E-mail a friendGeorge Benson
airdate October 6, 2009
George Benson has been described as the guitar-playing equivalent of Nat "King" Cole. The 10-time Grammy winner and National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Master has recorded with the greats and built a career on fusion and smooth vocals. His hit "Breezin'" was the first jazz record to go platinum, and he went on to record several classics, like "This Masquerade" and "On Broadway." Benson began singing in clubs at age 8 and, as a teen, formed a rock band before changing genres. His latest release is "Songs and Stories."
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Full Interview (11:10)
George Benson
Tavis: Pleased to welcome George Benson back to this program. The 10-time Grammy-winning music legend is in the middle of a world tour - a major tour in support of his most recent project, "Songs and Stories." The CD features a couple of tracks and some classic songs from artists like James Taylor and Donny Hathaway. Here is a behind-the-scenes look at the making of "Songs and Stories."
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Tavis: You've been making music how many years now on vinyl, on CD, on eight-track? (Laughter) How many years you been doing this now?
George Benson: Well, I started when I was 10 years old, so you'll have to do your own math. (Laughter)
Tavis: A little while, huh?
Benson: A long time.
Tavis: I only ask that, George, because I'm curious, watching that footage there, how the process of making music has changed for you over the years - the process of making it.
Benson: Yeah, it can go either way. You can do a very simple project, but the problem with that is that you're up against people who are spending the money and the time. Sometimes they take two or three years to make a record. It's hard to compete with that with a record that takes two months.
But the best records I've ever made and the most successful I've ever made were with great musicians who go in the studio with their hearts and their talent and then we live with the music for a minute or two and then we jump on it with all fours.
Tavis: So for you, taking more time to do it doesn't necessarily mean it's going to be better in the end?
Benson: Not necessarily, no. It's a surer way, a more sure way that you're in the marketplace in the sense that you match technically and artistically what's on the market, but it's not a guarantee.
Tavis: We've talked so many times over the years on TV and radio, and I'm always delighted to talk to you, but it makes it hard when you talk to somebody so many times to keep trying to find new stuff that you didn't know that you want to query them about when they come on. I did not know that when you were just a kid you actually tried rock. True?
Benson: Oh, well, I did a little bit of everything when I was a kid. My first record was called "It Should Have Been Me," and many years later I found out it was written by King Curtis, and he was on the session. He was a teenager. I was 10 years old; he was a teenager from Texas who came to New York to make his mark on history.
But the song "It Should Have Been Me" was a Ray Charles song - you remember the original "It Should Have Been Me?" Well, we did a - he rewrote the lyrics, King Curtis, for me, for a little kid, and it was quite an incredible thing.
And we also did a song called "Shout, Holler, and Scream," which was a take on "Shake, Rattle, and Roll." (Laughter) So yeah, I was involved in all that rock stuff back then.
Tavis: How then - you're playing at 10; at some point you experiment with rock, and everybody experiments with something, as you said, at various times. How did you, after all that experimentation, know that jazz was where you wanted to end up, ultimately?
Benson: Well, I heard a record by Charlie Parker when I was 17 years old.
Tavis: Say no more. (Laughter)
Benson: And finally, the search was over.
Tavis: You hear Charlie Parker, yeah.
Benson: I said, "Finally, somebody who knows what they're doing and makes music do the same thing it does when people sing the lyrics." I didn't need the lyrics anymore - the music was powerful.
Tavis: I just had somebody on this show not long ago, and I'm not saying this to cast aspersion on him; it was a great conversation. But I've had a lot of conversations over the years about great guitarists. It occurred to me as I was talking to my producer, Chris, today that I don't know that I've ever interviewed anybody who's done a documentary or books about guitars that have put jazz guitarists on that list of the world's greatest guitarists. Am I missing something or have you sensed that same reality over the years?
Benson: I think so. The world is very commercial, and commerce means it's for sale. Jazz has not been a big seller since the '40s, so it does not appear on many lists of people who are making it big-time in the money world. But we've had some geniuses. We had Wes Montgomery. If they didn't put him on that list, something is wrong, just like you said.
And I think that in the near future it's going to be something that explodes, because it's fresh now. People haven't thought in that direction, but they should, because now we have the record sales to prove that these guys were great and that they're household words, not only among jazz musicians but all those who are searching for something different to listen to.
Tavis: When you mentioned a list of greats that you listened to, were turned on by as a child, how is it that over the years you developed your own sound? How would you describe how you have developed a sound that when I hear it on the radio, even before I hear your voice, I know this is George Benson?
Benson: It's a strange way to answer it, but the truth is that I'm a conglomeration of all those things that happened before me. Whether I got it from Charlie Parker, John Coltrane - mostly guitar players, though. I listened to a lot of the greats, starting with Charlie Christian, then the great Django Reinhardt, who I thought was the best of the best.
But I listened to everybody - B.B. King and all of the blues guys. I sat in with them - Muddy Waters. And I'm a conglomeration of all those guys. That's the school, the only school I've been to - the school of the streets. And I think that's a good school. It's not necessarily the very best of the best kind of schools, but it is a school, and it's a powerful one.
Tavis: How did you end up playing at 10 in the first place?
Benson: Well, I was actually a singer, mostly, at 10 years old. I had been playing the guitar one year and I had played the ukulele since I was seven.
Tavis: Did you say the ukulele?
Benson: Yeah, I was playing ukulele when I was -
Tavis: Oh, okay.
Benson: - and made a fortune on the streets. (Laughter)
Tavis: And made a fortune playing it?
