Last month, Tony Bennett sadly passed away at the age of 96. His frequent collaborator Lady Gaga shared a heartfelt tribute to him on Instagram about how much she’ll miss him, and Thursday (August 3) she posted another for what would’ve been his 97th birthday.
“Happy Birthday Tony. August 3rd is Tony Bennett Day,” she wrote. “A day for smiling. But I’ll be celebrating you a lot more than once a year. I’ll celebrate you every time I’m on stage singing jazz music, every time I’m with your family, every time I walk down the streets of New York I’ll look around and remember all you did for this city and the whole world.”
In her original tribute, she wrote, “Our relationship was very real. Sure he taught me about music, about showbiz life, but he also showed me how to keep my spirits high and my head screwed on straight. ‘Straight ahead,’ he’d say. He was an optimist, he believed in quality work AND quality life. Plus, there was the gratitude…Tony was always grateful. He served in WWII, marched with Martin Luther King Jr., and sang jazz with the greatest singers and players in the world. I’ve been grieving the loss of Tony for a long time. We had a very long and powerful goodbye.”