In recent days, Tony Bennett—who died Friday at the age of 96—reportedly sang one last song while sitting at his piano. It was “Because of You,” his first hit, released in 1951, and the single that propelled him to more than seven decades of fame, fortune, and legend. But it was always more than a stepping stone. Where many artists downplay their early work, Bennett kept “Because of You” close to his heart.
After Smokey Robinson announced his upcoming album, many music listeners were aghast. The Motown legend, at the age of 82, unfurled the most blatantly sexual record title of his career: Gasms. It didn’t help that the album, which will be released in late April, includes songs such as “I Wanna Know Your Body” and, ahem, “I Fit in There.” Predictably, the subsequent volley of Viagra jokes alone could’ve crashed Twitter.
“We’re going to do kind of a science-fiction story, if you’ll bear with us,” David Crosby said on August 18, 1969, as his band Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young began playing their song “Wooden Ships” at Woodstock. Crosby, the singer, songwriter, and guitarist who died on Wednesday at the age of 81, was never a typical hippie, despite being one of the movement’s founders and figureheads.
A perhaps unlikely figure dominated the stage of the Grammy Awards in 1994. Meat Loaf—who died on Thursday at the age of 74—was not young, hip, or alternative. Neither was he a critically adored veteran like Neil Young or Peter Gabriel, two of his fellow nominees in the category for best solo rock vocal performance. Meat Loaf had had one hit album about a decade and a half prior. His subsequent records and modest acting career had kept him in the public eye, but only barely.
Gene Simmons, Paul Stanley, Peter Criss, and Ace Frehley of the rock band Kiss pose for a portrait circa 1975. (Michael Ochs Archives / Getty Images)
One night in 1977, George Clinton stepped out of a flying saucer, teetering in his new pair of nine-inch platform boots. That fantastical footwear “was hard to wear onstage but great to take pictures in,” the Parliament-Funkadelic leader told Vogue in 2018. Clinton was always risking a wardrobe malfunction during concerts.
Jack Robinson / Hulton Archive / GettyBefore a concert one night in 1968, shortly prior to recording the song that would launch her into superstardom, Tina Turner swallowed sleeping pills and lay down to die. “People backstage noticed something was very wrong with me and rushed me to the hospital, which saved my life,” she writes in her book Happiness Becomes You, published in the fall. “At first I was disappointed when I woke up and realized I was still alive.