, and these are not chronically ill children, these are healthy children that are being hospitalized,” Jones said.
Despite a recent bump in the state’s vaccination rate overall, Mississippi continues to struggle with its vaccine rollout, with just 35% of residents fully vaccinated — the second-lowest inoculation rate in the country.
It is of critical importance that people get the information about vaccines from reputable sources, Dobbs stressed.
“We should not be here, y’all. This is not necessary,” said Dobbs. “Too many people are getting information from wrong sources. … These Facebook conspiratorial lists are going to spread and run, and have no accountability for the people who are dying, and we’re here, picking up the mess.”
(MINNEAPOLIS) — More than a year after the murder of George Floyd by former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, the city is putting its issues with police brutality in the spotlight once again.
This time, the power is in the hands of voters, who will take to the ballot box in November to decide whether to replace the existing Minneapolis Police Department.
The vote would be on whether to change the city charter and implement a department of public safety instead, which activists say would take on a public-health approach to policing — opting for social workers and violence interrupters over the police-only model that the city has now.
Advocates have said that many cases in which police are called can often be resolved by others. Detractors say the move will undermine public safety. In either case, police reform has been a fraught issue, especially in the wake of Floyd’s death, with deep divisions forming over whether to “defund” the police or change the way departments operate.
“We want to do something different, to actually make real concrete changes, so that we don’t have to revisit this feeling of powerlessness, hopelessness, helplessness — so that we don’t have to continue to bury people year after year,” said JaNaé Bates, the communications director at Yes 4 Minneapolis, a leading coalition of activists in the effort to replace the police department.
The charter change would also put the city council in charge of the department, instead of the mayor, and remove requirements to hire police based on the city’s population size.
Activists say this effort is inspired by other policies and practices from across the country — and that they’ve taken into consideration what has worked and what has failed.
Local opponents believe the charter change has the potential to rid the city of police altogether, due to language that says police officers will respond to calls “when necessary.”
“These are trojan horses backed by radicals to achieve their goal of police defunding and abolition,” said a statement on the Operation Safety Now website. Operation Safety Now is a local pro-police political advocacy group.
The organization stated: “We are against police defunding — and the “police-less society” envisioned by some council members and their radical supporters. We need more cops, not fewer.”
Mayor Jacob Frey, a member of the Minnesota Democratic–Farmer–Labor Party, also rejects the effort. In a statement to the press, his office said he “appreciates the careful work and thorough analysis done by city staff to prepare fair and accurate language for voters to consider this fall,” but will not be signing onto the proposal.
Frey believes that id the city council is in charge of the department, it could lead to a major setback for “accountability and good governance.”
Residents like Bates and city council members like Steve Fletcher say that Minneapolis has struggled with racist policing for decades.
The Mayor’s office did not respond to ABC News’ requests for comment.
The Minneapolis Star Tribune reported that in the past 20 years, more than 200 people have been killed in “a physical confrontation with law enforcement” in Minnesota. Only 7% of Minnesotans are Black, but Black victims accounted for 26% of these deaths.
At least 36 of these deaths occurred in Minneapolis. And last year, Black youths were disproportionately incarcerated — making up 55% of the youth incarceration population.
U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland and the Justice Department also opened a pattern or practice investigation into the City of Minneapolis and the Minneapolis Police Department earlier this year.
“We have had a long history of producing racially unjust outcomes in our overall system and policing,” Fletcher said. “We can’t continue to operate this way.”
Minneapolis police chief Medaria Arradondo was among several other Black officers who sued MPD for racial discrimination in 2007, MPR News reported, which was settled for almost $1 million.
To solve these issues, community leaders involved in Yes 4 Minneapolis have adopted the tactics to amend the charter in ways that have proven to work.
One of the programs that inspired this public health approach was the Crisis Assistance Helping Out On The Streets (CAHOOTS) program in Oregon, which started in 1969. The program sends out two-person teams, including a medic and a crisis worker with training in the mental health field, to crises involving mental illness, homelessness, and addiction instead of policing.
Out of roughly 24,000 CAHOOTS calls in 2019, police backup was requested only 150 times, according to the organization’s website.
The Support Team Assisted Response program in Denver started in 2020, and it similarly sends pairs of mental health and medical professionals to respond to low-level calls instead of sending law enforcement.
And disbanding efforts are nothing new either — Camden, New Jersey successfully disbanded its police department in 2013 and rebuilt the police department from the ground up, with new trainings, new officers, and a new department culture against brutality.
“We’re integrating our police officers with other services that we know, allow qualified professionals to handle things that they’re prepared and trained to handle,” Bates said. “Having mental health responders, social workers, violence interrupters different interventions for folks experiencing homelessness, and drug crisis — those things are things that should be happening within fully integrated departments that include police.”
