Crooner Tony Bennett to retire from touring

Tony Bennett has retired from touring on doctors’ orders.

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Bennett’s son and manager Danny Bennett announced that his father’s recent shows with Lady Gaga at New York’s Radio City Music Hall were his father’s last live performances, Billboard reported.

The shows were called, appropriately enough, “One Last Time: An Evening with Tony Bennett and Lady Gaga” and were setting up the release of the duo’s second album together, “Love for Sale,” Variety reported.

“There won’t be any additional concerts,” Danny Bennett told Variety. “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 signing aspect but, rather, the traveling. Look, he gets tired. The decision is being made that doing concerts now is just too much for him. We don’t want him to fall on stage, for instance — something as simple as that.”

Tony Bennett was scheduled to hit the road for solo engagements in New York, Maryland, Connecticut, Arizona, Oklahoma and Canada this year. The tour was supposed to start in September and run through December.

But the 95-year-old singer will be staying home.

The news comes five years after his family said he was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, Billboard reported.

When the iconic singer hits the stage, he doesn’t miss a beat, Danny Bennett said, such that some even don’t believe the diagnosis since he is able to perform the way he does.

“My answer is that this is where he has lived his whole life and where he is most happy — on the stage, making music. Dealing as we have with Alzheimer’s for the last four-five years, it’s cognitive. He has short-term memory loss. That, however, does not mean that he doesn’t still have all this stored up inside of him. He doesn’t use a Teleprompter. He never misses a line. He hits that stage, and goes. Tony may not remember every part of doing that show. But, when he stepped to the side of the stage, the first thing he told me was: ‘I love being a singer,’” Danny Bennett told Variety.

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