Benson: Yeah.
Tavis: See, that story has two important principles - that you played the ukulele and you got played paying the ukulele.
Benson: Sure did.
Tavis: That's really funny. But I digress, go ahead, yeah. So you started playing that first. (Laughter)
Benson: Yeah, I played the ukulele and a guy asked me - I sold one paper in my life, one newspaper, and the guy asked me to play the uke. He asked me if I could play it because I had it in my hand. I was getting ready to buy some candy in the store right next to the paper stand.
I started right in (makes noises) and people crowded around, and they were reaching in their pockets and my cousin came in and he took off his baseball cap and went around (laughter), and boy, were we shocked.
Tavis: And that was it, huh? (Laughter) You had a whole lot of candy that day, I take it.
Benson: That's right.
Tavis: What's funny about that story to me, for those of us who are fans of yours and know your history, you start out, to your story now, as a singer, you eventually become a respected player of the instrument, the guitar. Then at another point in your career you are told that what you need to do is just play, you don't need to sing.
Benson: That's right.
Tavis: The voice that we hear now, somebody at one point tried to shut down and said, "Brother, you can't sing. Just play your instrument." I've asked you this question a thousand times, but for those who've never heard the story I always love bringing it out because it says to me a lot about what you don't have to listen to when people tell you something. Tell the story of how that went down.
Benson: Well, one of the worst shows I ever did in my life was the first time I was on Johnny Carson. And that night, Bill Cosby was hosting, because he used to do that for Johnny, and so he decided he was going to have me on, somebody the people didn't know but he felt I was coming up and I was going to be important.
So I went on, I decided to sing a blues song, and it was the worst performance I ever had in my life. (Laughter) My band was shaking. My voice, because they were shaking, they made me shake, and I'm never nervous. But that one night, because I knew we were playing for millions, my voice just shook apart and it was not good.
When I came off my manager let me have it. He said, "You are one of the world's greatest guitar players, you are not a singer." (Laughter) "Don't sing." So I didn't for years.
Tavis: So you just stopped singing for years.
Benson: That's right.
Tavis: What pulled you back?
Benson: Club owners. They would come to me and they'd say, "George, sing something for the people." "I'd say, 'Why?'" Because my band said, "Man, we don't want to play behind no singer." And I said, "Well, I'm caught in the middle with that." But a lady told me, she said, "When you sing, the people who were on that set stay over for the next set."
So I put it to the test, and I sang one song at the end of each set and sure enough they would stay for the next set. I said, "Oh, man, now we got - now I can ask for more money."
Tavis: Yeah. (Laughter)
Benson: So that's how it started coming back.
Tavis: It's funny how it always comes back to money, isn't that amazing? I raise that because it's fascinating to me (unintelligible) we all know and I'm glad she's back. Whitney Houston's back and sounds good and looks good and a lot of publicity about Whitney being back. And of course one of the greatest hits Whitney had was a remake of a George Benson classic.
As you look back on that now, tell me about that song and what you thought about Whitney when she covered your song.
Benson: Oh, and it was quite an incredible -
Tavis: I should say the "The Greatest Love of All," of course.
Benson: "The Greatest Love of All," yeah. I had done it for the film, which featured Muhammad Ali's life story, it was called "Muhammad Ali: My Own Story." And it was an incredible film, but I had the privilege of doing two songs, and that was one of them, "The Greatest Love of All."
And it was a number one R&B song. Years later I met this kid on the streets. We were standing right next to the Empire State Building. I used to take my kids down there to get their hair cut, and she used to get her hairstyle done down there.
So she came to me and she said - she was real pretty, just a kid, wiry built and beautiful face, and she said, "Mr. Benson, my favorite artist." She said, "And 'The Greatest Love of All' is my favorite song." She said, "I'm going to record that song." And I said, "Yeah" to myself, "Mm-hmm." (Laughter) And a couple of years later I heard this girl singing the song, I said, "Oh, that ain't going to never make it; I wonder who that is?"
And then it dawned on me - I wonder if this is that kid who said she was going to do this song? Because I had been hearing some rumblings about a great female - matter of fact, the producer called me and he said, "George, I just found this girl, she's got the greatest voice in the world." I said, "Yeah, yeah, yeah." They say that about everybody, right?
But when I heard her sing, about the third or fourth time I heard her I began to hear power that I had not experienced coming from a female. And I said, "Yeah, I guess a woman can do this song." She had the power. And she's always been one of my favorite artists since that time.
Tavis: That's a great story. Tell me about "Songs and Stories." A lot of good stuff on this one.
Benson: Oh, what an incredible record to make. We went in the studio with people who I hadn't seen in years. They were on the "Gimme the Night" album, John Robinson and Gregory Phillinganes. We had a new guitar player (unintelligible) is his name, he is a fabulous player. He's one of the few guys I didn't have to say anything to.
I looked at him and I heard him play and we were doing the songs. I thought I was going to have to make a comment, but he was so good I said, "Man, I'd better stay out of his way." (Laughter) So I started playing and when we did the first tape, guys came into the studio in the control room and a couple of them went into tears.
They said, "Man, we haven't made a record like this in years, where we're all together and just having a ball and laying down some vibe." And I felt it too, because it had been a while since I had done that.
Tavis: This is such a great CD. It's the latest from George Benson. It's called "Songs and Stories." For more of my conversation with George Benson, log on to our website, of course, at PBS.org. George, good to see you here, man.
Benson: My pleasure.
Tavis: Congratulations on that.
Benson: Thank you.
Back to October 6, 2009