More than 20,000 signatures gave the proposed Minneapolis charter change measure a spot on the ballot, according to Bates, and roughly $1 million was raised for the effort.
Like many states, cities, and counties across the nation, some reform efforts have already been in the works in Minneapolis — like banning chokeholds and neck restraints and requiring officers to intervene in excessive uses of force.
The city council also cut $8 million from the mayor’s proposed police budget and diverted to mental health and violence prevention units in the department.
Shortly after Floyd’s murder, City Council members tried to implement the charter change, but the council failed to meet the deadlines necessary to get it on the November 2020 ballot.
Now, they hope to set an example for policing efforts nationwide, as the country continues to confront police brutality.
“Every city is facing some version of this,” Fletcher said about the efforts to reimagine policing. “I really believe that this Minneapolis is going to rise to the occasion and create a system that is far more compassionate, far more equitable, and far more effective than the old system of policing that we’ve inherited.”
(NEW YORK) — Several states have reinstated indoor mask mandates as the delta variant continues to rip across the country, but others have fiercely resisted and imposed bans on such rules.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said in a guidance update late July that vaccinated people may be able to spread COVID-19 and should resume wearing masks in public indoor settings in areas with high transmission levels, a reversal of May’s guidance that said they didn’t need to mask up. The unvaccinated are still urged to wear masks in public.
The guidance also called for universal masking in schools — a contentious issue that has triggered a slew of lawsuits.
Masking has long been a divisive issue, despite science indicating that face coverings are “critical” in the battle against transmitting the disease, according to the CDC. At the same time, misinformation about face coverings has proliferated and changing guidance has added to the confusion.
Currently, at least four states and Puerto Rico have indoor mask mandates for the vaccinated and unvaccinated: Oregon, Nevada, Hawaii, Louisiana.
Most states have not issued new mandates — focusing on vaccination instead — but a number, including California, Connecticut, Illinois, Maine, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Washington, have recommended constituents follow the CDC’s guidance. Each state’s guidelines vary slightly.
On the other hand, the idea of masking up once again, has been met with resistance in some places.
Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey, a Republican, said the CDC guidance on masks “will unfortunately only diminish confidence in the vaccine and create more challenges for public health officials.” Other officials have argued against mask mandates, citing arguments like parental freedom.
Worry over delta variant
Concern is mounting over the surge of COVID-19 infections and hospitalizations among children, now at their most dire level yet in the entire pandemic.
Nearly 94,000 new child COVID-19 cases were reported last week, with the worst numbers in Louisiana and Florida, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and the Children’s Hospital Association (CHA) reported.
Nationwide, COVID-19 has surged at an alarming rate in recent weeks. The daily COVID-19 case average in the U.S. has surged to more than 113,000, up by 24.3% in the last week, according to the latest federal data. Hospitalizations have also soared, hitting its highest point in six months with more than 75,000 patients currently hospitalized across the country with COVID-19.
So far, 59% of the US population over the age of 12 is fully vaccinated, according to the CDC. There is still no vaccine authorized for kids under the age of 12.
A number of states — Delaware, Illinois, Kentucky New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Virginia and Washington state — have also called for masking in schools.
But efforts to ban masks in schools in several states, such as Florida, Texas, South Carolina and Arkansas, have sparked bitter backlash and legal battles.
Kentucky and Arkansas
In Kentucky, Gov. Andy Beshear, a Democrat, signed an executive order Tuesday requiring masks for all schools, a move immediately slammed by state Attorney General Daniel Cameron, a Republican.
Cameron filed a response to the mask mandate in schools on Wednesday with the Kentucky Supreme Court, arguing the governor’s order goes against laws passed in the General Assembly this year. He accused the governor of engaging “in an unlawful exercise of power by issuing his executive order,” in a statement.
Earlier this year lawmakers passed bills to restrict the governor’s power to mandate health restrictions like masks. He vetoed the legislation, but was overturned, and Beshear filed a lawsuit. Now the case is pending a Supreme Court decision, which has yet to hand down a ruling.
In a press conference Tuesday, Beshear cited grim COVID-19 numbers as the reason for the mandate, as the state reported 2,500 new COVID-19 cases, with 490 among individuals 18-years-old and younger, that day.
“We cannot keep our kids in school if we’re unwilling to put on a mask,” Beshear said. “It’s everywhere, and we all need to act like we’re in that red zone.”
In Arkansas, the state’s Department of Education recommended students wear masks in schools on Tuesday, in line with the CDC guidance, but didn’t mandate it.
Gov. Asa Hutchinson, a Republican, said earlier this month that he regrets signing an April law banning mask mandates as virus infections surged among unvaccinated youth.
He called on lawmakers to consider rolling back the ban for schools but faced fierce opposition among his GOP peers. Last week, a judge temporarily blocked the state from enforcing that law, saying it violates the state’s constitution, and several schools have since announced mask requirements, local ABC affiliate KATV reported.
Hutchinson said he supports the judge’s decision.
“It is conservative, reasonable and compassionate to allow local school districts to protect those students who are under 12 and not eligible for the COVID-19 vaccine,” he said on masking in schools last week.
Texas
Meanwhile in Texas, at least two districts, Austin ISD and Dallas ISD, have defied Republican Gov. Greg Abbott’s May executive order banning mask mandates.
The Southern Center for Child Advocacy, a nonprofit education group, filed a lawsuit Sunday night in Travis County against the ban, seeking to give power to local districts to decide for themselves. No response has been filed in that case yet.
The ban has faced litigation from city and county officials in Dallas and Bexar counties. The Harris County Attorney also announced Tuesday plans to take legal action against Abbott’s ban on mask mandates, though but documents have not yet been filed.
“First responders and school leaders are speaking out and standing up as delta ravages our community. We have their back,” Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo said in a statement Tuesday. “Protecting the community during an emergency is a duty, not an option for government leaders.”
On Tuesday two separate state district judges granted local authorities in those counties temporary power to issue mask mandates on Tuesday, the Texas Tribune reported. Both decisions are temporary and pending hearings later this month.
The following day the governor and state Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a petition to halt the judge’s order in Dallas County. “Any school district, public university, or local government official that decides to defy GA-38—which prohibits gov’t entities from mandating masks—will be taken to court,” Abbott said in a statement.
“Removing government mandates, however, does not end personal responsibility or the importance of caring for family members, friends, and your community,” Abbott said in response to the lawsuits to CBS affiliate KHOU-11. “Vaccines are the most effective defense against contracting COVID and becoming seriously ill, and we continue to urge all eligible Texans to get the vaccine.”
Florida
Florida is facing least three lawsuits against its ban on school mask mandates: one filed by a parent in Broward County, another by parents in several counties including Miami-Dade and Palm Beach and a third in Orange and Volusia counties.
In late July, Gov. Ron DeSantis issued an executive order directing the state’s health and education departments to bar the use of face coverings in school. DeSantis said that move was meant to “protect parents’ freedom to choose whether their children wear masks.”
DeSantis said in a press conference last month Florida students shouldn’t be “muzzled” during the school year, adding, “We need them to be able to breathe.”
Despite the order, several school districts have announce masks will be mandatory for the 2021-22 school year.
Despite public outcry, many governors are doubling down in their refusal to reimpose masks.
In South Carolina, Gov. Henry McMaster said on the heels of the CDC guidance release, “State law now prohibits school administrators from requiring students to wear a mask…Shutting our state down, closing schools and mandating masks is not the answer. Personal responsibility is.”
State positions on masking are still changing. A number of states never created a mask mandate in the pandemic, including Alaska, Arizona, Florida, Georgia, and Idaho.
Tony Bennett has canceled his fall and winter 2021 tour dates, according to Variety.
The legendary crooner — who marked his 95th birthday last week by performing with Lady Gaga at two-sold out shows at New York’s Radio City Music Hall — has pulled out of concerts in New York, Maryland, Connecticut, Arizona, Oklahoma and Canada.
The tour — consisting of pre-pandemic show dates that had been rescheduled — was set to begin in September. Ticket holders should check with the local venues for information regarding refunds. The shows won’t be rescheduled, as Bennett is retiring from the road.
Bennett’s son and manager Danny Bennetttells Variety, “There won’t be any additional concerts. This was a hard decision for us to make, as he is a capable performer. This is, however, doctors’ orders. His continued health is the most important part of this, and when we heard the doctors — when Tony’s wife, Susan heard them — she said, ‘Absolutely not.’”
“He’ll be doing other things, but not those upcoming shows. It’s not the singing aspect but, rather, the traveling. Look, he gets tired. The decision is being made that doing concerts now is just too much for him,” Danny adds, noting, “We’re not worried about him being able to sing. We are worried, from a physical standpoint… about human nature. Tony’s 95.”
Bennett’s two shows with Gaga — a prequel for the pair’s second duets album, Love for Sale, due out October 1 — had been billed One Last Time: An Evening with Tony Bennett and Lady Gaga and announced as the singer’s last NYC public performance.
Bennett’s family revealed back in February that he’d been battling Alzheimer’s disease for the past four years.
